In the analysis section of Marple one can find the signal list. It is a list of all the different signals in the data set that has been selected.

‍

• Search signal name: type the name of the signal you are searching for. Marple signal search is a fuzzy search, so you do not have to match the signal name exactly.
• Create signal: Create a calculated signal
• Enable signal grouping: In case your signals have a hierarchal structure (for example structured signals in Matlab files) or if there is a “.” in your signal names. Marple is able to group those together in a tree structure. You can turn this on or off here. (see Signal Grouping for more information)
• List of visible signals: All available signals in the data set. Double-click or drag & drop on the plot area to visualise them.
• Plotted signal indicator: shows the current plotted signals

The plot area is what Marple is all about. A configurable area to visualise your signals.

You can easily add a new time series plot by clicking on the “ADD PLOT” button:

By default, the new plot will be a time series plot but, you can easily switch to another type by using the drop-down menu.

Once your plot area contains multiple plot windows, the padlock button allows you to resize and rearrange the plots as you like.

A cursor is used by Marple to indicate the values of the visualised signals on a specific point on the time axis. When placing a second cursor, Marple can make calculations between them.

Placing a primary cursor: Easy! Just go to the point where you want to place a cursor and.. click!

Placing a secondary cursor: Hovering with your mouse over the plot, press the space bar. A second cursor will appear. Alternatively, click the enable secondary cursor button in the toolbar above the plot.

To remove, press escape or click the secondary cursor button.

Calculations between cursors: Marple can make calculations between the two cursors: Difference, Minimum value, Maximum value and Mean.

The value of the calculation is shown to the left of the plot between the value of the primary cursor (full line) and the secondary cursor (dotted line)

‍

Limits are the parts of the x-axis that Marple visualises. There are two types: the min limit and the max limit which correspond with values on the x-axis. Marple will visualise the data points within the min and max limit. The min and max limit can be set for every signal separately.

‍

Autoscaled limits

When first visualising a signal, Marple will look for the minimum and maximum value of the signal data and automatically set the limits, removing the y-axis values in the overview. This function allows Marple to show plots of signals with big differences in absolute value next to each other without losing granularity. Amazing for finding correlations!

Do you want to see the y-axis of an individual signal? Select it individually by clicking on its name left from the plot window. The y-axis of the selected signal will be shown on the right of the plot.

You can plot signals on the same y-axis (with the same limits). This is called Signal grouping Select multiple signals [ctrl/cmd + left mouse click] and click the link signals button in the toolbar above the plot.

Zooming in the time axis

You can easily zoom using the mouse actions. You can zoom in on the time axis using:

• Scroll wheel
• Drag & hold the right mouse button

Y-zooming

y-zooming lets you zoom within the limits of the different signals but for all signals at the same time. You can turn y-zooming on by clicking on the loupe button in the top right corner.

Auto fit y-zoom

Toggling the auto fit y-zoom feature will set all the signals on one absolute y-axis. This will also automatically zoom the y-axis depending on the maximum and minimum absolute value of the signals in the current visible time frame.

‍

Resetting the zoom level:

You are zoomed in and want to go back to the original zoom level? This how to do it.

There are two zoom levels in Marple and therefore two zoom levels to reset. The time axis zoom level and the y-axis zoom level.

To reset both zoom levels, click on the reset zoom level button closest to the plot.

To reset the zoom level on the time axis only, click on the zoom level button next to the time axis zoom range bar.

Export plot

Are you looking for a static figure of your current visualisation, say to use in a report, you can use the export plot feature. This is available in the toolbar above the plot.

The image contains the signals that are currently visualised with the current zoom level included on both the time axis and the y-axis. You can configure what axes are visualised and what the title is.

‍

Exporting the image can be done by simply copying it on the clipboard or by downloading a .png file that you can very easily add to any report or presentation.

Tabs

As you can need several tabs in your internet browser or in another software, Marple allows you to create tabs in order to switch from a work area to another one within the same project.

Some facts about Tabs:

• Each tab has its own configuration that you set up and can be saved in a project to use with other test data. (more information on projects here)
• The current zoom level is linked over different tabs

In Marple, you can easily load many different data files at once.

If you added multiple data sets from the data management view, the data sets will appear as ‘Layers’ in the visualisation view of Marple. At the bottom left, you can do various actions on your layers. We will explain every option in detail:

• Selected layer: See which data set is currently visible. In the dropdown, you will see all the other layers and you can easily switch to another data set.
• Display metadata: Show the metadata of all the files in the layers.
• Enable layer comparison: Compare multiple layers with each other. This allows you to plot multiple data sets at the same time as an overlay. More info in the next section.
• Create new layer: Create a new and empty layer.
• Delete layer: Remove this layer and data set from the visualisation window

Compare layers

If you want to compare different test data with each other, you can use the compare layer mode. Once it’s toggled, you can see the same signal of different files/layers visualised in the same plot.

To start: make sure that you have multiple layers open (multiple files that are visualised. You can easily check this by going to the layers area of the plot and clicking on the dropdown.

Secondly, click the “compare” toggle in the same area and you will enter the compare layers mode. The logic of the colours changes with this mode and instead of a colour per signal, you will now get a colour per file.

You can add an offset to the 2nd visualised layer by clicking the settings wheel next to it and typing the number of seconds you want to offset.

Signals often have a hierarchy or come in groups. In that case, it can be useful to show the signals in a tree-like structure.

There are two ways Marple can detect groups in your signal data:

• The groups are present in the structure of the file (for example Matlab hierarchical structured signals)
• the groups are delimited by ‘.’ in the name of the file

‍

You can easily toggle between flat view or tree view using the ‘group signal’ toggle at the top of the signal list. In the tree view, you can easily collapse or expand the different nodes to find the signals you are looking for.

Once grouping is toggled, you can drag & drop whole groups at the same time in the plot. Note that in order to be able to detect groups automatically in Marple, the ‘Automatic grouping’ setting has to be enabled.

‍