Our data capture and analysis software is available
for Pentium-class PCs running the Linux operating system,
offering a number of compelling features.
Low system cost:
a complete Pentium-based data capture and analysis system can be put together
for under $11,500 Canadian (plus taxes).
This includes the $7000 license fee for our software,
$3300 for the UEI PowerDAQ A/D converter and patch panel,
and almost $1200 for the computer.
The Linux operating system software, and the PowerDAQ device driver, are
both available for free, making the overall system cost even less than our
earlier QNX-based offering.
High performance:
a 2 GHz PCI-bus Pentium system can sustain captures of 16 channels at over
20,000 KHz, storing all data to disk.
Industry-standard technology:
because your system will be based on an industry-standard Intel Pentium PC,
upgrades will be easily affordable and available.
Easy setup:
a new channel monitor program lets you preview the signals, as well as
signal levels, on all the channels you've chosen for capture.
This can be a big help when setting amplifier gains before capturing.
Also, current Red Hat Linux systems are much easier to install than QNX,
older Linux, or most other UNIX-like systems.
Flexibility:
your Linux system will come with the X Window system.
You can run several applications at once and quickly switch between them.
You can also take advantage of the rich set of free applications available
for Linux systems.
Versatility:
your PC can be configured as a dual-boot system.
When not capturing or analysing under Linux, you can reboot into Windows
to run other applications.
Your PC does not need to sit idle when not capturing or analysing data -
it is a fully functional PC which you can use to run your favorite software.
Linux can write files to your Windows partition, so you can transfer all
the plot files you produce during your analysis, then bring up Windows
and import the plot files into any program that supports HPGL files
(e.g. CorelDRAW).
While analysing under Linux, you can also plot out directly to any printer
supported by Linux's "magic filter" print tool.
Our software package includes several programs to aid in the capture and
analysis of electrophysiological data.
Unlike many data capture and
analysis systems, these programs are specifically designed to
meet the needs of neuroscience laboratories.
Calibrate:
the calibrate program allows you to collect calibration information for the
signals you capture,
and display data using real-world units and names of your choice.
This also enables the software to
compensate for voltage changes introduced by amplifiers and
filters that condition a signal before capture.
The chanmon program allows you to monitor signal levels on all channels
prior to data capture,
to check for over- and under-range signals.
Cap:
the cap program lets you set all the capture parameters (sampling rate, number of channels, run length, etc.), then handles the collection of "runs" of
data from the A/D converter.
The cap program can collect data on any channel as continuous waveforms,
as triggered sweeps, or both.
Parameters for data capture can be saved for quick reuse,
in a menu and function key system.
The cavg program can collect triggered sweeps and average them in real-time.
Pre- and post-trigger capture is supported in both cap and cavg.
Analysis:
the analysis program can perform over 50 basic types of analysis of the
captured data, including examining raw data, averaging triggered sweeps
sorted according to a number of criteria, obtaining triggered
sweeps from continuous waveforms using a trigger of your choice & averaging
these sweeps, a host of action-potential frequency analyses,
action-potential cross-correlations and auto-correlations,
burst duration and start/stop time analyses,
and a number of X-Y plots of signal level.
Many analyses break data down into cycles, to facilitate analysis of rhythmic
events such as locomotion.
Averages and correlations can be calculated with respect to either the
amplitude of another waveform (e.g. membrane potential) or the time from the
occurrence of an event (e.g. the end of flexor activity).
Averaged sweeps can be stored as a "run" for later use by analysis or
by any of the other programs in the package.
All parameters for analysis can also be saved for later reuse.
The analysis program can also perform
high- or low-pass filtering,
and/or full-wave rectification of continuous waveforms, and
differentiation.
Qm:
the qm program is used to obtain quick voltage and time measurements from
triggered sweeps.
Cursors can be placed on the sweeps to compare timing of events from different
signal sources.
Many more:
the frmsel program allows frames of data (triggered sweeps) to be previewed,
and selected or deleted, or "tagged" into various categories.
the raster program can produce 3-D "waterfall" plots of triggered sweeps;
the peel program performs exponential peeling on the decay of a pulse;
the isopot program produces isopotential contour maps from a matrix of
voltage measurements; and the layout program allows you to put together
final figures from plot files produced by the other programs.
There are also several other programs geared to management of run files,
conversion of other formats into run files, conversion of HPGL plot files
to other formats, and printer/plotter support.
We offer several options for putting a complete system together.
Pre-configured system:
You can order the components for your system and have them shipped to us.
We will put together the system, install the operating system and all
software.
We can even install Windows on the same system if you want.
We will send you detailed specifications of the hardware and system software
you need to order, and recommend suppliers.
We will notify you when we receive your equipment.
Once the system is complete and tested, we'll ship it to you.
