Polyman Report Generator

Introduction

Polyman Report Generator allows creation of sleep reports using standard EDF+ annotation files.

Polyman's sleep report generating capabilities are made available as a separate software piece within this project. That is, Polyman Report Generator is a subset of the functionality contained in Polyman. However, this allows the possibility of interacting with the report generator from any programming language, script, or even a system console. Added possibilities include the batch processing of several EDF+ files, and the possibility to export to several formats including XML, PDF or PNG.

EDF and EDF+ file formats are commonly used in EEG and Sleep investigations, but can be used for almost any (also non-medical) sequential time series and event lists. The specifications of the EDF/EDF+ file formats are on www.edfplus.info and also in the following articles:

- Kemp B, Värri A, Rosa AC, Nielsen KD, Gade J. A simple format for exchange of digitized polygraphic recordings. Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophysiol. 82, 1992:391-393.

- Kemp B, Olivan J. European data format 'plus' (EDF+), an EDF alike standard format for the exchange of physiological data. Clinical Neurophysiology 114, 2003: 1755-1761.

Disclaimer

The free version of Polyman Report may NOT be used for medical diagnosis or therapy. Use it at your own risk, for research or educational purposes only. Polyman and Polyman Report are complicated software that inevitably contain mis-interpretations, mistakes, and bugs. We cannot and do not accept any liability for damages related to the use of this software. We sincerely urge you to regularly check all results obtained with Polyman. We cannot guarantee the safety and integrity of your data.

Polyman Report was tested on Win98/2000/XP/NT/Vista/7-10.

This information addresses the situation as of April 2021.

User License

Polyman Report is freely distributed, however it is not open source.

A major reason to develop and freely distribute Polyman Report, is that we want to promote the use of EDF+. Because EDF+ exists, Sleep and EEG labs can contribute to multi-center research projects, archive and retrieve their recordings and scorings indefinitely, and be free from vendor-lock.

EDF+ is the only data format for Sleep and EEG investigations that is accepted by most companies and researchers. But because of commercial reasons some companies prefer their own, proprietary, format. And for scientific or personal reasons, some researchers want to promote their own personal data format. Those companies and researchers would modify Polyman Report in such a way that it also reads their data format. In this way, Polyman Report would no longer promote the use of EDF+ and the Sleep and EEG community would risk a standards war.

Therefore, Polyman Report is not yet open-source. We try to keep it so attractive (and affordable) that more researchers and labs will want to use it and thus strive for EDF+ compatibility. Polyman Report then helps them to check EDF+ compatiblity of their recordings and scorings.

Download

Last version of Polyman Report Generator can be downloaded here (last update 06-04-2020)

HOW-TO use Polyman Report Generator

After download and uncompressing the file, Polyman Report Generator is made available through an .exe application which can be interacted (on Windows' compatible systems) from any programming or scripting language, or directly by using a system console.

For a quick start, you can just execute the demo files included within the package. Try to open and/or execute the two demo scripts included ("ExecuteDemo_Batch.bat" and "ExecuteDemo_Interactive.bat") from a command shell, or just by double clicking them using a windows explorer.

The full usage syntax is described next (note parameters between brackets are optional):

  • PolymanReport.exe "EDFplusAnnotationsFile.edf" "ReportTemplateFile.fr3" [/xml[:"xml_output_file.xml"]] [/png[:"png_output_file"]] [/pdf[:"pdf_output_file]] [/html[:"html_output_file]] [/silent] [/compact]

where

  • EDFplusAnnotationsFile.edf is the path to the location of the source EDF+ file containing the EDF+ standard annotations representing the scorings

  • ReportTemplateFile.fr3 is the path to a report template defining the layout and the contents of the resulting sleep report (Fast Report format, see attached "FRUser.chm" file for more information on this).

  • The /xml, /png, /pdf, and /html flags are optional and, if present, can be followed by the path to an output file that will be created in the corresponding chosen format. If the name of the output file is omitted then the output file will be named equal as to the input source file, just setting the extension as it corresponds. The /xml option is overall interesting to allow parsing of the different report indices, for example, for scientific purposes.

  • The /silent flag is optional allowing batch processing without requiring user interaction. If omitted, then Polyman Report executes through a dedicated GUI allowing configuration of extra options or editing the contents of the report

  • The /compact is optional (default is missing) which will force the resulting report to try to compact the contained information to reduce the overall resulting length

Configuration of the report templates

Within the packaged version of the tool a pre-built report template is included which implements the 2016 guidelines of the World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM) for the scoring of Periodic Leg Movements (PLM).

In addition, however, one can just create its own report template, or editing one of the pre-loaded defaults, by using the GUI provided with the tool, or any other Fast Report compatible editing tool (Check the provided "FRUser.chm" file for more information on this).

Creating or editing a report with Polyman Report Generator can be done respectively by clicking on the 'New...' or 'Edit' buttons: