LabChart Lightning aims to provide increased flexibility over how users can organize and interacts with their recorded data.
What is a signal and what is a channel?
A LabChart Lightning Recording contains one or more signals. Signals can be either “recorded” or “calculated”. Recorded signals are a series of data points captured from your recording equipment and will form the backbone for nearly all visualization and analysis in the software. Calculated signals are typically derived from recorded signals and can be used to capture extra information from the signal.
In LabChart Lightning, a Channel corresponds to a rectangular area in the application that can display signals. A Channel may be empty or contain one or even multiple signals.
A signal can be displayed within any Channel the user chooses.
As an example of the flexibility in which data can now be displayed, here is an alternative display of the same signals:
Because the display of signals is purely visual, altering the mapping of signals to channels has no effect on any analysis that makes use of signal data. Furthermore, a signal can contribute to analysis even though it is not visible in the Chart View!
Choosing which signals to display
In a new recording, LabChart Lightning places each of the connected device’s recorded inputs into their own Channel.
This is only the default assignment. To make better use of the available screen area or allow easier visual comparison between signals, we can add any signal into a Channel by accessing a Channel’s properties:
From Channel properties, signals can also be removed. It is important to note that doing so does not remove the signal from the recording. Even if a signal is not visible in the Chart view, it can still be used in subsequent analysis in just the same way as visible signals.
If you have any questions about LabChart Lightning and its use, please reach out to your local ADInstruments Technical Support Representatives.