The MFIT (MULTIPLE 1-D FITTING) Interface

Both 1-D and 2-D models may be fitted to experimental data using a variety of minimisation methods. 1-D model fitting is available within the MFIT (MULTIPLE 1-D FITTING) interface. This interface contains the equivalent of the MFIT program [7]. (2-D fitting is available in the ``KEYBOARD'' interface, within the FIT sub-menu.) An example of the graphics output and the main menu is shown in Figure 29, Page .

Figure 29: The MFIT (MULTIPLE 1-D FITTING) Main Menu

The main menu contains the following commands:

EXIT: Exits MFIT (MULTIPLE 1-D FITTING) interface and returns to main ``scientific interface'' menu. Note: data can be moved from one interface to another.

FULL: Sets the extent of the ``region of interest (ROI)'' or ``active data region (ADR)'' to be the whole of the currently defined data. Note: the filtering commands only affect the current region of interest.

OUTPUT: General GUI output menu. Saves the current "region of interest (ROI)" in a selected file with a choice of file formats.

?: Help text with short explanation of commands.

CONSTRAINTS: Allows individual fitting parameters to be constrained to fixed values or left free to evolve.

INITIALISE: Interactive graphical definition of a fit model. With a choice of fitting functions. (See Section 9.1, Page .)

INPUT: starts an interactive file selection tool to allow selection of directories, and of a file for input (see Section 5.1, Page ).

HELP: Detailed help text on the interface and the available commands.

Z-SCALING: starts a sub-menu which allows the false colour/ grey scale used to display image intensities to be changed. Different automatic and fixed scaling methods can be selected.

PRINT: Save the currently displayed data image as a PostScript file. You are prompted for the name of the output file to create. After the file is fully written, it may be sent to a PostScript printer for printing.

EXCHANGE: transfers data from the ``main program array'' to the ``memory array'', and vice versa. This may be useful to save some data whilst another operation is overwriting the ``main program array''.

MASK: Interactive graphical definition of data regions to be masked off (or un-masked). Masked pixels and elements are ignored in the fitting.

ZOOM-IN: allows a sub-region of the data to be selected and displayed. It should be noted that all operations only work on the current selected region.

DISPLAY: Enter the GUI general display menu, assuming that data has been defined.

OPTIONS: Starts the general GUI OPTIONS sub-menu which allows various display options to be modified, and control of the graphical output style. Used to alter the colour table, etc. after data has been input.

OPTIMISE: Tries to optimise the fit model to the data values. This button may be pressed more than once.

RESULTS: Display of the fitted model parameters. This is displayed in a text window and may be saved to an output file.

SET-UP: Graphical form allowing setting of control parameters.

TRANSPOSE: Transpose data so that columns before the rows, and vive versa. The fitting works on the rows, so the TRANSPOSE command is necessary to fit the column wise data.