Cut Continuos Acquired Data into Sweeps

When yo have streamed data to file via the Continuos Acquisition feature of Mr. Kick (or MKuDaq) you may need a tool to cut these data into sweeps in order to read them back into Mr. Kick.

This tool is called Cont Stream to Sweep Cutter. It is available from the Action menu, choose Cut Cont. into Sweeps. Or you may initiate it immediately after doing Continuos Acquisition.

• How it works
• Getting started
• Settings
• Cut into sweeps

How it works

First the Cont Stream to Sweep Cutter will read through the entire file detecting trigger points according to the trigger settings you have chosen.
Then it will read the data for the individual sweeps and let Mr. Kick process and save them to disk. When finished you will get the opportunity to choose a file name and location. This new file can be read by Mr. Kick.

Getting started

Follow these steps to cut continuos acquired data into sweeps:

1. Adjust relevant settings via the usual Settings menu
2. Choose Cut Cont into Sweeps from the Action menu
3. Select a file
4. Adjust / confirm trigger o.a. settings
5. Lean back while your file is sliced...
6. Chose a file name and location for the Mr. Kick compatible file - save

Trigger a.o. Settings

The following settings should be adjusted via the usual Mr. Kick Settings menu before you initiate cutting into sweeps:

• Acquisition
• SweepLength*: Controls the length of the newly cut sweeps.
• PreTrig*: Controls the amount of data included before the trigger point.
• DownSamp Factor*: Channels originally set for Low Sample Rate will be downsampled by this factor.
• Classification - If you choose to classify sweeps, only Analysis of Sweeps classification mode is allowed! - PreClassification modes (Stimulus Type and Stim. Protocol) will automatically be disabled.
• All settings relevant to the classification mode in use.
• Y-Analysis related settings.
• Trigger*
• All settings relevant to analog trig mode.

*Note: These settings may also be adjusted via the window illustrated right.
It will pop up as soon as you have selected a file for cutting.

Setting a Refractory shorter than the SweepLength has a slightly different meaning here than when acquiring sweeps in Mr. Kick: Here sweeps may overlap!
This implies that if more trigger points are detected within the time frame of one SweepLength, then some samples will be included in more sweeps.
It also implies that no data are 'lost' between sweeps, as is the case when Mr. Kick acquires sweeps

The following settings are not relevant when cutting data into sweeps:

• Acquisition, except above mentioned
• Analog Input - must have been set before acquisition!
• Event Timing
• Analog Output

Even though Event Timing and Analog Output have not been applied during acquisition, their settings will still be saved unchanged to the data file! - It may be a good idea to turn them off manually before cutting.

Cut into sweeps

When you have acquired and saved a continuos stream of data you can cut it into sweeps again and again, fine tuning the trigger parameters to fit you purpose. More advanced trigger detection and cutting techniques may become available in the future.