Desktop software for patch-clamp raw binary data conversion and preprocessing

Abstract

Via a graphical user interface, raw binary data files can be converted into several kinds of ASCII text files for further analysis, with several pre-processing options. The parameters can also be viewed, modified and exported into ASCII files by a user-friendly Explorer style window. In this study, the desktop software, called PCDReader along with a novel class module, called clsPulseData, directly reads raw data along with the parameters recorded from HEKA instruments without any other program support. The real-time data loading technique and optimized memory management programming makes PCDReader a fast and efficient tool.