fastplot

fastplot is a fast and convenient object-oriented signal plotter (an alternative to eeglab's eegplot). It is intended to be easy to work with not only through the gui commands and mouse clicks but also programmaticaly. Starting up fastplot is very easy:

plt = fastplot(EEG);

Keybord and mouse interface

The biggest difference from eegplot is that you do not see any buttons - almost the whole figure is used for signal display. This is because fastplot focuses on keybord-driven operation with mouse being used only for selecting channels / time segments.

movement

Navigation is available through keybord arrows:
- go one unit (one epoch) further in time
- go one unit (one epoch) back in time (yes, fastplot allows for time-travel!)

You can also navigate the signal vim-like:
h - go back one unit
l - go one unit forward
w - go one window forward
b - one window back

Prefixing the movement with a number executes the movement command this many times. For example 4w will move you four windows forward.

= - scale signal one unit up (this is the same key as +
- - scale signal one unit down
e= - add one epoch to the window view
e- - remove one epoch from the window view

selection

fastplot allows you to mark signal in a variety of ways:
m - choose currently used mark type
am - add mark type
left mouse button - clicking an epoch marks it with current mark type (note that you can mark one epoch with several marks)
shift + left mouse button - mark all epochs since last mouse click with the current mark type (more precisely - all epochs since but not including last clicked epoch are inverted with respect to currently selected mark type).

API

fastplot allows for easy control through its object oriented interface. First to create fastplot object (this also opens the gui):

plt = fastplot(EEG);

You can invoke movement commands this way:

% move the window by 2 units forward
plt.move(2);

% move the window 5 units back:
plt.move(-5);

You can ask the gui to refresh:

% refresh the gui
plt.refresh();
% refresh(plt) does the same

If you know the keybord shortcuts that produce certain behavior of fastplot but you do not know the name of the method that does the same thing programmaticaly - you can use the eval method. It allows you to pass a string that will be evaluated as if it was a series of key presses:

% move forward one epoch
plt.eval('>'); % > is understood as right arrow
plt.eval('3b'); % b goes one full window back so 3b goes 3 windows back

You can also add marks using add_mark method:

% adding new mark type
new_mark.name = 'new mark';
new_mark.color = [0.4, 0.7, 0.2];
plt.add_mark(new_mark);

:construction:

And some other stuff:

% select mark as currently active
plt.use_mark('new mark');

% mark epochs
plt.mark('reject', [1:3, 5, 8:10]);

plt.visible_epochs(); % or just plt.epochs()
plt.visible_events(); % or just plt.events()
plt.marks('vis');

% move the current view three epochs right
plt.move(3);

% evaluate strings as if they were series of button presses:

% add 3 epochs to the view
plt.eval('3e='); % '=' works as '+' - it is the same button
% scale signal up by four units
plt.eval('4=');

% then, after using the gui for a while, you close it,
% but want to reopen it at the same point you closed:
plt.plot() % all settings and selections are retained