CinePlex v3 Manual - Plexon Inc

name and click Export! The Export Complete! dialog box confirms the
action.
7 Use a text editor such as Windows Notepad to inspect the text file. Most other
analyses programs can import the text format.
4.6.5 Entering Tracker Coordinates
Suppose that it is desirable to track the movement of some subtle feature on the
video image. Something that CinePlex Studio cannot track automatically, like
the position of the tip of a rat's tail.
The procedural approach here is to define a new Coordinates marker, and use the
Video window to enter—by mouse click—the coordinates that populate the new
marker. Then, we can use the Interpolate Missing Occurrences tool to fill in the
in-between frames.
Entering tracking coordinates
1 Define a new Coordinates marker (see “Defining a New Marker” on
page 169). Label it “Tail Position”.
2 In the Input window, after Left-Click, click Insert. CinePlex Editor is now
“armed” to create a new occurrence of the “Tail Position” marker whenever
clicking in the Video window.
3 Decide how often coordinates need to be entered. The default case is to enter
a Coordinates maker occurrence for each and every video frame. However,
this means that the video must be advanced frame-by-frame, which can take
a long time to do the tracking for an entire experimental run. If less accuracy is
acceptable, it is possible to configure CinePlex Editor automatically to
advance N video frames each time a coordinated is entered by clicking. This
means that a “Tail Position” coordinate is entered only every Nth frame, but
transversing the file occurs N times faster. From the Tools menu, select
Options, and click the General tab in the Options dialog box. Type the value
of N into the Number of Frames to Advance During Click-To-Add edit box.
The default is N = 1, which enters a coordinate for every video frame.
4 Click Play, then Pause, then Rewind to return to the beginning of the file.
This ensures that CinePlex Editor is ready to take new coordinates.
5 In the Video window, click at the position of the tip of the rat's tail. CinePlex
Editor enters a new marker occurrence, and advances N video frames.
6 Repeat Step 5 until all the data needed has been gathered.
7 When finished, in the Input window, at Left-Click, click Select to “disarm”
CinePlex Editor.
8 It is possible to generate automatically new “Tail Position” marker occurrences
for the skipped frames by interpolating the coordinates between the ones
entered. This is similar to “key-frame” animation techniques. CinePlex Editor
interpolates the coordinates mathematically with no regard for the video
images—the interpolated positions may or may not match the actual
positions of the rat's tail on the skipped video frames. To perform this
operation, from the Tools menu, select Interpolate Missing Occurrences;
for more information, see “Interpolate Missing Occurrences” on
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