Time Plots

Creating visualizations with a time x-axis is a common use case. Let's dive in!

Creating a Plot with a pd.Dataframe

Time plots need a datetime column on the x-axis. Here's a simple example with some flight data:

import gradio as gr
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import random

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
now = datetime.now()

df = pd.DataFrame({
    'time': [now - timedelta(minutes=5*i) for i in range(25)],
    'price': np.random.randint(100, 1000, 25),
    'origin': [random.choice(["DFW", "DAL", "HOU"]) for _ in range(25)],
    'destination': [random.choice(["JFK", "LGA", "EWR"]) for _ in range(25)],
})

with gr.Blocks() as demo:
    gr.LinePlot(df, x="time", y="price")
    gr.ScatterPlot(df, x="time", y="price", color="origin")

demo.launch()

Aggregating by Time

You may wish to bin data by time buckets. Use x_bin to do so, using a string suffix with "s", "m", "h" or "d", such as "15m" or "1d".

import gradio as gr
from data import df

with gr.Blocks() as demo:
    plot = gr.BarPlot(df, x="time", y="price", x_bin="10m")

    bins = gr.Radio(["10m", "30m", "1h"], label="Bin Size")
    bins.change(lambda bins: gr.BarPlot(x_bin=bins), bins, plot)

demo.launch()

DateTime Components

You can use gr.DateTime to accept input datetime data. This works well with plots for defining the x-axis range for the data.

import gradio as gr
from data import df

with gr.Blocks() as demo:
    with gr.Row():
        start = gr.DateTime("now - 24h")
        end = gr.DateTime("now")
        apply_btn = gr.Button("Apply")
    plot = gr.LinePlot(df, x="time", y="price")

    apply_btn.click(lambda start, end: gr.BarPlot(x_lim=[start, end]), [start, end], plot)
    
demo.launch()

Note how gr.DateTime can accept a full datetime string, or a shorthand using now - [0-9]+[smhd] format to refer to a past time.

You will often have many time plots in which case you'd like to keep the x-axes in sync. The DateTimeRange custom component keeps a set of datetime plots in sync, and also uses the .select listener of plots to allow you to zoom into plots while keeping plots in sync.

Because it is a custom component, you first need to pip install gradio_datetimerange. Then run the following:

import gradio as gr
from gradio_datetimerange import DateTimeRange
from data import df

with gr.Blocks() as demo:
    daterange = DateTimeRange(["now - 24h", "now"])
    plot1 = gr.LinePlot(df, x="time", y="price")
    plot2 = gr.LinePlot(df, x="time", y="price", color="origin")
    daterange.bind([plot1, plot2])

demo.launch()

Try zooming around in the plots and see how DateTimeRange updates. All the plots updates their x_lim in sync. You also have a "Back" link in the component to allow you to quickly zoom in and out.

RealTime Data

In many cases, you're working with live, realtime date, not a static dataframe. In this case, you'd update the plot regularly with a gr.Timer(). Assuming there's a get_data method that gets the latest dataframe:

with gr.Blocks() as demo:
    timer = gr.Timer(5)
    plot1 = gr.BarPlot(x="time", y="price")
    plot2 = gr.BarPlot(x="time", y="price", color="origin")

    timer.tick(lambda: [get_data(), get_data()], outputs=[plot1, plot2])

You can also use the every shorthand to attach a Timer to a component that has a function value:

with gr.Blocks() as demo:
    timer = gr.Timer(5)
    plot1 = gr.BarPlot(get_data, x="time", y="price", every=timer)
    plot2 = gr.BarPlot(get_data, x="time", y="price", color="origin", every=timer)