Wish List for PFE Features

[AndrewLocock]

Hi John,
I would like to be able to better line up the Automate! Position List numbering scheme, and the quantitative analytical results.
 
Our student is taking BSE images with Automate! Digitize, Digitize Image.
The student then sets quantitative-analysis points using Automate! Digitize, Single Point.
 
After the points are run, the student exports all of the BSE images as bitmaps.
The student then goes to Automate! Digitize, Picture Snap and plots the unknowns with long labels, saving the annotated image as a BMP with graphic objects.
 
Unfortunately, the numbering scheme in the Analyze! Sample List is not the same as in the Automate! Position List.
This means that the annotated image does not match the analytical results, and the labels in the analytical results have to be updated manually.

As per your off-forum email "...thought about adding an additional field that could be saved during automated acquisition that contains the Automate row number for plotting or other purposes."  Could you please add this new field? In that way, the annotated BMPs would be a better reflection of the data.

Thanks,
Andrew

[John Donovan]

Hi John,
I would like to be able to better line up the Automate! Position List numbering scheme, and the quantitative analytical results.
 
Our student is taking BSE images with Automate! Digitize, Digitize Image.
The student then sets quantitative-analysis points using Automate! Digitize, Single Point.
 
After the points are run, the student exports all of the BSE images as bitmaps.
The student then goes to Automate! Digitize, Picture Snap and plots the unknowns with long labels, saving the annotated image as a BMP with graphic objects.
 
Unfortunately, the numbering scheme in the Analyze! Sample List is not the same as in the Automate! Position List.
This means that the annotated image does not match the analytical results, and the labels in the analytical results have to be updated manually.

As per your off-forum email "...thought about adding an additional field that could be saved during automated acquisition that contains the Automate row number for plotting or other purposes."  Could you please add this new field? In that way, the annotated BMPs would be a better reflection of the data.

Thanks,
Andrew

Andrew,
Ok, I see what you mean now.

There is already a solution for displaying the analysis positions in PictureSnap using the Analyze! line numbers as opposed to the Automate! row numbers.  Instead of using the menus from PictureSnap, simply open PictureSnap from this menu:



and then select the display unknown position and long labels menu as shown to see this:



I think that is what you want?

[BenjaminWade]

Just a minor thing, but for me it would be great if in the PHA window there was a "Get all" button or something to read in the PHA values for all elements at once instead of individually clicking on each element, get PHA, click OK. I guess I could just modify the SCALERS.DAT file every time I change the PHA settings...but was just a thought.

[John Donovan]

Just a minor thing, but for me it would be great if in the PHA window there was a "Get all" button or something to read in the PHA values for all elements at once instead of individually clicking on each element, get PHA, click OK. I guess I could just modify the SCALERS.DAT file every time I change the PHA settings...but was just a thought.

I could certainly add a "get all" button but if you change the ini file in the [software] section as seen below, it will occur automatically when you start the app.

[software]
UseCurrentConditionsOnStartUp=1   ; non-zero = read current instrument condition on software start

[Gareth D Hatton]

Hi John,

I have a request for the wish list.  I do a lot of MAN and it would be nice if in the "Aquisition Options" it was possible to highlight all of the elements and change them to MAN in one go.  It must be possible as you can change all of the on-peak times in the "Count Times" window. 

Best wishes

Gareth

[John Donovan]

Hi John,

I have a request for the wish list.  I do a lot of MAN and it would be nice if in the "Aquisition Options" it was possible to highlight all of the elements and change them to MAN in one go.  It must be possible as you can change all of the on-peak times in the "Count Times" window. 

Best wishes

Gareth

Hi Gareth,
I can absolutely add a "Change All To MAN" button and also a "Change All To Off-Peak" button. Easy.

You probably know this but since it's related I should mention that one can acquire off-peak data and subsequently process it both using off-peak background corrections and also using MAN background corrections as described here:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=4.msg189#msg189

If I'm going to be looking at the data repeatedly, I will often make a copy of the MDB data file and leave one file as off-peak (the default), but then use the menus described in the above link for the copied file to calculate everything using MAN backgrounds.

[John Donovan]

First, thanks to you and Gareth for all your efforts with the new graphics, the look very nice. A few minor tweaks to consider.

1) On TDI plots, would it be possible to remove (or at least make toggle-able) the thin lines connecting individual data points? They extra lines become distracting, especially if you are displaying multiple TDI's for multiple datapoints. I know you can have the software display a subset of the acquired data from a sample when displaying TDI fits, but sometimes you want to see all the data. See attached screenshot TDI_Lines.jpg.

I agree. Without the connecting lines it looks cleaner as seen here:



And if someone still wants connecting lines, I added an option for it:



Here's with a zoom:

2) For the CalcZAF error histograms, sometimes the histogram data overlaps the displayed metadata about which matrix correction options were selected. Maybe make the font for the metadata could be made smaller, or the metadata could be moved to a separate sub-plot, either off to the side or below the window? See attached screenshot CalcZAF_Histogram.jpg.

