Articles

Data-Trax

The acquisition and data display in Data-Trax is easy and straight forward. It supports real units and a time based display that is not coupled to sample rate. You can display up to 1,000,000 data points per channel on the screen. Scrolling, zoom-in and zoom-out tools, together with a searchable list of user interventions, make finding important areas of data easy. And, of course, you can print or export anything that you see.

The Main Display Data recorded with Data-Trax is presented as distance-per-unit of time, e.g., cm/sec, exactly as it would be on a traditional paper chart recorder. The x-axis display is compressed or expanded using point and click icons in the Data-Trax toolbar. Data- Trax’s display can smoothly scroll data at any speed. The display scroll rate is not determined by sampling rate, so you have full control over resolution and display. This is particularly useful when you want to compress high-resolution data on the time axis to create a data overview. Currently the software can display 100,000 points per channel online and one million points per channel offline so you can see quite a bit of data at a glance. Data-Trax’s Main Window currently supports functions that can show you the real-time rate, integral or any of 16 online analyses. Each of these is set up from a single click in the Main Window. Data-Trax also has an “Analysis Window” where students can make more in-depth measurements and build lab reports. There are 31 different kinds of measurements supported in this window. 

AutoScale

A single button allows you to find the data on a channel, wherever it is, center it and expand it to fill the available channel space. AutoScale used with high-resolution recorders ensures that you will never again lose data because they are “out of range or off scale“.

Cursors

Most measurements students make on recorded data involve a distance in time or a difference in amplitude. For this reason, Data-Trax places two easy-to-move cursors in each display of data. Data-Trax displays the difference in time and the difference in voltage (or calibrated units) between the cursors. Cursors can be moved with the mouse, or for precise placement, with the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Real World Units

Data-Trax allows you to calibrate the displayed data in any unit that you choose. Reading your data in mmHg or grams or micro amps takes the guesswork out of analysis.

Real-Time Marks

Researchers can insert “Text Marks” from the keyboard into their data to indicate when events like drug delivery or stimulus points are occurring. Marks are easy to search and the ”Go To Mark” feature will take you to a selected event from anywhere in the data. For reporting, researchers can position the text in a given mark over the data it applies to, just like writing on chart paper.

Twin DACs (WPI-118 only)

Data-Trax allows you to program two independent analog outputs.They can be used as independent stimulator outputs, or as linear controls for pumps or other hardware that accept an analog voltage as control. Built-in wave protocols include pulse, step, pulse train and DC. The two outputs can be combined to produce more complex protocols.

Digital Inputs

Up to eight digital inputs can be configured from Data-Trax. Raw data, count frequency, and open times can be displayed in real time.

Digital Output

Up to eight digital outputs can be configured from the Data-Trax software. Digital outputs can be used to control valves or relays in the experimental rig, or they can be configured in parallel to control serial devices. Output sequences of events are createdfrom an easy-to-use sequence builder that can include both the digital outputs and the analog outputs. Sequences are remembered by DataTrax and can be called manually or automatically.

Lab Settings

Settings or templates for the various lab protocols are stored in the program’s settings menu. Each setting can include a Lab procedure and Journal format, as well as the program acquisition and analysis settings. This makes changing program settings to accommodate different experiments point-andclick easy.

Free Upgrades and Built-in Site License

Data-Trax software upgrades are free. Better yet, Data-Trax may be freely distributed and copied to other lab computers. That means that researchers can record data in the lab and work on analysis and lab reports at their leisure in different locations. Data-Trax is provided on an open license so you can record data in the lab and analyze it in your office without buying multiple copies of the software.

Not just data acquisition, but powerful analysis too!

Today’s analog to digital converters make acquiring data very easy. The challenge to all users is to extract meaning from the mountains of recorded data in order to generate conclusions, reports, and Nobel Prizes. This process is called analysis. Built into the DataTrax data recording software is a powerful array of data analysis tools. The variety of tools available strike a balance between the straightforward, general operations that everyone uses and the vertical, complex routines that only YOU use. So, Data-Trax is a powerful analytical tool that can go to work on data right away, or be customized to execute very specific, complex analysis routines. Analysis in Data-Trax is divided into five types or kinds, each addressing specific analytical requirements.