Although Logger Pro is designed primarily as a data collection and analysis tool, it
can be helpful to organize and annotate data collected. To that end, Logger Pro
has a number of features that allow you to change how your data is presented.
For example, I've collected some motion data by tossing a small ball above the
motion detector. By default, Logger Pro displays position and velocity data.
Although, it recorded acceleration data during the run as well. I set up my Logger
Pro window already to show some of these organization features.
The easiest way to organize your Logger Pro window and the data it contains is by
inserting, deleting, or moving objects such as tables, graphs, text, and
pictures. Most of this is done using the features in the insert menu. In this menu,
you find options to insert a graph like the one presented here. Other graphs, such
as Histograms, Fast Fourier Transforms, and Strip Charts. Additional data tables,
like this one here.
A digital meter is a digital readout of a sensor value, this box down here on the
lower left hand corner is a digital meter. Text refers to a text box on the graphs
and tables in the window, like this title here. Text annotation refers to a text box
embedded in a graph, like these here.
Logger Pro has a number of video and photo analysis tools but you can insert a photo
without analysis. For instance, you might want to insert a picture of your
experimental setup.
A parameter control is like a digital meter in that it displays a value, in this
case it would be a parameter or a variable you've created. But it also allows you to
adjust that parameter from the Logger Pro window, rather than digging into a menu to
change it.
Rectangles and ovals are decorative objects you can use to highlight or call
out text or other objects. The elements of the window can be manipulated to fit
better. If you want to move an element, hover over it's border until the mouse
becomes a hand icon, click and drag to move it to the desired location. You can
change its shape or size by clicking and dragging on the handles. You can delete it
by selecting it and then hitting delete. Of course if you didn't want to do that,
you can undo it by selecting Undo from the edit menu.
Options for individual objects can be found by right-clicking on them to pull up
their options menu or by selecting the object and going to the options menu up
top.
As you organize your window, two other features you might find helpful are using
additional pages and auto-arrange. By adding additional pages, you can have more
room to display your data. I've added a second page here to show my velocity data.
It's easy to navigate between them by using the left and right arrows or the
drop-down menu.
I can easily add another page to present my acceleration data. I'll just choose the
default options for the page and insert a new data table and graph. The page menu
offers a number of options for setting up each page. The auto-arrange feature is
particularly helpful. Although it may not set up the page just as you want, I often
use it as a starting point and then tweak from there.
Organizing your data in the Logger Pro window makes viewing and analyzing data
easier. By creating additional pages, adding text box and annotations, and
inserting graphs, you can even have students use a Logger Pro experiment file
as a virtual lab report. Look for more videos tutorials to get the most out of
Logger Pro.