Beatscope - Ug - Manual

BeatScope 1.
User’s Guide
© 05/2002 FMS
FMS, Finapres Medical Systems BV

Arnhem, The Netherlands
0344
2 BeatScope 1.1, User’s Guide
Copyright & Trademarks
Finometer, Portapres, Modelflow and BeatScope are manufactured and sold by:
FMS, Finapres Medical Systems BV, Arnhem, The Netherlands.
This document is for information purposes only.
WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATIONS
FMS MAKES NO WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION, EITHER EXPRESS

OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, ITS
QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. ALL LICENSED SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS AS IS
NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY EITHER
PARTY OR ITS EMPLOYEES SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OR MAKE
ANY MODIFICATION, EXTENSION OR ADDITION TO THE WARRANTY
FMS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL

OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS AND
DAMAGES FOR PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, ARISING
FROM OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE LICENSED RIGHTS OR ITS USE
WHATSOEVER.
IN NO CASE SHALL FINAPRES MEDICAL SYSTEM BV’S LIABILITY

EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE FOR THE SOFTWARE.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not
represent a commitment on the part of FMS. The software described in this User’s
Guide is furnished under a license agreement. The software may be used only in
accordance with that agreement.
Modelflow, Portapres, Finapres and Finometer are trademarks. Windows is a

trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a

retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means, for any
other purpose than the purchaser's personal use, without prior written permission of
Finapres Medical System BV.
BeatScope 1.1, User’s Guide 3
WARNING:
THE DATA PRODUCED BY BEATSCOPE OR ONE OF ITS COMPONENTS

SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A SOLE MEANS FOR DETERMINING A
PATIENT'S DIAGNOSIS.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................... 9
1.1 TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation .................................................. 9
1.2 Finapres................................................................................................... 9
1.3 Portapres ............................................................................................... 10
1.4 Modelflow method................................................................................ 10
1.5 Finometer .............................................................................................. 11
1.6 BeatScope ............................................................................................. 11
1.7 Beat analysis software........................................................................... 12
1.8 Release notes......................................................................................... 13
1.9 Document conventions.......................................................................... 14
1.10 Customer support .................................................................................. 15
2. Installation ........................................................................ 17
2.1 Operating system................................................................................... 17
2.2 Installing BeatScope on your system .................................................... 17
2.2.1 De-installing a previous BeatScope version.................................. 17
2.2.2 Installing BeatScope 1.1 ............................................................... 18
2.2.3 Copy protection............................................................................. 18
3. Quick tours........................................................................ 21
3.1 Quick tour 1: The selection dialog........................................................ 21
3.2 Quick tour 2: Analyzing a (Portapres) measurement. ........................... 22
3.2.1 Analyzing a Portapres file with Beatfast ....................................... 23
3.2.2 Printing beat-to-beat data with Printres......................................... 27
3.3 Quick tour 3: Viewing data files and exporting data............................. 29
3.3.1 User interface of BeatScope's View Files window........................ 30
3.3.2 Opening data files ......................................................................... 32
3.3.3 Selecting signals in the viewports. ................................................ 33
3.3.4 Browsing in the data file ............................................................... 35
3.3.5 Selecting an episode between two event markers.......................... 36
3.3.6 Exporting beat results to a file ...................................................... 37
4. Data files used by BeatScope .......................................... 39
4.1 Binary samples files .............................................................................. 39
4.1.1 TNO samples file .......................................................................... 39
4.1.2 'Other' binary samples files ........................................................... 40
4.2 Portapres Model 2 compressed files ..................................................... 41
4.3 Beat-to-beat results files........................................................................ 41
4.4 Finometer files ...................................................................................... 43
4.5 Text data files ....................................................................................... 43
4.5.1 ASCII samples files ...................................................................... 43
4.6 BeatScope batch command files ........................................................... 43

