LTPDA Toolbox™

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Version 2.1 LTPDA Toolbox Software

This table summarizes what's new in Version 2.1:

• Introduction
• New toolbox features
• New Workbench features
• New AO methods
• Main Changes
• Deprecated methods

Introduction

This version of LTPDA is 2.1. This document lists the changes since V2.0.1.

New toolbox features

Version 2.1 of LTPDA has various new features.

• Analysis Objects have two new properties, dx and dy, for storing errors/uncertainties on the x and y data vectors. Currently, the spectral estimation tools (psd, cohere, etc) are calculating sample variances and assigning the values to dy. In this release, errors are not properly propagated through all additional functions; this is sometimes left to the user to handle. In a future release, the aim is to properly handle error propagation in all functions, where possible. Often this will mean deleting these vectors, or calculating new errors based on the input AOs.
• All user objects now have the following new fields:
  • description: a string that can be assigned to describe the object
  • procinfo: a plist containing additional information produced during processing by an algorithm. The contents of the plist depend on the algorithm being applied.
• Documentation (>>help method) has been significantly simplified. Now the details of the parameters for configuring a method are dynamically created and presented to the user in the MATLAB help browser after clicking on the ‘Parameter Sets’ link in the help text.
• New user classes:
  • smodel: defines parametric models of an X variable which can be combined and evaluated to AOs.
  • matrix: a container class which can be used to group together other user objects and perform some basic matrix operations on the group of objects, not necessarily on the data in the objects.
  • filterbank: represents a bank of digital filters. It can be either a ‘parallel’ or ‘serial’ filter bank.
• All user classes now support built-in models.
• LTPDA now provides direct access to NDS (version 1) servers using the AO constructor ‘From NDS Server’. This requires the (3rd party) NDS client mex files to be available on the MATLAB path.
• The repository interactions are now done through purpose written java code so that no database toolbox is required. Also, the repository GUI (repogui) has been removed and the various features are replaced by individual GUI components which can be launched either via the workbench or via the new workspace browser (workspaceBrowser).
• A new GUI, the Workspace Browser (workspaceBrowser) allows fast access to various toolbox features as well as showing the current LTPDA user objects in the workspace.

New Workbench features

Apart from various cosmetic improvements, the workbench has the following new features:

• The workbench now has a ‘recent files’ list under the File menu
• The workbench now has the concept of an ‘Execution plan’. Any or all of the pipelines in the workbench can be entered in the execution plan. The full plan can then be executed in the order given. To edit the plan: File->Plan->Edit. To run the plan: File->Plan->Run.
• New block types:
  • ‘From Pipeline’ block allows the user to link together pipelines in the current workbench. Double clicking the ‘From Pipeline’ block allows the user to select the source to be from the output of any block on any other pipeline in the workbench. This goes along with the new ‘ Plan’ concept.
  • Mux/Demux blocks allow objects to be put in to, or removed from, arrays.
  • ‘To Workspace’ block pushes the objects to the MATLAB workspace.
• A graphical representation of the current pipeline can be exported as a JPEG image.
• The workbench has a new panel called the ‘Shelf’. Users can store subsystems on the shelf and pull them off anytime in the future to include them in a different pipeline. The Shelf supports nested categories, exporting and importing of categories, and adding of subsystems from the canvas or from the shelf context menus.
• The pipelines of the current workbench are now shown in a tree-like structure, where the subsystems of each pipeline can also be seen.
• The block-property table has been re-coded to more nicely present the options to the user.
• The parameter list table now supports:
  • activating and deactivating individual parameters
  • double-click in-place editing of the key and value
  • selection of parameters with options via drop-down menus
  • selection of boolean parameters via check-boxes
  • editing of parameter values in special editors via the edit button (‘...’)
  • changing the type of a parameter (double/char/boolean) via the context menu
• The workbench has the following new block button commands:
  • saves the outputs of selected objects to disk.
  • displays the data of the selected objects in tables.
  • present a report on the selected objects.
• New menu entries for
  • show quickblock (ctrl-b)
  • edit canvas info (ctrl-i)
  • search workbench (ctrl-f)
• The element searching now has new features, like the ability to choose whether to search for block names, algorithms, or both. Info about the block plist is now shown as a tooltip on the results table, and double clicking a result highlights that block in the workbench.
• The workbench now supports plain text documents.
• The workbench output files have seen some optimisation and are much smaller than in earlier versions.
• A new special editor for keys: 'xunit', 'xunits', 'yunit', 'yunits', 'unit'.
• A new special editor for assembling a list of colors that can, for example, be passed to iplot. So far this will activate for any parameter with key 'colors' or 'linecolors'.
• A new special editor for a cell-array of line-styles, like that used in configuring iplot.
• A new special editor for building a list of markers. Activated for key 'markers'.
• A new special editor for the key 'plotinfo'. Allows to edit the line style, line width, color and marker for AOs.
• The workbench can now be attached to any or all output objects from all blocks on a pipeline. The workbench can then be loaded from the object, whether it’s on disk or in the MATLAB workspace. To attach the workbench to an object, select the block and set the property ‘Attach Workbench’ in the property table. To import a pipeline from an existing object, ‘File->Import Pipelines->From LTPDA Object...’.
• Blocks can be ‘Commented Out’ (deactivated) on the pipeline. These ‘commented out’ blocks will not be considered during pipeline execution.
• The workbench now supports some direct interaction with an LTPDA Repository, avoiding the need to go through the repository GUI. For example, it is possible to:
  • (dis-)connect to a repository via the (dis-)connect () button(s)
  • To submit the output of the selected blocks to the repository (pipeline must have been executed first) using the submit () button.
  • Query a repository using the query button (). Results of the query can be used to automatically build constructor blocks on the current pipeline.
• The workbench now has an autosave feature. This can be activated in the preferences (‘File->Preferences...’) and the interval can be set.

