Zero-crossing programs

This page will be updated with more recent versions of the program for both Mac and Windows machines by late September 2016

Introduction: This page contains links to download Power Macintosh executable programs for zero crossing analysis of waveforms. These programs will run on any Power Macintosh.

There are also links to the "source code" (National Instruments LabView version 5 virtual instrument libraries) which will allow anyone who has installed LabView 5.0 or greater to run the program on Windows,Macintosh, or Unix platforms. The libraries will also allow anyone with the development system to improve on my poor efforts!

Description of the Stand-Alone Programs: Again.these are Power Macintosh programs. They are unusual in that they were constructed as "virtual instruments" using National Instruments' LabView development environment. They have been compiled to run on machines that do not have LabView installed. Both programs are very fast on any typical Power Mac.

These programs all require that sounds be inputted as text files.Since I analyze cricket calls, I use programs such as Canary 1.2 to extract single sound pulses and save these as text files. So, be warned thatthere is no feature for direct input of sound.

When the ZC program is run, it prompts the user for the text file. It then loads the file and asks for a destination for the results of the analysis.It then generates an oscillogram of the original data, a plot of frequency vs. time for all values in the data file and for only those values where the sound amplitude exceeded a user set threshold. Finally,it also displays the power of each cycle vs. time. All of these data are saved into a tab-delimited text file that can be read by any spreadsheet or graphing program.

The Version 5 User Manual(pdf). This is 19 pages long with text and illustrations. Note that this option is provided so that you can read about the program without downloading it. The user manual is also packaged with the programs (next option) and VI Libraries (see below).

About the National Instruments Libraries ("Source"):Users of Windows, UNIX, or any Macintosh who have National Instruments' LabView v5.0 or later installed, can download the National Instrument VI Libraries and use the program on their machines. You should also feel absolutely free to edit and redistribute your efforts. You may not, however, sell any of the code I developed and distribute from this site.

Material Available for Download

1. Executable Programs and (Power Macintosh Only)

    • a README file, and

    • a sample audio file.

    • the entire download is about 4.5 MB.

What to do after downloading the file:

  • Your web browser may automatically unpack the file.

  • If it does not, you will need to decode the bin hex with some utility such as Compact Pro or Stuffit. After decoding is over ,you will see an icon labeled "ZC_v5_Distribution.sea". Double click this and a folder containing the above mentioned items will be saved to the place you direct.

2. Libraries (plus manual) as binhexed (Mac) or zipped (Windows) files. Note that windows users will need to have some utility to unzip these files.

I hope this program is of use to you in your research and teaching.

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