The following indicates changes made between V3.00 and V4.00. It is divided into two groups: Improvements and Correction of V3.00 Issues. If you have the DOS Version 2.0x, the entire application has been rewritten from scratch so you should download the 30-day trial.
Versions 4.01 & 4.02 consist of fixes for Version 4.00.
Click here for more information or to download the upgrade from Version 4.00 or 4.01 to 4.02.
Plots, importing, DDE, capturing the plot image and data collection have all been improved.
Long filenames are supported.
Your serial number for Analyse-Plus now contains information to enable or disable optional features or to allow usage of options for a trial period (e.g. 30 days). Technical Support can do this merely by emailing you a new number. Software validation prevents fraud without the use of a dongle.
The DL can now perform pre-triggered collections (in addition to post-triggered and not triggered available in V3). This means that you can configure the DL to collect for x seconds/minutes/hours before a specific set of conditions occurs that interests you. For example, you could set the DL to wait for a specific upset in a pressure to occur but to collect and save the sampled data starting 30 sec before that event so that you could determine the cause. The criteria are checked 1000 times/sec. Pre-Triggering can be done in stand-alone mode to allow you to disconnect your PC and leave the DL to check for the event of interest. The Pre-Trigger Advance time is subject to available RAM in the DL.
If the serial number of your DL is 1114377 or greater, your DL has 512K RAM rather than the traditional 256K RAM. But the firmware only recognized 256K. Version 4 will automatically upgrade the DL’s firmware stored in EEPROM to allow the above features and to enable the extra memory. This allows longer stand-alone collections (with your PC disconnected and removed) and longer Pre-Trigger Advance times.
When the DL is waiting for the Pre-Trigger or Post-Trigger criteria to be met, the green COL LED now flashes. When counting down the post-trigger delay, it flashes at a faster rate. When collecting data, it stays lit. In all previous versions, it stayed lit for all 3 conditions.
Comments can be entered at any time during a collection. They are saved in the data file and log file when the collection ends or the maximum file size reached. Under V3, they were saved at the beginning of collection and could not be edited during a collection.
A new calibrate function helps you to find the Signal Lo and Signal Hi for control outputs or any signal whose calibration isn't known.
The maximum file size has been increased from 150,000 to 250,000 samples per channel. (Data collections up to 4.27 billion samples/channel can still be configured but will be spread across several files).
When connecting to the Data Logger (DL), the Windows print queue is checked to see if the parallel port is in use. This is more reliable than the old method, which used hardware.
An IRQ (Interrupt Request) for the parallel port is no longer required. This eliminates one of the principal causes of communication errors due to port miss-configuration.
The range and status pull-down lists are now initialized to agree with the current selection rather than the top-most choice.
The Collection Plot now sizes & shifts itself for video resolutions greater than 800 X 600 to use the entire screen.
The y-axis scale precision is set individually for each channel according to the magnitude of the values at any time. In V3, they were fixed at 3.
The statistics can be toggled to apply to the whole file like in V3 or to the viewed region. For example, part of a file may represent one condition (e.g. auto) while another may represent another (e.g. manual). You can easily compare the statistics of any region (e.g. 2-sigma) merely by zooming to it.
Three new options for displaying Fourier plots were added. You may choose to have the x-axis linear with respect to period or frequency (in V3, it was always linear with respect to frequency). You may display the “intensity” of each frequency/period as power or as amplitude on the y-axis (like variance VS sigma). In V3, it was always amplitude. When power is selected, scientific notation is used (e.g. 1.1 E-3). The value can be displayed as a vertical bar like in V3 or the dots can be connected like in a Time Series plot to provide a different visual effect.
You can now copy the printable image (like a “clean-screen”) to the clipboard or save it as a graphics file to BMP, PNG, or JPEG format or hold it to allow capturing using your own method. PNG files are very compact without loss and are ideal for reports, emailing etc. and are compatible with word processors, email and web browsers etc. Various color-depth settings are allowed.