New AO methods

• ao/table: display the data in the AO in a graphical table.
• ao/normdist: computes a normal distributed pdf based on the mean and variance of the data in the AO.
• ao/corr: computes the sample correlation matrix using Pearson's product-moment method.
• ao/linSubtract: subtract linear contributions to a data set.
• ao/filtSubtract: subtracts a frequency dependent noise contribution from an input ao.
• ao/hypot: robust computation of square-root of the sum of the squares.
• ao/xfit: fits a function of x to a data set using simplex non-linear fitting routine.
• ao/tdfit: fits a model to a set of input and output data. The parametric model (smodel) should represent the system(s) which gives the outputs for the given inputs.

Main Changes

• All user-created objects now have a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) which is reset whenever the object is modified (a history step is added).
• Cross-spectral estimators (ltfe, cohere, etc) now only accept two inputs and return a single output.
• ao/lscov now returns a vector of AOs, each containing a single parameter, with units and errors.
• The statespace modelling class has been heavily rewritten and as such behaves differently than in previous versions. Review the LTPDA documentation for the new behaviour of this class.
• On Windows, Microsoft’s Visual C++ compiler version 2008 is used to compile the mex files. That means that the appropriate runtime environment must be installed. The installation files for 32-bit (vcredist_x86.exe) and 64-bit (vcredist_x64.exe) are included in the ltpda/src directory.
• updated versions of fft and ifft.
  • fft – added 'plain' option which output the standard matlab fft results. Available parameters are now 'type' = 'plain', 'one' (onesided), 'two' (twosided) – frequency bins now are correctly calculated
  • ifft – option twosided is no more necessary, the algorithm now is capable to distinguish between 'plain' fft, twosided fft, onesided fft with odd nfft or onesided fft with even nfft
• ao/iplot now supports the plotinfo field of an AO. This means that each AO can be given specific plotting attributes. The plotinfo field can be set using ao/setPlotinfo. It is a parameter list of properties and values; see help of ao/iplot for supported properties. The values in plotinfo override all other inputs to iplot for that particular AO.
• The AO methods polyfit, zDomainFit and sDomainFit now return matrix objects. This change is not backwards compatible.

Deprecated methods

The following ao methods are deprecated

• ao/curvefit: has been replaced by ao/xfit and as such will no longer be maintained.
• ao/pwelch: is still deprecated. Use ao/psd instead.

Version 2.2 LTPDA Toolbox Software

Version 2.0.1 LTPDA Toolbox Software

©LTP Team