4.7 Session files .......................................................................................... 44
4.8 Header files........................................................................................... 44
4.9 File naming conventions ....................................................................... 45
5. Portapres, monitoring a measurement ........................... 47
5.1 Basic monitoring and control................................................................ 47
5.1.1 Logfiles ......................................................................................... 49
5.2 Monitoring and control with Beatport................................................... 50
5.2.1 Beatport data entry dialog............................................................. 50
5.2.2 Beatport, Run time screen............................................................. 52
5.2.3 Beatport, Available keys:.............................................................. 54
5.2.4 Beatport, Keys to Control Portapres ............................................. 55
5.2.5 Beatport, using a configuration file............................................... 55
6. Portapres, downloading measurements......................... 57
6.1 Displaying the flash card directory ....................................................... 57
6.2 Selecting files to transfer....................................................................... 58
6.3 Defining the output directory and filenames ......................................... 59
6.4 Transferring data to the PC ................................................................... 60
7. Portapres, file utilities ...................................................... 61
7.1 Creating a Portapres event file .............................................................. 61
7.2 Decompressing a Portapres M2 file ...................................................... 63
7.3 Merging two Portapres files.................................................................. 64
8. Finometer .......................................................................... 67
8.1 Connecting Finometer to the PC ........................................................... 68
8.2 Monitor function ................................................................................... 68
8.2.1 On-line data storage in the PC ...................................................... 69
8.2.2 Finometer control.......................................................................... 69
8.3 Download function................................................................................ 70
8.4 Readpack function ................................................................................ 73
9. Performing a beat-to-beat analysis with Beatfast .......... 77
9.1 Overview of features of Beatfast........................................................... 77
9.2 The Beatfast beat-to-beat analysis dialog.............................................. 78
9.2.1 Entering information about the input file ...................................... 78
9.2.2 Selecting additional options for the analysis ................................. 84
9.2.3 Loading and saving a Beatfast configuration ................................ 89
9.3 Starting a beat-to-beat analysis ............................................................. 90
9.3.1 Troubleshooting ............................................................................ 90
9.4 Beatfast, run time screen....................................................................... 90
9.5 Beatfast, available keys......................................................................... 94
9.6 Beatfast, beat analysis messages ........................................................... 94

9.6.1 Damped pulse ............................................................................... 94
9.6.2 No pulsation.................................................................................. 95
9.6.3 Physiocal detected......................................................................... 95
9.6.4 Special channel info ...................................................................... 95
9.7 Pattern recognition and storage............................................................. 95
10. Converting a beat results file to text with Printres ........ 97
10.1 Entering data in the Printres dialog....................................................... 97
10.2 Running Printres ................................................................................... 99
10.2.1 Screen preview............................................................................ 100
10.3 Information in Printres output............................................................. 100
11. Stripchart printing with Plotfast .................................... 101
11.1 Entering data in the Plotfast dialog ..................................................... 102
11.2 Running Plotfast.................................................................................. 103
11.2.1 Screen preview............................................................................ 103
12. Viewing data files, fundamentals .................................. 105
12.1 Selecting a BeatScope session ............................................................ 105
12.2 The View files run time screen ........................................................... 105
12.2.1 Viewport layout .......................................................................... 106
12.3 Opening files....................................................................................... 108
12.3.1 File information in title bar ......................................................... 108
12.3.2 The file open dialog .................................................................... 108
12.3.3 Defining the file format............................................................... 109
12.4 Displaying signals ............................................................................... 112
12.4.1 Signal Selection dialog................................................................ 113
12.5 Changing the time window.................................................................. 114
12.5.1 Changing the time window via the keyboard .............................. 114
12.5.2 Changing time window with the menu ........................................ 115
12.5.3 Displaying hh:mm:ss or seconds time format.............................. 116
12.5.4 Normalizing a time window........................................................ 116
12.6 Changing and viewing the internal file structure................................. 116
12.7 Displaying a numerical beat results window....................................... 117
12.7.1 Available keys to browse in a beat results window..................... 118
12.7.2 Events in the beat results window ............................................... 118
12.7.3 Beat results window features and limitations .............................. 119
12.7.4 Beat results window contents...................................................... 119
12.8 Printing ............................................................................................... 120
12.9 Saving and loading session files.......................................................... 121
13. Viewing data files, options............................................. 123
13.1 Exporting data..................................................................................... 123