On-site installation:
We can send someone to you to install the operating system and all required
software on your PC, at your site.
Any custom configurations can be handled in this way.
We'll make sure that the system is configured to your specifications, and
thoroughly test it on site.
You will be charged for airfare and expenses for one person, for the duration
of the installation.
Do-It-Yourself installation:
If you want to tackle the entire installation yourself, we can coach you
by e-mail or telephone on how to successfully install Red Hat Linux.
We recommend you familiarize yourself with the installation of Red Hat
Linux, by reading the installation instructions on their web site.
The SCRC Data Capture and Analysis is available in an RPM (Red-Hat Package
Manager) package, which is very easy to install once Red Hat Linux is up
and running. We also make the UEI PowerDAQ driver for Linux available as
an RPM package for ease of installation.
You will be responsible for purchasing all hardware components,
putting the system together, installing the Red Hat Linux system,
and configuring the X Window System for operation with your
graphics card.
Additional analysis workstation:
For a license fee of $500 per system, you can use our software
on additional PCs to set up analysis-only workstations.
The data capture portion of the software will not be functional on these
systems, but everything else is included.
Analysis-only workstations can be set up to run under any version of
Red Hat Linux, but 8.0 or 9 are recommended.
Additional Linux systems can be set up as any of the above system options.
The analysis software is now also available for Mac OS X, and runs under
the Mac's X11 software package.
Tell us what sort of systems you want us to put together for you,
and we'll quote you a price.
16SE/8DI A/D, gains: 1,2,4,8; Two 12-bit D/As;
3 counter/timers; 32 digital I/O
(this card is UEI's replacement for the PD2-MF-16-1M/12H card which we've been using)
You can get more information about these, including how to order, from
their web site, http://www.ueidaq.com/.
In Canada, you can order them through their Canadian reseller, A-Tech
Instruments Ltd. Contact UEI for distributors in other countries. The prices
are approximately $1650 US for the A/D and $400 US for the patch panel.
United Electronic Industries, Inc.
611 Neponset St.
Canton, MA 02021 USA
Ph.: 781-821-2890, FAX: 781-821-2891,
Web: http://www.ueidaq.com/
Note:
We've noticed that when we connect equipment directly to the PowerDAQ A/D card,
via a patch panel, we sometimes experience sequential-channel crosstalk.
This happens at very high channel scanning frequencies, when we use equipment
that does not have a very low input impedance.
In these situations, we found it helpful to add UEI's
PD-BUFF
input amplifier to condition the signals and present a low impedance to the
A/D inputs.
UEI has discontinued the 16 channel version of this amplifier, so you must use
the 64 channel version even for 16 channel A/D cards.
This is not needed if all your signal sources already have very low-impedance
(10 ohms or less).
You may also opt to build your own patch panel, instead of buying UEI's kit.
See the UEI web site for other PowerDAQ accessories that are available for
any custom solution you want to put together.
We have written some
instructions for builing a PowerDAQ patch panel
and buffer amplifier enclosure.
We also recommend purchasing the
PD-16K-FIFO
upgrade for PowerDAQ A/D cards that have less than 16K of FIFO, as it greatly enhances the reliability of
data capture at high speeds, virtually eliminating the possibility of buffer
overruns. This is not a field upgrade, so it must be purchased when the A/D
card is ordered.
The new
PD2-MF-16-3M/12H
card has a 16K FIFO already, but most other PowerDAQ cards have only 1K.
Our software has been tested under the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
clones CentOS 5.0-5.5 and Scientific Linux 5.0-5.5,
so that is the system we currently recommend.
We've also tested it on Scientific Linux 4, a clone of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4, so you shouldn't have any difficulty with RHEL4, SL4, or
any other RHEL4 clone.
(RHEL5 is heavily based on FC6-tested packages, while RHEL4 is based on FC3-tested packages.)
Fedora Core 3 to 6 and Fedora 7 to 13 are also supported, though these have a
shorter life-cycle than the RHEL releases.
(We've also supported Red Hat Linux 6.2 through 8.0, and Fedora Core 1 and 2.)
For any of these, you must use the i386/i686 build, as the x86_64 build is
not yet supported by our software.
Any Fedora OS older than Fedora 12 is no longer updated by the Fedora Project,
so we don't recommend them for new installations.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 or older have not been tested, but will likely work,
possibly requiring a recompiling of the source RPM package.
Note that support for SATA disk drives tends to be a hit or miss
proposition with older Linux distributions (older than RHEL 5 or Fedora Core 6).
For these older systems, we recommend staying with conventional parallel ATA (EIDE)
disk drives, to avoid hassles with non-standard or incompatible drivers.
Support is now available for recent
Ubuntu Linux distributions, 7.10 (Gutsy)
and 8.04 (Hardy).
Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) and later have only been tested a little bit, but will
likely work as well.
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