About SPLASH
============
SPLASH is a software tool for the display and analysis of data,
principally used for the display time series data. SPLASH runs on PC's
that run Windows (95 or higher). This software was developed at the UCLA
Institute of Geophysics and Space Physics (IGPP) for internal use only.
The developers of this code have made this version of Splash publicly
available, and distributable by the Planetary Plasma Interactions (PPI)
Node of the Planetary Data System (PDS). The software is copyrighted by
The Regents of the University of California and should not be distributed
by individuals. Please read the license agreement that appears at
installation.
Splash can read ASCII or binary tabular data described by detached PDS
labels; IGPP flatfiles; and ASCII data stored in comma separated value
(CSV) format where the first line consists of column headings. Splash
allows the user to produce publication-quality data plots quickly using a
simple and intuitive user interface.
Installation
============
An InstallShield file is provided in this directory, with the file name
SPLASH.EXE. A double click on this file will invoke the installation
wizard. Just answer the questions regarding where the software should be
installed (or accept the defaults by clicking "Next"). Users are required
to accept the terms of the license agreement during the installation
process.
Mapping .SPH files to Splash
============================
Once Splash is installed, a new user should map the Splash file extension
(.SPH) to the Splash software. In Windows Explorer, highlight (left click
on) one of the .SPH files in the EXTRAS/SPLASH directory (or
subdirectory). The press Shift while right clicking. Select "Open
with..." and click the "Always use this program..." button, and then
select "Other." Browse the system until you find the Splash executable
(C:\Program Files\igpp\Splash is the default location). Once this is
done, Splash should start up and load the Splash document selected. This
procedure should only need to be done once, after the initial
installation.
Using Splash
============
The following discussion is not meant to provide a complete guide to
using Splash. Some of the basic elements are described here, just to get
new users started. The interface is pretty intuitive so most people will
be up and running in short order.
Click on the page title
This brings up the "page" menu. You can select fonts and font sizes for
labels, display headers and footers, etc. Clicking the layout tab
allows you to set page margins, set the space between plot panels, set
the page orientation, etc. Gutter widths can be set to facilitate the
preparation of plot books, where an additional margin is needed for
binding. Clicking the "Data" tab allows the user to tell the software
how large a data gap to span before picking up the "pen," force all
panels to have common Y-axis scales, and skip or view blank pages in a
multi-page plot.
Click on a Y-axis
This invokes the Y-axis editor. The Y-axis can be autoscaled, have a
fixed range with a floating center, or have a fixed range. Scales can
be linear, log10, or natural log. If autorange is selected, there are
several options that a user can set to help the software decide on how
best to scale the plot. The range margin can be adjusted up or down to
relax (up) or tighten (down) how closely the min/max values fit the
data. Very tight matches can force the code to choose odd tick
intervals. A user can also force an autoscale to ignore values out of
range. This can be helpful if the data contain spikes that would
otherwise force the Y-axis scale to be much larger than required by
"good" data. Y-axis parameters can be applied to a single panel (OK) or
to all panels (Set all panels). Tick intervals are set in the "Ticks"
tab. Tick annotations are set using the options on the "Annotations"
tab. Labels are set using the Labels tab. Axis labels can contain
formatting (subscript, superscript, underline, bold, italics, and
symbol fonts for Greek and other special characters).
Click on an X-axis
Same as Y-axis. If the X-axis is time, the user can select from a
variety of time axis labeling formats using the "Anotation Style"
button on the annotation tab.
Additional Variables
In some instances, rather than plotting a variable, a user would prefer
to simply annotate the X-axis with the variable's value every so often
(at the major tick mark interval). You can invoke the additional
variables menu by clicking below the X-axis. Variables can be added or
removed in this menu.
Panel Options
You can invoke the "Panel Options" menu by right clicking in the main
plot area. This menu allows you to add or remove traces to a given
panel, and to edit trace properties (color, symbol, background). Panels
can be overlaid as an option under the layout tab. Overlaying panels is
useful when the scales of the variables plotted are quite different.