13.1.1 Filling the Export dialog ............................................................. 123
13.1.2 Exporting .................................................................................... 125
13.2 Averaging data in a file....................................................................... 126
13.3 Performing descriptive statistics ......................................................... 126
13.3.1 Data entry in Statistics dialog ..................................................... 126
13.3.2 Statistical analysis ....................................................................... 128
13.4 Loading a file with event markers....................................................... 129
13.5 Masking events ................................................................................... 129
13.6 Adjusting start time of data files ......................................................... 130
14. Batch command files...................................................... 131
14.1 Syntax ................................................................................................. 131
14.2 Batch files created on different Windows systems.............................. 132
14.3 Batch commands................................................................................. 133
14.3.1 Beatfast ....................................................................................... 134
14.3.2 Printres........................................................................................ 137
14.3.3 Plotfast ........................................................................................ 138
14.3.4 Export ......................................................................................... 139
14.3.5 Statistics ...................................................................................... 140
14.3.6 Execute ....................................................................................... 141
14.3.7 Exitprogram ................................................................................ 141
Appendix A. Signal definition in files...................................... 143
Appendix B. Beatfast configuration........................................ 147
Appendix C. Beat and time averaging .................................... 151
Appendix D. Recommended literature.................................... 153
Index.......................................................................................... 157
1. Introduction
Welcome to BeatScope, the software package for the analysis of blood pressure
waveforms. This chapter introduces you to BeatScope, to the developers of
BeatScope, to the Finapres, Finometer and Portapres devices and to the remaining
chapters in this User's Guide.
BeatScope is a Windows program featuring:

• An integrated environment to acquire data from the Finometer and Portapres
blood pressure measurement devices, to do beat-to-beat analysis, to view
various data files, and to export data for further detailed analysis with other
software e.g. spreadsheets, Matlab, etc.
• Finometer and Portapres support to control and monitor measurements.
• Viewing of data files with sampled data and beat-to-beat results.
• Printing, plotting, exporting, and averaging of data files, and calculation of
simple descriptive statistics.
• Batch command processing, to run unattended a beat-to-beat analysis
sequentially on a number of files.
1.1 TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation

The BeatScope software package has been developed by TNO TPD Biomedical
Instrumentation (TNO TPD BMI, further abbreviated as BMI), which is part of the
Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) in the
Netherlands. BMI is engaged in research and development of methods and
instruments for medicine and biosciences. BMI is located in the Academic Medical
Center (AMC) in Amsterdam. Successful methods and instruments that were
developed by BMI include Finapres, Portapres, Finometer and Modelflow.
Recently the Dutch company Finapres Medical Systems BV (FMS) started to

manufacture, market and sell Finapres based devices and software. FMS is a spin
off of TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation. Current products manufactured and
sold by FMS are Portapres, Finometer, Beatscope, and WinCPRS, the latter under
agreement with the Finnish company AA Oy.
1.2 Finapres
Finapres is a non-invasive device, which measures blood pressure continuously in

the finger. Finapres was developed and manufactured in small numbers by TNO
TPD Biomedical Instrumentation and was later commercially available as the

Ohmeda Finapres 2300 NIPB monitor. The TNO Finapres and the commercial
Ohmeda Finapres are no longer available.
The availability of continuous non-invasive arterial blood pressure, including the

full pressure contour of each individual heart beat, has stimulated research in many
fields, including clinical autonomic research, experimental psychology, sleep
research and physiology.
1.3 Portapres
The Portapres blood pressure device is similar to Finapres and developed by BMI.
Portapres has a number of features that make the device suitable for ambulatory
use.
• The device is light weight and battery powered
• Portapres measures blood pressure in two (adjacent) fingers. By pressurizing
the finger cuffs alternately the slight discomfort when a cuff is wrapped around
a finger longer than about an hour, can be prevented.
• Portapres uses a hydrostatic height correction system to compensate for
vertical movement of the hand with respect to heart level and the concomitant
pressure changes in the finger blood pressure.
• Portapres stores the data of 24 hr finger arterial blood pressure waveform,
hydrostatic height, event marker, and status messages on its built-in Flash
Memory Card.
• A Control unit is used to enter data, to set-up the device and to start a
measurement. During a measurement this unit may be disconnected. This
reduces the overall weight of the device.
Several different Portapres versions were built in the past few years with additional
features for various space agencies, including NASA and ESA. They have their
own dedicated PC software user interface programs, which are not discussed here.
This document refers only to our standard Portapres M2.
1.4 Modelflow method
In 1993 TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation introduced a new method to

compute stroke volume by arterial pressure wave analysis, the Modelflow method.
Aortic flow is computed using a three-element model, representing the three
principal haemodynamic properties of the arterial tree: a non-linear, pressure
dependent aortic compliance, characteristic impedance and time varying systemic

vascular resistance.
The Modelflow method has been implemented in two pressure wave analysis
software programs developed by TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation:
1. BEATPORT.EXE for on-line, real time analysis of Portapres measurements