Yes, the graphics can be improved in several ways. For example, I also added a 1.0 line as seen here:

3) This one may pre-date the graphics conversion, but when using the Evaluate.exe application, when the "Use Average of Sample" option is checked, the standard with the highest concentration does not get displayed on the chart. See attached screenshots Evaluate_Average.jpg and Evaluate_NoAverage.jpg. This does not appear to be a scaling issue - expanding the X and Y does not reveal the missing points, and the data for the highest concentration sample is also omitted in the .DAT file produced by clicking "Save Data to File" when the average is used. Also, this behavior seems to only occur when plotting relative differences - when plotting calculated vs. database concentration (i.e. unchecking "Plot Relative Difference"), the highest concentration sample is displayed regardless of whether Use Average of Sample is checked or not.

I checked and the latest version of Evaluate seems to work:

[John Donovan]

I have a request for the wish list.  I do a lot of MAN and it would be nice if in the "Aquisition Options" it was possible to highlight all of the elements and change them to MAN in one go.  It must be possible as you can change all of the on-peak times in the "Count Times" window. 

Hi Gareth,
Nice to hear from you.  I did it slightly differently as seen here:

[Karsten Goemann]

I LOVE the new graphics. I'm creating some very pretty multi-background plots at the moment with overlaid wavescan and KLM markers.

I wish that in the Display MultiPoint Backgrounds window it would stay on the same element when switching between datasets and rows (like in the TDI window) and not jump back to the first element in the list when switching datasets or rows.

[John Donovan]

I LOVE the new graphics. I'm creating some very pretty multi-background plots at the moment with overlaid wavescan and KLM markers.

I wish that in the Display MultiPoint Backgrounds window it would stay on the same element when switching between datasets and rows (like in the TDI window) and not jump back to the first element in the list when switching datasets or rows.

Very cool.  We'd love to see some of your plots- feel free to utilize the new forum gallery.

As requested I'm uploading a new version of PFE now, that has the element selection preserved for different lines/samples in the MPB and also for the calibration curve dialogs.

[Gareth D Hatton]

Thanks for the new "Change all to MAN" button John, it will certainly reduce the number of clicks I have have to do

[John Donovan]

John - thanks for the graphics tweaks, they look excellent. Thanks also to you and Gareth H. for the "Change all to MAN" button - very useful feature.

Re: Evaluate, I'm using v11.3.4, updated from the main PFE Help menu at ~10am today. Still seeing the same behavior - the highest-concentration standard does not get displayed when using the "Use Average of Sample" option. Have tried a variety of different MDB files and standard databases, doesn't seem to matter. Also does not seem to be element-specific or standard-specific, and does not change whether there are a "lot" (>20) values to plot or only a "few" (~3-4). However, it's a minor point, so feel free to backburner it - if it's working on your end, it's probably the result of me being stupid rather than a bug. That said, the "Set 2" data points do not seem to get text labels in Evaluate (see screenshots). Not sure if this is intentional or not, but also nitpicky, so feel free to ignore.

Thanks again!

Hi Owen,
I deliberately do not show labels for subsequent sets.  I could do that but I thought it would get crowded.  That said, something doesn't appear to be quite right in your plots.

For example, standard 1110 is displayed (single square symbol), but there is no label as it's only plotted as a 2nd set for some reason.  Perhaps send me the MDB file off-line and let me look closer at it.

I'm pleased that people seem to like the new graphics.   These still some tweaking to do, e.g., symbols sizes, etc., but that's easy.
john

[BenjaminWade]

Just a minor thing, but for me it would be great if in the PHA window there was a "Get all" button or something to read in the PHA values for all elements at once instead of individually clicking on each element, get PHA, click OK. I guess I could just modify the SCALERS.DAT file every time I change the PHA settings...but was just a thought.

I could certainly add a "get all" button but if you change the ini file in the [software] section as seen below, it will occur automatically when you start the app.

[software]
UseCurrentConditionsOnStartUp=1   ; non-zero = read current instrument condition on software start

Great, thanks for that tip
I second Karsten's suggestion as well, but am late to the party so looks like that is now implemented as well!

[Karsten Goemann]

I LOVE the new graphics. I'm creating some very pretty multi-background plots at the moment with overlaid wavescan and KLM markers.

I wish that in the Display MultiPoint Backgrounds window it would stay on the same element when switching between datasets and rows (like in the TDI window) and not jump back to the first element in the list when switching datasets or rows.

Very cool.  We'd love to see some of your plots- feel free to utilize the new forum gallery.

As requested I'm uploading a new version of PFE now, that has the element selection preserved for different lines/samples in the MPB and also for the calibration curve dialogs.

Many thanks, I saw you also removed the connecting lines when displaying all data lines in a sample which looks much cleaner this way.

This is an example for Y in scheelite:


Or for S in scheelite:


Cheers, Karsten

[glennpoirier]

Hi John,
Enjoying the discussion about trace elements. It reminded me about one wish I have for the multipoint background display. Being colourblind, the actual spectrum overlay in the displays is just about invisible to me. Is it possible to allow the user to change colour  or alt least have a switch that can change the colour to something a bit less pastel. Otherwise I'm finding the colours appropriate, this is about the only place where I've having visibility issues.

Cheers

Glenn