A time-series data analysis program for Linux
Aplot is a program for handling time-series data, especially:
- sampled data recorded from sound cards, A/D converters, etc.
- times of occurrences of neuronal action potentials (the spiking activity of cells in the nervous system)
- labels that annotate times or spans of time relative to the above types of data.
Aplot can provide multiple views of multiple files simultaneously, scrolling and zooming through these files very quickly, and keeping multiple plots in a window in temporal register.
It provides the following types of plots (all with time on x-axis):
- sonogram - frequency on y-axis, power as shades of gray/color
- oscillogram - amplitude on y-axis
- label - text markers that label times or spans of time
- raster - neuronal spikes as dots relative to an event
- PSTH - histogram of neuronal activity relative to an event
- ISI - histogram of inter-spike intervals
- a few other plots
It has been extensively used and developed over almost 15 years, primarily for the study of neuronal and microphone recordings in an auditory and motor neurophysiology setting. The interface is showing some signs of age, and it can be difficult to compile on some platforms, but it's quite fast over a remote X11 connection and great at viewing and analyzing time-series data from different sources.
In addition to visualizing data on-screen, aplot can produce high quality postscript and EPS printouts and saved files of these plots. The encapsulated postscript files can be imported into commercial drawing programs.
Aplot can also play sampled data through soundcards, mixing multiple channels into mono or stereo channels, and marking on its plots the samples being played in real-time.
To install prerequisites on Debian 12:
# apt-get install libmotif-dev libxmu-dev libxft-dev libfftw3-dev libjpeg-dev libhdf5-dev libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev scons
To compile and install:
scons
scons install
aplot is Copyright (c) 2002 by Amish S Dave (amish@amishdave.net). It is no longer actively maintained by Amish. This version was patched by Mike Lusignan and Dan Meliza to compile on more modern POSIX distributions and for rudimentary support of HDF5 files in ARF format (https://github.com/melizalab/arf)
Redistribution, use and modification of this software is permitted provided that the above copyright and this notice and the following disclaimer are retained.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.