Lesson 9 - Profile analysis of data

In the previous lesson, you have learned how to create bullets. Lets now turn to a method of data analysis which produces a numeric result: Profile analysis. Profile analysis is similar to bullet analysis in that it is controlled by a custom variable definition file and is carried out using the Analyze Case Document command.

Creating trial profiles...

1. Select Close All from Wintrack's Window menu to close all open documents. Do not allow Wintrack to save changes to the documents. Open the sample case document SWIM1.WTR of the WINTRACK directory. Select the trials 2-5 using the mouse.
2. Make sure the custom setup file POOL3.WSP is loaded. You find the file in the WINTRACK directory of your hard disk.
3. Click the Analyze Custom button of the toolbar while pressing and holding down the Shift key. The Analyze Case Document dialog is displayed:
   • Press the button which is associated to the option from custom file in order to open a Windows™ standard File Open dialog box. Pick the file PROFILE1.VDF in the WINTRACK directory and click Ok.
   • Leave the dialog field labeled Report set to create new.
   • Leave the dialog field labeled range set to 3-5.
   • Click Ok to close the dialog box and start the analysis.
4. Wintrack will perform the analysis and display the results in a scrollsheet. Scrollsheets are Wintrack documents which are used to display tables with numbers or text.

   Note that the scrollsheet has 7 columns and 553 rows. The first four columns list case name, case number, trial number and data point number for every row. The scrollsheet has one row per point. The fifth column shows the time stamp of each point, the sixth local swim speed. The last column shows each point's distance to the wall of the pool. Now let's have a look at PROFILE1.VDF.

The syntax of the custom variable definition file...

1. Click the title bar of the case document SWIM1.WTR to bring it to the foreground, then click the Analyze Custom button of the toolbar while pressing and holding down the Shift key. The Analyze Case Document dialog is displayed. The dialog field next to the option from custom file still shows name and path of the custom variable definition file PROFILE1.VDF.
2. Click the NotePad... button located next to it. Wintrack starts Windows™ NotePad and lets it load the file PROFILE1.VDF. It should look something like this:

   Profile analysis, example 1
   
   [variables]
   
   Matrix Data=Stamp
   Include Rule=All
   Tabulate Sce=PtAll Name=time Fmat=3 Cmnt=[s]
   
   Matrix Data=Speed
   Include Rule=All
   Transform Mode=RunAve Frame=0.5
   Tabulate Sce=PtAll Name=speed Fmat=3 Cmnt=[m/s]
   
   Matrix Data=DistBder Field1=Arena
   Include Rule=All
   Tabulate Sce=PtAll Name=dist Fmat=3 Cmnt=[m]
   
   [end] 

   • All text above [variables] is free commentary. Between [variables] and [end] are the statements which define the sequence of analysis.
   • The first Matrix statement creates a temporary data matrix in which each trial is represented by a column and each data point by a cell and writes each point's time Stamp to the corresponding matrix cell. The Include statement selects All cells. The following Tabulate statement writes the content of all matrix cells to the scrollsheet as the fifth column, names it time and adds [s] as the column comment. Display precision is set to 3 decimal digits. The first four columns in the scrollsheet are created automatically by Wintrack to identify the data points.
   • The second Matrix statement prepares a data matrix whose cells contain local Speed values. Before tabulating the cell values to the sixth column of the report, a Transform statement is inserted to perform a running average smoothing of speed values within each column using a averaging Frame of 0.5 s.
   • The third Matrix statement prepares a data matrix whose cells contain each data point's distance to the border of the arena, that is the field named Arena in the currently loaded custom setup file. The cell values are tabulated to the last column of the scrollsheet.
3. Close Windows™ NotePad and when back in the Analyze Case Document dialog, click Cancel.

Lesson 10 - Custom trial analysis of data will show how to extend the power and flexibility of trial analysis by using custom variable definition files.