Getting Acquainted 

Starting  digiMatic
      Always start digiMatic  after you start whatever program you will use to display your graph image.  digiMatic  uses the image by maintaining the window of the display program on the screen. The first time you start up digiMatic , you will be presented with a personalization dialog.

Type in your name or company name or CB Handle or whatever and click OK.  Your name is now indelibly inscribed on digiMatic  and you will see it each and every time you open digiMatic  (neat, huh?).  If you mess up, it only costs about $200.00 to have your name legally changed to match whatever you typed into the box.
      When you click OK, the digiMatic  Help box will pop up.  Henceforth, you may view this Help feature by typing 1-H or by clicking the digiMatic  logo at the bottom of the Main Control box.  Click on the Help box and it will disappear.

      You will then see the digiMatic  Main Controls box appear.  The box has eight buttons and their functions are described below.  You can click and drag this box (and the Record boxes described later) anywhere on screen by clicking the top of the box and dragging.  All other digiMatic  boxes can be moved by holding down the option  key on your keyboard while clicking and dragging the box.

      In almost all cases, you will use these buttons to perform actions with digiMatic .  Because the screen is used to display and capture the points in your graph image, we designed digiMatic's  controls to be small and as unobtrusive to the screen image as possible.  For all but a few functions (notably the Copy command), you will not find menu items for commands.  Virtually all commands have command key equivalents as shown in the Help box, but don't go looking for menus.  You won't use or need them and, if present, they would interfere with the operation of the program.  Sorry, we had to make some exceptions to the Mac interface guidelines on menus to get digiMatic  working like it should.  Mac purists are encouraged to write lots of letters to MacWeek, MacUser, and MacWorld to discuss our approach — please be sure to mention digiMatic  by name and include our address and telephone number.  Thank you.

digiMatic's  Main Control Buttons

       The Set button brings up the Options dialog shown below.  Here 
         you choose the type of cursor to use and set options for copying and saving the data.  Also, choose how you would like digitized data to be "played-back" during a recording session and set the size of the points or lines that will be drawn during playback.  Additionally, tell digiMatic  whether you will be looking at one or all four quadrants and pick what type of screen scan to use when in AutoScan mode.
      At the bottom of the Options box, you may click Sound on or off.  If "on", digiMatic  will issue an audible "schwick" each time you click a point in Mouse mode.  Select the appearance of the play back screen with the Draw On Desktop checkbox.  If X'd, play-back will draw on top of the existing screen image.  If blank, it will draw in an empty window.  Clicking the mouse during playback will return you to the prior image.  Finally, choose whether you wish to use Point Averaging in AutoScan mode.  We'll explain point averaging later.

      You can change these options at almost any time by using 1-O to bring back the Options box.  When you quit digiMatic , it will remember your last set of choices.

       These are the X-Axis and Y-Axis dialog buttons.  Clicking one of 
         them will bring up the respective dialog used to define the 
         coordinates on a graph image.  Each of these dialogs has a button to 
         bring up the other so you needn't return to the Main Controls box while "mapping" the coordinate axes.  You will use these dialogs to tell digiMatic  what type of axes you have, what the minimum and maximum values on the axes are, and what precision to use to display your recovered data for editing and saving.  You will be able to change the precision choice during editing so don't fret if you forget to pick 4 instead of 2 in these dialogs.

      The minimum and maximum values represent the smallest and largest numbers on an axis.  Typically, you will enter values for these and then use the cursor to click on the image axis location corresponding to the maximum value you entered.  The pixel location of this point will appear in the dialog.  The max point need not be the actual maximum value on an axis - any value for which you can get a good screen click at that value on the axis will work as well.  For logarithmic axes, you will usually define the max point at a decade value — again, this isn't a necessity.  Just be sure to always click the axis location that corresponds to whatever X or Y Max value you enter.

Note:  In either the X Axis or Y Axis dialog, hold down the option key on your keyboard, drag the mouse to the lower, right hand corner of your screen and click, and digiMatic  will automatically enter the values for the screen pixel coordinate system of your monitor.  This feature is handy for programmers and for determining the relative area of closed polygons and closed curves by counting the pixels using AutoScan.  See the examples titled For Programmers Only and Finding Areas in the Tutorials chapter.

      The X and Y axis minimum values you enter should always be those at the intersection of the two axes in an image.  If the image is orthogonal (square to) the edges of your monitor, leave the Auto-Origin button clicked "on" and digiMatic  will locate the pixel value for the intersection automatically.  If your image is rotated away from screen square (either you had it crooked when you scanned it or you are using an overhead and it isn't quite square), don't spend a lot of time trying to square the image. digiMatic  has an unrotate feature that automatically corrects the recovered data values for any rotation of the image.  Use this feature by unclicking the Auto-Origin button after you have defined the two axis maximums.  When you click the Set Origin button, the dialog below pops up and allows you to click on the image location of the intersection of the axes.  Using this point and the two axis maximum locations, digiMatic  can calculate the correct values for your recovered data points (the image will remain cockeyed so don't expect it to suddenly appear screen square — it started out ugly and it's gonna stay ugly).

      Be sure to click the Log radio button if your axis is logarithmic and choose whether you want your values displayed in Decimal or Scientific notation.  Your may use either format for entering values for X and Y Min and Max.

       This is the Mouse Mode Record button.  Click this button if you 
         are going to record data points from your image by using the mouse to point and click on the data points.  If you are using a digitizing tablet or using an overhead transparency to display the image, you will always use Mouse Mode since there is no computer image for AutoScan Mode to use.  The Record box below will appear.

