Origin 8.6 Overview

By Vince Adams

Since our last review of Origin and OriginPro from OriginLab Corp., Northampton, MA, in July 2011, their developers have been hard at work to improve the processing power and level of insight offered by large amounts of critical data.

Version 8.6 of the data analysis and graphing software was released in November 2011, and shows that Origin fans won’t be disappointed. As OriginLab founder Dr. CP Yang states, “We are committed to developing a product portfolio that caters specifically to the needs of our users.”

For engineers, scientists and researchers who still rely on Microsoft Excel for plotting and data analysis, the ability to extract insight from data offered by Origin will hit you like a shot of triple espresso. You won’t look back. Anyone who works with large datasets knows that the more ways you can visualize data will help in identifying non-intuitive trends and correlations. Origin has truly set the bar for plot types and richness of graphics.

One of the most notable improvements in version 8.6 is the implementation of a native 64-bit version. Users of large datasets have already noticed the increased speed of data manipulation and analysis. Additionally, the 2GB file size restriction of the 32-bit version is removed, allowing users to leverage the installed RAM on their PC to its fullest.

The User Interface

As shown in Figure 1, Origin is toolbar-driven with two primary sections: the Project Explorer, on the left, and the working or active window. In version 8.6, the Project Explorer is now dockable so that with a single click, that extra space is returned to either a table or graph view in the workspace. Other dockable windows include a new Message Log Window and Quick Help, previously accessible from the View dropdown menu.

Figure 1: The Origin 8.6 user interface.

Other interface improvements in Origin 8.6 that regular users will welcome are additional pan and zoom options that clearly acknowledge some people are mouse-centric and others are keyboard-centric. By using the Control key, one can zoom in and out with either the mouse wheel or keystrokes. Similarly, the Control and Shift keys give access to vertical and horizontal panning.

New Gadgets in Origin 8.6

Gadgets in Origin are tools that perform quick analyses on regions of interest (ROI) within a graph,  as shown by the yellow rectangle in Figure 2. Gadgets, introduced in OriginPro v8.5, are transient selections, using a rectangle, circle or ellipse on an existing graph, that report back information. The results calculated within a Gadget are updated dynamically as the ROI is dragged within a graph. Version 8.6 added three new Gadgets:

• The Quick Sigmoidal Fit Gadget will parameterize a dataset to a true sigmoidal function,  with numerous user-definable options based on the data source and end goals. This Gadget is shown in Figure 2.
• The Vertical Cursor Gadget provides a mouse-draggable cursor across the “X” or independent variable that displays its intersection with the data in one or multiple plots, as shown in Figure 3.
• The Intersect Gadget tags and labels all curve intersections within the ROI, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 2: Region of interest in the Quick Sigmoidal Fit Gadget.	Figure 3: The Vertical Cursor can be used across multiple plots.	Figure 4: The Intersect Gadget tags and labels all curve intersections within the region of interest.

Additional New Features

Many other enhancements have been included in OriginPro 8.6, including a new Spider/Radar plot,  Parametric Function Plots, Import Menu Customization, Worksheet Navigation Dialog, Nonlinear Fitting with Integrals, and a Split Worksheet Tool. This last feature allows users to easily create a new worksheet with a portion of the columns from an existing sheet.

As in previous releases, OriginPro 8.6 contains all the features of Origin, plus some high-end data plotting and analysis tools. In this release, Principal Component Analysis,  K-Means Cluster, Hierarchical Cluster and Discriminant Analysis have been added.

As before, the vast majority of improvements to Origin & OriginPro are driven by customer input collected by the Technical Support team at OriginLab.

Users receive 90 days’ free support with each purchase, and ongoing maintenance plans are available. Current maintenance customers also receive upgrades during their maintenance period.

Vince Adams, currently an account manager for LMS, is a longtime simulation educator,  consultant and speaker. He has authored three books on finite element analysis and numerous magazine articles. Contact him via [email protected].

MORE INFO

OriginLab.com