and
2. BEATFAST.EXE for off-line analysis of waveforms stored in a file. Twelve
haemodynamic parameters are derived for each heart beat, including blood
pressure data, pulse rate, cardiac output and stroke volume.
1.5 Finometer
The Finometer is a blood pressure device similar to Finapres, but with a number of
significant extensions.
• Finometer offers the non-invasive monitoring of continuous brachial artery
blood pressure, based on the finger arterial pressure measurement as
implemented in Finapres and Portapres, and published pressure waveform
reconstruction and calibration methods.
• Cardiac output, based on the Modelflow cardiac output method, and other
haemodynamic data are available in real time on a built-in color display.
• Similar to Portapres the Finometer is equipped with a height correction
system, a built-in disk for data storage and a serial interface with a PC.
1.6 BeatScope
BeatScope is a Windows program which integrates a number of modules:
• to control measurements performed either with Portapres or Finometer,
• to monitor in real time Portapres pressure and cardiac output via the Beatport
module and to monitor Finometer measurements with the Finolink module.
• to analyze off-line the pressure waveforms; this step is not necessary for
Finometer, since this analysis is performed within the device.
• to output the derived beat-to-beat data as a table to either a file or a printer
with the Printres module
• to print a standardized stripchart plot of the beat-to-beat data
• and to help the user with the data analysis by displaying event information, and
descriptive statistics
1.7 Beat analysis software
The Beatfast program scans fully automatically one channel in a samples file for
the presence of waveforms that look like arterial pressure pulsations or beats. The
fundamental feature detected for a pulsation is its begin upstroke. Once the begin
upstroke is detected further parameters are derived from a pulsation. Obvious ones
are the systolic and diastolic pressure levels. They are detected on the low pass
filtered waveform and are thus reliable even when 50/60 Hz hum and high
frequency noise components are present on the waveform. Systolic pressure is the
highest pressure during arterial systole. Diastolic pressure is not taken as the lowest
pressure in a pulsations, since that may lead to erroneous levels at high heart rates.
Instead, the value just before begin upstroke is taken. Mean arterial pressure is
computed as the true integrated mean pressure per beat. The time lapse between
two consecutive pulsations is the pulse interval and its inverse is pulse rate.
The other feature detected in a pulsation is the dicrotic notch at the end of left
ventricular ejection. The time lapse between begin upstroke and notch is the left
ventricular ejection time.
Finally, the pressure pulsation is fed to a model of aortic input impedance and the
aortic inflow is computed by simulating that model. This flow pulsation is
integrated over the period between begin upstroke and notch to yield stroke
volume. It is then simple to compute cardiac output per beat and total peripheral
resistance. This is called the Modelflow method. It provides reasonably close
values of stroke volume and cardiac output in an absolute sense (SD 15%), and is
very accurate in tracking changes in stroke volume (SD 7%) [WESSELING 93,
JANSEN 2001]. See also Appendix D for an overview of recommended literature.
1.8 Release notes

The following new features and enhancements have been added in the latest release
of BeatScope 1.1:
• The program has been adapted to enable Finometer users to control
measurements and to acquire the measured data, and to work with the files that
Finometer creates.
• The File Open dialog has been changed. BeatScope now automatically
recognizes the type of file you want to open.
• Portapres users now have the possibility to merge two measurements, in case a
measurement was interrupted, e.g. by a battery running out of power, and later
restarted.
• The BeatScope command file now also supports the EXITPROGRAM
command. This command forces BeatScope to close the program, and thus
enables a user to perform a BeatScope analysis automatically from another
Windows program.
• Based on on-going research and detailed analysis the pressure pattern
recognition software and the analysis of the return-to-flow upper arm cuff
calibration as used in Finometer were enhanced.
• During an off-line beat-to-beat analysis two beat results files are created, a
binary results file compatible with the file format used in BeatScope 1.0 and
an comprehensive ASCII text file, containing additional beat data.
1.9 Document conventions

The BeatScope documentation adheres to the following style conventions.
BeatScope type styles:

Style: Description:
Bold Indicates the name of a menu option, a dialog box, or a button
text.
MONOSPACE Indicates the name of a file or program or a key.
Keyboard combinations:
Style: Description:
KEY Indicates that you have to press the key. For example
F5 means that you have to press the function key F5.
KEY+KEY Indicates that you should press and hold the first key
while pressing the second key. CTRL+X means that
you should press and hold the CTRL key and press X,
and then release both keys.
Dialog box
Combobox
Radio buttons
Edit box Checkbox
Combobox Combobox
Notebook tabs
Buttons
Figure 1.1 Windows dialog definitions