      When Record is active, a data point will be collected each time you click the mouse.  The point counter at the bottom of the box will increment by one.  The coordinate values at the last point clicked will update for each point while the current coordinate value location corresponding to the mouse location is updated instantly as the mouse is moved around the image.  If you are digitizing in the top right quadrant of a graph, points clicked outside this quadrant will nevertheless be converted to the correct numerical value for the axes definitions.
       The Add button in the Record box is used to begin another curve.  
         Each time you click the Add button, a new list of data points is 
         started and will be displayed as a  separate curve in the Edit window 
         described later.  The Play button is used to get digiMatic  to pause 
         and display all of the points you have clicked.  It is useful for deciding whether you have missed one of the points or if you have clicked enough points along a solid curve to get a good representation of the curve.  The points are displayed as points, connected lines, or as a bar chart depending on your choice in the Option box described previously.
      If you should stop a Record session by using the Stop button, you will be returned to the Main Controls box.  Subsequently clicking on  either Record button in the Main Controls box will bring up the following dialog.

If you click No, all previously clicked data points from all curves will be erased and you will start all over again.  If you click Yes, you will be returned to the previous Record session as if you never left.  At this point, you may click more points to add them to the current curve, or you may click Add and start a new curve to add to the current set of curves.
      Mouse Record mode is the easiest-to-learn method of digitizing data.  If you are new to digiMatic , use Mouse mode before using the AutoScan feature discussed in Chapter 3.  Once you have learned to use both modes, you will learn to mix them in a single session to get optimum digitizing results.  Example 3 of the Tutorials chapter shows you how to do this.

       The AutoScan Record button is used to enter an AutoScan 
         session.  AutoScan mode is useful only for scanned images displayed in a drawing or painting program.  Although it is quite easy to use once you understand how the tools work, there is sufficient complexity in describing how the tools work that we will devote a separate chapter to using AutoScan techniques.

       The Edit button is clicked to use the Editor shown below.  
         Here, you view and edit the coordinate values of each of the points in each of the curves you have recorded.

Points can be edited, deleted, and sorted by X value.  The decimal precision of the displayed points may be changed.  You can edit the default X Axis and Y Axis headers and put in more descriptive headers if you wish.  Your headers will be saved with the data.
      You may use one of two different algorithms to calculate the area under a curve.  With this feature, you can calculate the relative areas of chromatogram peaks and even calculate the area within a closed polygon or curve region.  We'll show you how in the Tutorials.  For AutoScan recorded curves, there may be several hundred or even thousands of recorded data points.  In many cases, it is useful to "weed out" many of these points by having digiMatic  save points at some user-defined interval — save every 20th point only or maybe every 33rd point.  digiMatic's  Edit window has a tool for this also.  All of the features of the digiMatic Editor are explained in Using the Editor.

       Clicking the Save button brings up a standard Macintosh File Dialog 
         box.  Your data is saved to disk as a tab-delimited text file.  Nearly all Macintosh programs can import tab-delimited text.  Saved data can be imported into spreadsheet programs, graphics programs, word processors, text editors or just about any other program you might want to use to further manipulate the data.  Choosing Portrait style as the text save option in the Options window causes the data to be written to a file in two tab-delimited columns down a page.  Each data set is separated from the others by the X Axis and Y Axis headers you saw in the Edit window.  This choice is often useful for importing into a word processor.
      For most work however, the new Landscape style is a better option.  This allows digiMatic  to save a file in which the X,Y data pairs for a curve are written down the page in tab-delimited columns, but with each curve following the other across the page rather than down the page.  When this data is imported into a spreadsheet, the data will appear in columns across the page with a header at each column — essentially ready to rechart without further editing.

Note:  Landscape style is especially useful for users who will import the data into Kaleidagraph™.  See the Kaleidagraph manual for information on using the Merge command for importing data.

       Print is another new feature in digiMatic  V2.0.  It is useful 
         primarily for getting a quick printout of the digitized data.  Users may paste these simple printed graphs into a laboratory notebook when publication quality graphs are really not needed.  A cellulose-graphite composite stylus (not included, but available from FEB) may be used to rapidly annotate graphs printed from digiMatic  .  This saves time since it is unnecessary to import and replot the data with a graphics program.  The type of graph that will be printed depends on which Quadrant option was chosen in the Options box.  The data values will be displayed according to the Playback choice in the Options box.
      Printing supports both the ImageWriter and LaserWriter and will follow a standard Macintosh Page Setup dialog that can be used to reduce the size of the plot if desired.  The printed plot might look something like the one below.  (What?!! No Postscript and QuickTime rotation animations?).  Please feel free to use your cellulose-graphite composite stylus to annotate the plot before you paste it into your notebook.  You just saved yourself about 30 minutes of time playing with that graphics package.  (Have we been good to you ever since the baby came or what?!)

Where to Go From Here
      If you plan on using digiMatic's  AutoScan feature, select the Using AutoScan chapter from the Table of Contents.  If you are going to use Mouse Mode and won't need to AutoScan yet, select Using the Editor from the Table of Contents and read that chapter before doing some of the Tutorials.  Or, you could simply quit from the Electronic Manual and start playing with digiMatic  — that's how we learned.  Like, you know, like there wasn't any manual to tell us how to use it!  Like we even had to install it without any help or anything...like, bummer, you know?