You can now copy the data from any plot including the analysis plots (cross/auto correlation, Fourier, etc.) to the clipboard as text to allow pasting to any application. You can choose which plot, whether to send the entire plot's data or just the viewed portion, period, frequency/time index etc.
When printing, a print dialog box is displayed so you can select the number of copies etc..
In V3, you could only print to the default printer and a proper Disconnection with the Data Logger (DL) would occur if the default printer used the parallel port to which the DL was connected. Now, you may choose the printer so you can print to a network or USB port or use the print-thru port to print to a printer connected to the parallel port. Analyse-Plus will check what printers are available that do / do not use the port.
The up/down buttons of the cursor diamond now move the cursor from one trace to another (in V3, they had no function).
The spacing between legend items in the printout was reduced and statistics were moved so that all 10 items in the legend are printed. All 10 statistics and y-axis labels are also printed (V3 would only show the 5 items that you selected to be visible).
You can now toggle between displaying the Tag, Status and Units VS the Descriptions. Descriptions are more useful when presenting plots to a wider audience who may not know the Tag numbers.
The y-axis labels are now dynamically positioned to centre them with respect to the tick marks regardless of the number of traces present.
The Overlay Plot now sizes & shifts itself for video resolutions greater than 800 X 600 to use the entire screen.
Switching the legend from Plots 1-5 to 6-10 and back is now much faster.
The height of each plot (displayed or printed) has been increased up to 11 % for the same video resolution.
The x-axis scale of auto-correlation and cross-correlation plots has been changed from lags to time units (msec/sec/minutes etc.) to make them easier to use.
The date and time when the data contained in the text file was collected can be entered once during importation and applied to all variables imported. The date and time defaults to the date and time of the text file. In V3, each data file (one per variable) had to be edited to set the correct date & time.
Import handles files containing lines that end with line feeds (LF) or carriage returns (CR) only. These are typically created in other operating systems such as QNX, Unix, etc.
Additional items have been added to DDE Send such as the comments, signal (mV/mA/Hz) and Engineering Units scaling values etc.
You may now perform multiple calculations in succession without closing and opening the window each time.
Analyse-Plus is now distributed on CD-ROM.
The default window and plot colours have been updated to make them more distinguishable.
Seconds are included in the display of collection time where space permits (there is always space if you use 24-hr format).
When exiting, the number of unsaved files is displayed as a warning.
Under Windows 2000, if the Windows “scheme” font were set to the default Tahoma, the text would not fit inside some buttons.
The background color in each window was not large enough for a 1600 X 1200 pixel video resolution.
The pull-down list for Tags when setting up Input Channels did not have a scroll-bar so only the first 20 Tags of the Tag Data Base (TDB) was shown. When the TDB filename was changed, the new TDB would not accept new Tags until the window was closed.
The collection date was stored in MM/DD/YY format in the Log file instead of with the user's Windows settings.
Data collection beyond 2.15 billion samples was not handled correctly (this is 25 days even with a sample period of 1 msec so likely no users observed problems).
The logic that checked for legal values for Trigger Criteria Limit A and Limit B had assumed that the channels were calibrated with the “Engineering Units Hi” value larger than the “Engineering Units Lo” value and would sometimes disallow trigger limit values when this assumption was incorrect. This was a reasonable assumption but was not true for all cases.
When zooming to a non-multiple of the sample period (between samples), the cursor position was often set to the next sample just outside the viewed region instead of just inside this region.
When moving the cursor from one trace to another, if the data point of both traces occupied exactly the same point on the monitor (very rare), the cursor X,Y display in the bottom right corner was not updated.
Importing should have been disallowed if no columns were selected for importation.
In the table showing the data file's samples, the time should have started at 0, not at 1 X Sample Period.
This table held 9 samples but clicking on its scroll bar scrolled it 13 samples. Both the window size and scroll amount were changed to 10.
Opening files to which the active collection was currently writing should not have been allowed. Similarly, Save As to these same collection files or to files already in the Quick List should not have been permitted.
Sometimes the Quick List became hidden behind the Save or Save As window where it could not be accessed rather than being the top-most window.