1.10 Customer support

Portapres and Finometer are manufactured and sold by the Dutch company
Finapres Medical Systems BV (FMS). The BeatScope software package is also
sold via FMS.
For all (technical) support questions on Portapres, Finometer and BeatScope

contact Finapres Medical Systems BV via:
E-mail address:
info@Finapres.com
WWW site:
www.Finapres.com
Mail address :
FMS, Finapres Medical Systems BV
Simon Stevinweg 48
6827 BT Arnhem
The Netherlands
T: +31 (0)26 384 9080
F: +31 (0)26 384 9081
Sales and marketing:

Mr. R Roelandt
Decavee 12
B-1790 Affligem, Belgium
Phone: +32 53 685 626

Fax: +32 53 685 636
E-mail: sales@Finapres.com
2. Installation
2.1 Operating system
BeatScope will install on either one of the following operating systems:

• Windows 95
• Windows 98
• Windows NT version 4.0
• Windows 2000
For optimum performance, BeatScope requires a Pentium 120 MHz system with at
least 10 Mb of hard disk space.
2.2 Installing BeatScope on your system

Installation instructions launch automatically from the BeatScope 1.1 CD. After
following the on-screen installation instructions a program icon is placed both on
the Windows desktop and in the Windows Start menu.
BeatScope 1.1 can either be used with a license key (dongle) mounted on the
parallel port or with a software license ‘key’. It is not necessary to have the license
key connected during the installation process.
2.2.1 De-installing a previous BeatScope version

Before installing BeatScope 1.1, you should de-install a previous version of the
program first.
To de-install a previous version of BeatScope:

• Press the Start button on the Windows Taskbar,
• Click on Settings,
• Click on ‘Add/remove programs’ or ‘software’ depending on your Windows
version,
• Select BeatScope from the list of currently installed programs,
• Press the button to remove BeatScope from the PC.
2.2.2 Installing BeatScope 1.1

Before installing BeatScope make sure your current login enables you to install
new drivers on the PC. In Windows versions such as NT and WIN2000 the user
should have ‘administrator’ rights to install BeatScope and the accompanying
license key driver. In case of doubt refer to your system administrator.
To install BeatScope 1.1:

• Insert the CD in the CD drive,
• The install program is launched automatically. If your PC is not configured to
run programs from CD automatically, locate the program EXPLORER.EXE in
the Windows directory and view the contents of the BeatScope CD, then
double click the SETUP.EXE program on the CD.
• BeatScope will default install in the "Program Files" directory of the C: drive
in the subdirectory “BeatScope". The installation of BeatScope requires about
10 MB of disk space.
2.2.3 Copy protection

BeatScope uses a software license key to prevent the use of the same program on
two or more PC’s simultaneously. In BeatScope 1.0 the key was a (hardware)
license key, in BeatScope 1.1 it is still possible to use this hardware key but new
users should obtain an unlock code to register the program. The use of the
hardware license key (dongle) and the software license key is discussed below.
Parallel port key

BeatScope can use a hardware license key (dongle) on the parallel port. Without
this key the software will only work for 21 days as trial version. You can install the
software to different computers, however, the program can only be used –after the
21 day trial period- on the computer with the hardware license key (dongle)
present. The key operates on a normal PC parallel printer port. The key is
transparent, allowing normal computer-printer communications.
Please note that both Finometer and Portapres are supplied with a serial interface
cable with 9 pin subD connectors. This cable is for serial communication only. The
license key should be attached to the parallel (printer) port of your PC. It is
possible to connect a printer to the free side of the key.
Figure 2.1 License key error message
If a BeatScope hardware license key (dongle) is present on the parallel port and
BeatScope generates an error message like the message displayed in Figure 2.1,
you should check:
• The correct installation of the license key driver. If an error occurred during
installation, e.g. because the current login account on Windows did not allow
the installation of the driver, the error message is generated.
To re-install the license key driver:
• Run the file setup.exe in the directory c:\program files\beatscope\driver
• Some printer port settings in the computer BIOS do not allow two-way
communication between port and license key or printer. As a consequence the
driver on the PC is not able to communicate with the license key on the
parallel port.
• The license key may be defective.
Software license key

