LTPDA Toolbox™

Setting-up MATLAB

Setting up MATLAB to work properly with the LTPDA Toolbox requires a few steps:

Add the LTPDA Toolbox to the MATLAB path

After downloading and un-compressing the LTPDA Toolbox, you should add the directory ltpda_toolbox to your MATLAB path. To do this:

In MATLAB versions earlier than R2012b
File -> Set Path...
With MATLAB version R2012b
HOME-tab -> Set Path ...
Choose "Add with Subfolders" and browse to the location of ltpda_toolbox
"Save" your new path. MATLAB may require you to save your new pathdef.m to a new location in the case that you don't have write access to the default location. For more details read the documentation on "pathdef" (>> doc pathdef).

Starting LTPDA Toolbox

To start using the LTPDA Toolbox, execute the following command on the MATLAB terminal:

    ltpda_startup

This should launch the LTPDA Launchbay, and you should see the LTPDA logo on the MATLAB terminal. When you run this for the first time, you will also be presented with the LTPDA Preferences GUI from where you can edit the preferences for the toolbox (see below).

If everything has gone well, you should be able to run a set of built-in tests by doing:

    run_tests

This will run about 100 test scripts. These test scripts can be found in $ltpda_toolbox/examples and serve as useful example scripts.

In order to automatically start the LTPDA Toolbox when MATLAB starts up, add the command ltpda_startup to your own startup.m file. See >> doc startup for more details on installing and editing your own startup.m file.

Build LTPDA documentation search database

It is necessary for the 'Search' in the LTPDA help section to build the documentation search database. Execute the following command on the MATLAB terminal

    builddocsearchdb(utils.helper.getHelpPath)

or since LTPDA version 2.9.4

    utils.helper.buildSearchDatabase()

Edit the LTPDA Preferences

The LTPDA Toolbox comes with a default set of starting preferences. These may need to be edited for your particular system (though most of the defaults should be fine). To edit the preferences, you first need to have the LTPDA toolbox installed as described above, then run the command

  LTPDAprefs

You should see the following GUI:

LTPDA Preferences GUI

Edit all the preferences you want and then click 'Apply' to save the preferences. These new preferences will be used each time you start LTPDA.

LTPDA Preferences: Display

LTPDA Preferences: Plot

LTPDA Preferences: Plot Styles

LTPDA Preferences: Extensions

LTPDA Preferences: Time

LTPDA Preferences: Repository

LTPDA Preferences: External

LTPDA Preferences: Misc

The 'Misc' tab allows to add user-defined units, such as 'bar', 'arcsec' and so on. Just type the string in the field 'New unit' and hit the '+' button.

The 'Misc' tab allows also to choose the default type of spectral window to be applied when using the Welch-based estimators. More info about each window can be obtained by using the spectral wind GUI, accessible via:

specwinViewer

System Requirements

Additional 3rd-party software