The DB Software Package is a set of applications that can be used to manipulate digitized recordings such as those included on this disk. WAVE is an X Window System application designed for viewing and analyzing such recordings interactively. All of these applications are built using the DB library, a package of functions (subroutines) for reading and writing data files in the formats used on this disk (among others); the DB library may be incorporated freely into your own applications written in C or C++ (among other languages).
For general information on the DB Software Package and WAVE, see the Software notes.
To simplify typical installations, precompiled binaries of the DB Software Package, version 9.7, and of WAVE, version 6.1, are included on the disk, for use with several versions of UNIX:
CPU type UNIX version Window systems * SPARC SunOS 4.1.x Open Windows 2 or 3; or X11R4, R5, or R6 SPARC Solaris 2.x Open Windows 3; or X11R4, R5, or R6 386/486/Pentium Linux X11R5 or X11R6 (a.out); or X11R6 (ELF)
* A compatible window system is required for WAVE only (the remainder of the applications in the DB Software Package run in text mode). XView libraries are also required for WAVE; these are standard with Open Windows, and optional but freely available for generic X11.
If your CPU and operating system are listed above, and you wish to install the precompiled binaries into /usr/local, log in with root permissions and type:
sh install.unx(from within the software directory of the CD-ROM). Follow the instructions that will be presented on-screen to set your environment variables before using the DB applications. Read the section titled WAVE and the Web in the WAVE User's Guide to set up your Web browser so that it can start WAVE by clicking on one of the timestamp links in the HTML files of clinical data on this disk. Also be sure to read the remainder of this page for information specific to your version of UNIX.
If your CPU and operating system are not listed above, or if you need to do a non-standard installation, you can compile the DB Software Package, version 9.7, from the sources provided on this disk in software/db. Use any K&R or ANSI/ISO C compiler to do so; see software/db/makefile.unx for details. Sources for WAVE are not included; if you wish to install WAVE, you must do so from the binaries provided.
WAVE and all of the applications in the DB Software Package use the shared version of the DB library in order to read the recordings on this disk and others in a variety of supported formats. This allows great flexibility as well as modest savings in disk space and execution time. Since the shared library can be replaced without the need to recompile the applications that use it, you can modify the library, for example to add support for additional file formats. For details on this and related subjects, see the ECG Database Programmer's Guide.
If you can supply or can test a tar archive of the DB Software Package in precompiled form for a CPU or UNIX version not listed above, for inclusion in a future edition of this disk, please write to me (george@mit.edu).
WAVE (an X Window System application for viewing and analyzing recordings such as those on this disk) requires the XView library, provided on this disk in source form (xview32.tgz, a gzip-compressed tar archive; gzip is also provided in source form in software/gzip124.tar, an uncompressed tar archive). If you would like to help port WAVE to another version of UNIX, please try to compile the sample applications included in the XView distribution (in particular, cmdtool) first; if you succeed, please write to me to make arrangements for obtaining WAVE sources.
Refer to the ECG Database Programmer's Guide , and the ECG Database Applications Guide , for details on using the applications provided and on writing your own applications to read the recordings on this disk.
For general information about using WAVE, refer to the WAVE User's Guide. Type wave with no command-line arguments to get a brief summary of options and instructions for printing a concise on-line manual.
On some 24-bit color displays, an X server bug causes WAVE's signal window to appear empty when WAVE is first started. Use any of the navigation buttons to redraw the display in order to make the signals visible. Another X server bug may inhibit the display of text (such as annotations and time stamps) within the signal window when using overlay graphics on these displays. You can avoid this problem by using WAVE's `-S' option to specify the use of a shared colormap. Use the `Save as new defaults' button in the `View' panel to set this mode as the default.
See the Linux software notes for
peculiarities of using WAVE under Linux.