Multi-Sub Optimizer Tutorial (page 4)

Getting Help With Dialog Boxes

All of MSO's dialog boxes use the "tool tip" feature. This is a yellow text rectangle that pops up when you hover the mouse over a dialog control. If you're wondering what the purpose of a particular control is,just hover your mouse over it and the explanatory text will pop up. If the text becomes hidden before you finish reading it, just move the mouse away from the control, then move it back to continue reading.

Trying Out Graphs

Since you now have imported data, you're in a position to take a preliminary look at graphs. You won't see all the possibilities with graphs just yet, but you can get a good first idea of how to use them by creating some simple ones with the data you now have available. You can create Graphs in two ways:

This will cause a new graph to be created, and the Graph Properties dialog to be launched as shown below.

Graph Properties dialog – Measurements page
Figure 5. Graph Properties dialog – Measurements page

You use this dialog both for creating new graphs as well as modifying existing ones. The dialog has a tree view on the left, which allows you to select different categories of options to change. Initially, the Data category is active, and the item underneath that, Measurements, is shown. You can plot four other types of data, but since you only have imported measurements at this point, only measurements are available. You'll see the other data types when you create them later in this tutorial. When you select Measurements, the pane on the right of the dialog shows all the measurements you previously imported. For this graph, choose the first five measurements (Pos1_mains.frd, Pos1_sub1.frd, Pos1_sub2.frd, Pos1_sub3.frd and Pos1_sub4.frd) as shown above by clicking on the checkboxes in the measurement list. These are all the measurements at position 1, which is the main listening position. After selecting them, do not press the OK button at this time. Instead, press Apply. The graph will immediately display the changes you've made, while still keeping the dialog box open if further changes are required. If you accidentally press OK, this will close the dialog box. To get the dialog box back, simply right-click the graph and choose Graph Properties from the context menu. In the tree view on the left side of the Graph Properties dialog, click Format. This will display the format options. Click Axes. The dialog box will be as shown below.

Graph Properties dialog – Axes page
Figure 6. Graph Properties dialog – Axes page

Notice that the default x-axis scaling is manual and the default y-axis scaling is automatic. You can change the y axis scaling to manual by unchecking Autoscale under Limits for left y axis,. Type in 30 to the min value edit box, and 130 to the max value edit box as shown above. Press Apply to see your changes. After you click the Apply button, it will be grayed out as shown above.

One useful feature of graphs is the data cursor. First, close the Graph Properties dialog by clicking on OK if you haven't yet done so. Next, right-click on the graph to show its context menu. Choose Show Data Cursor. This will cause the data cursor to appear as a vertical line, with the mouse cursor, now in the shape of a double-ended arrow, positioned on the data cursor as shown below.

Tracing graph data with the data cursor
Figure 7. Tracing graph data with the data cursor

This special mouse cursor indicates that you can use the left mouse button to drag the data cursor to the desired frequency and examine the trace data values. In the Output window, the Graph Cursor Data tab has been automatically activated, and the frequency at the cursor position, along with the SPL values of all of the traces at that frequency are shown. These values automatically update as you drag the data cursor. If you release the left mouse button and move it away from the data cursor, the mouse cursor goes back to its original shape. If you move the mouse cursor close enough to the data cursor, it will turn into a double-ended arrow and you can drag the data cursor again. To hide the data cursor, right-click on the graph and choose Hide Data Cursor from the context menu.