xdamp is a graphical user interface (GUI) designed to allow the user to manipulate two-dimensional waveforms (data vs. time) and images (usually digitized radiographic film or digital camera outputs) that are typical of electrical engineering applications. A typical single data set from these applications will generate ~100 time-dependent waveforms and possibly a few images. xdamp can manipulate waveforms both in time and in amplitude. Typical operations are: time shifting, truncating before or after a specific time, adding, multiplying, integrating, and averaging. When manipulating images, the spatial dimensions are maintained as important data. Standard electrical engineering quantities (maximum, minimum, full-width-at-half-maximum, rise-time, mean, standard deviation) are calculated for each waveform and automatically displayed. Annotation can be added to each waveform and/or image and the overall file so that the data contains full documentation. PostScript printing is supported. xdamp supports full audit trail information on each waveform. Data are saved using the Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

xdamp uses the Interactive Data Language (IDL) from Research Systems, Inc., a Xerox company, as the processing engine. The entire program is written in the IDL macro language to enhance portability. IDL is currently supported on the Macintosh, Alpha computers, Windows-based computers, and on virtually all UNIX platforms. Portability to all of these platforms has been verified. xdamp has a full internal language for creating macros useful for repetitive data reduction and analysis.

xdamp can manipulate waveforms both in time and in amplitude. Some advanced features included are: the ability to compare waveforms in time and amplitude, the ability to generate high-frequency cable compensators, both integration and differentiation of waveforms, Fourier transforms of waveforms, and automatic execution of macros. Annotation can be added to each waveform and the overall file so that the data contains full documentation. Audit trails are maintained on each waveform.

In addition to most of the waveform capabilities, xdamp can manipulate images in both space and amplitude. A variety of image processing capabilities are available such as mirroring around various axes, rotating through arbitrary angles, histogram equalization, Lee filtering, Roberts and Sobel edge enhancement algorithms and creating waveforms consisting of line-out profiles of images.

Flexible printing to PostScript printers is supported as are both local and networked printers. Data are saved using the Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This format is highly compressed, self-encoded, and easily transportable across the Internet. There is also the capability of writing ASCII data files suitable for use by other plotting programs. Automatic generation of spreadsheet compatible files containing summary information for waveforms is also supported.

Additional capability includes the ability to read several different file formats. xdamp can read comma and tab delimited Excel files where the first column contains time information. xdamp can read PSpice output files in several standard formats. xdamp can read TIFF and JPEG files for image input.

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