Typically, when you overlay two panels, you place the Y-axis labels for
the panels on opposite sides of the page (left vs right). Grids can be
added to panels (major and minor tick grids) using the options under
the "Grids" tab.
Layout Options
You can invoke the "Layout Options" menu by right clicking in the main
plot area. This menu allows you to add or remove panels from the plot.
In the top "box" new panels can be added, and the order of panels can
be changed. The bottom box allows additional traces to be added to
panels, and the "Variables" tab allows additional variables to be added
to the page.
Adding Markers to the Page or Panels
Sometimes a user wants to highlight or shade a particular part of a
plot to call out a special region of interest. You can add markers to
the plot by holding the CTRL key and left clicking (event marker) or by
holding down the CTRL key and left clicking and dragging (interval
marker). Once markers are set, double left clicking in or near the
marker will invoke the marker editor. In this editor, the marker color,
start/stop times, labels, etc. can be set or modified.
Mouse Tracking
By default, the mouse is tracked in all the panels, and the data values
nearest the mouse location are displayed on the right side of the
screen. When the X-axis is time, the tracker is a vertical bar and the
values displayed are the data values where the bar crosses the data. If
the X-axis is not time, then the mouse tracker is a cross-hair and the
value displayed are the values at the cross-hair location. Mouse
tracking options are set at the top of the page under "Graph" options.
File options
Under the "File" menu at the top of the page, the user can find most
of the common file operations (Save, Save As, Close, Print, Print
Preview, Print Setup). In particular, the user can open an existing
Splash document (.SPH file) or create a new document by reading a data
file. When creating a new Splash document, select the type of data file
that you want to read (Flatfiles, Lower Flatfiles, PDS labeled files,
ASCII files, etc.) and then use the browser to locate the data file.
Once a data file is opened, the user is prompted to create the basic
plot layout in a plot wizard. If a simple plot with one trace per panel
is desired, just click the "Next" button at the first page in the
wizard. If a multi-trace plot is needed, select "Advanced Mode." Just
answer the questions and you'll get a reasonable plot in short order.
Using .SPH files from a CD and from the Web
===========================================
The .SPH files on this CD are set up to display the data on the CD
in a useful format. The easiest way to use a .SPH file from this CD
is to open the file on the CD, without copying the file to your hard
disk first.
If you have a .SPH file on your computer's hard disk instead of on the
CD (for example, if you downloaded a file from the Web), then you will
need to observe the following procedure to get the same plot that you
would have gotten by using the file on the CD.
1. Be sure that you have the .TAB and .LBL files that correspond
to your .SPH file. (For example: along with the file
EBF00170.SPH, you will need files EBF00170.TAB and EBF00170.LBL.)
Download these from the Web if necessary; they're under the DATA
directory of the CD.
2. Create a directory somewhere on your hard disk. We'll call
this directory NEAR, although the name doesn't really matter.
3. Within this new directory NEAR, create the following directories:
(a) two subdirectories of NEAR called DATA and EXTRAS
(b) a subdirectory of EXTRAS named SPLASH
(c) a subdirectory of SPLASH named X
(You could use other names besides EXTRAS, SPLASH and X,
but these names will be convenient.)
4. Next, create a subdirectory of DATA. To get the name for this
subdirectory, open your .SPH file in a text editor. Look at the
seventh line from the top of the file. It will look something
like this:
DataRelative = ..\..\..\DATA\2000_170\EBF00170.LBL
Copy down the part of this line that lies between 'DATA\'
and the next '\' character. (In this example, that part will
be '2000_170'.) This is the name you want. Create a
subdirectory of DATA with this name.
5. Now copy your .TAB and .LBL files into the subdirectory that
you just created under DATA.
6. Copy your .SPH file into the subdirectory X that you created
in step 3.
Now you should be able to open the .SPH file with Splash and get the
same result that you would get by opening it directly on the CD.