Graphing and Data Analysis Software Upgraded

By DE Editors

OriginLab Corp. (Northampton, MA) has announced the availability of version 8.6 of its widely deployed Origin and OriginPro graphing and data analysis software. Noting that many of the changes in this release were developed based on customer feedback, the company reports that the upgrades and enhancements span all major areas of the software, including memory access, graphing, worksheets, importing, and data analysis. The most significant new feature in Origin and OriginPro 8.6, says the company, is the availability of a native 64-bit version in support of customers working with large data sets.

“Many of our users want to import and work with large data sets such as multiple channels of data sampled over long periods of time,” said Dr. Easwar R. Iyer, OriginLab vice president of technology, in a press statement. “With our new native 64-bit version they can bring a large amount of data into Origin and then save their data, graphs, analysis results, and reports all in one Origin Project.”

Origin’s new Spider/Radar chart enables users to display and compare
multivariate data. Image courtesy of OriginLab.

OriginLab Corporation introduced “Gadgets” in an earlier release of Origin. Gadgets, as described by the company, provide users a quick and easy way to perform exploratory analysis on data plotted in a graph. Analyses can be performed on a specific range of the data plot by positioning a region-of-interest (ROI) object to select the desired range. Three new Gadgets—Vertical Cursor, Sigmoidal Fit, and Curve Intersection—make their debut in Origin 8.6. Vertical Cursor provides the ability to read X and Y coordinate values for crossing data points on stacked panel plots and tag them. The Sigmoidal Fit Gadget can perform a quick sigmoidal fit in the ROI range. Curve Intersection provides the ability to calculate the intersection points of input curves and output the X,Y values to a worksheet.

In addition to the native 64-bit application version and new Gadgets, Origin 8.6 has been enhanced with the ability to zoom and pan inside graph layers using keyboard or mouse. “This will be very helpful for users to quickly identify and select regions of interest in their large data sets for further investigation,” explained Dr. Iyer.

Origin’s image profiles plot are said to provide a quick way to analyze image
data and generate profiles. You can create horizontal, vertical, and arbitrary
line profiles of the image data dynamically. Image courtesy of OriginLab.

Key new features in version 8.6 are said to include auto-hide for dockable windows; spider/radar chart, parametric function plots; import menu customization; and nonlinear fitting with integral. Other features and enhancements such as a new messages log window, a split worksheet tool, raw and index data support for more statistical tools, the ability to specify data range using X values, improvements to distribution curves for histogram plot, and flat-sheet output for column statistics have also been incorporated into this version.

OriginPro builds off Origin with additional analysis tools for image handling, peak fitting, signal processing, statistics, and surface fitting. Version 8.6 of OriginPro has been extended with all the new Origin features as well as advanced statistical tools in the area of principal component analysis and cluster and discriminant analysis. More normality test methods have also been added.

A 3D scatter plot with error bar and a 3D color fill surface create with Origin.
Image courtesy of OriginLab.

Version 8.6 of Origin and OriginPro leverage 1.0 GHz or higher Pentium-compatible workstations running Windows operating systems, including NT 4.0 or later, 2000, XP or later, Vista, and Windows 7. Additional hardware requirements include 512MB RAM (1GB recommended), a DVD drive, and 500MB of free hard disk space.

Origin is available in such forms as a single-user package, academic, and company-wide site license. Origin can also be applied as an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) solution for instrument manufacturers. Pricing for a single seat of Origin is $1,095 ($1,800 for OriginPro). The price includes the first year of maintenance service. For more information on Origin, go here. For more information on OriginPro, go here.

Created with Origin, this is a 3D surface to show the Pb-Cd 3D spectrum,
consists of a 3D surface with color map and its contour projection on the XY plane.
Image courtesy of OriginLab.

Watch a video overview of new features in Origin 8.6.

Watch a video on the Auto Hide feature for Project Explorer and other dockable windows in Origin 8.6.

Watch a video on zooming/scrolling inside graph layer in Origin 8.6.

Watch a video how to plot and customize a radar/spider chart in Origin 8.6.

Learn all about Origin’s Gadgets here.

Go here to sign-up for a fully functional 21-day evaluation copy of Origin/OriginPro.

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