BeatScope 1.1 can also be used without dongle. If the program is started without
dongle you are able to start the program as trial version. This trial version can be
converted to a ‘registered’ version with an ‘unlock code’.
To register BeatScope:
• First find your BeatScope license number. This license number can normally
be found in the delivery note of your Portapres or Finometer system. An
example of a license number is “20020555”
• Start BeatScope and click the ‘Registration’ menu item in the ‘Help’ menu.
• Fill-in the ‘Registration form’, make sure you did enter the License number
• Then, either
- save the form to disk and E-mail the file contents to info@finapres.com, or
- print the form and fax it to Finapres Medical Systems: 00-31-26 384 9081
One of the fields in the Registration form is automatically filled with a site code
that is linked to the hardware of the computer running BeatScope.
After sending the Registration Form you will obtain the ‘unlock code’ within a few
working days.
To unlock the program:

1. Start BeatScope
2. Click on the ‘Registration’ item in the Help menu.
3. Type the unlock code (preferably use copy/paste to prevent typing errors)
4. Click the ‘unlock Beatscope’ button.
Transfer license
If you want to install BeatScope on another computer, or if you want to change e.g.
the hard disk in your computer, you will have to transfer the software license from
one computer to another. To do so you do not need to contact the manufacturer,
but you can transfer the license yourself using a diskette.
To transfer a license:
1. Prepare an empty, formatted, 3.5” diskette
2. Start BeatScope
3. Click on ‘Transfer License’ in the Help menu
The license is now copied from the computer to the diskette.
To install the license on the other computer:

1. Start BeatScope
2. Click on ‘Registration’ in the Help menu, or
on the ‘License’ button, cf. Figure 2.1 .
3. Click on the button ‘Import from diskette’
3. Quick tours
To help you get familiar with the options of BeatScope this chapter describes three
quick tours to explore BeatScope:
1. Starting BeatScope, exploring the Selection dialog
2. Analyzing a Portapres measurement and printing its results.
3. Viewing data files and exporting data.
3.1 Quick tour 1: The selection dialog

Start BeatScope by either double-clicking the BeatScope icon, or by selecting the
icon from the Windows Start bar. A dialog, named Selection dialog, is displayed.
Figure 3.1 The selection dialog

This Selection dialog is central in BeatScope. It is displayed as a notebook with

five selection tabs: View Files, Portapres, Finometer, Beat analysis and Utilities.
• View files
- To view files,
- To make selections in these files,
- To export data,
- To print,
- To obtain simple descriptive statistics etc.
• Portapres
- To monitor a Portapres measurement on-line,
- To download data from Portapres off-line,
- To decompress Portapres M2 data files,
- To merge interrupted Portapres measurements.
• Finometer
- To monitor measurements with Finometer
- To download the data
- To unpack the compressed Finometer files
• Beat analysis
- To analyze Portapres files or other samples files for beats,
- To output the beat-to-beat results to a printer or a file,
- To create a stripchart plot of the beat results.
• Utilities
- To extract an episode of data from a data file,
- To edit and to run batch command files.
This is a good time to try the various command buttons and see the accompanying
dialogs.
Click on one of the selection tabs to select a page of the notebook. To select a
command either type the underlined character in the button text or click the button.
Each dialog has a Close or Cancel button in the right bottom part of the dialog
window. To close a dialog click the Close button or press ESC.
Use the Close button of the Selection dialog to exit BeatScope.
3.2 Quick tour 2: Analyzing a (Portapres) measurement.
In this quick tour we will do a beat-to-beat analysis with the program Beatfast on a
samples file. Then we will print the beat results.
For the example we need a data file with a sampled arterial pressure waveform. In
the BeatScope directory (C:\PROGRAM FILES\BEATSCOPE) a data file
EXAMPLE.DAT can be found. This file is a Portapres M2 data file, containing a
finger pressure waveform signal, a hydrostatic height correction signal and run
time events. The file duration is about 5 minutes.
Please note that this beat-to-beat analysis is not necessary for a Finometer packet
file, since the results of the Modelflow cardiac output analysis are embedded in the
file, provided you did enter the correct subject data and configuration information.
If you need to redo the beat-to-beat analysis of a Finometer measurement you
should first unpack the Finometer file and perform the analysis on the file
containing the sampled waveform.
3.2.1 Analyzing a Portapres file with Beatfast

First we will analyze the pressure waveform in the Portapres file with the Beatfast
option to obtain the beat-to-beat results. In the Selection dialog click the Beat
analysis page, and then click on Beatfast. Then the following dialog is displayed.
browse button
Input file
file history list
browse button
Output file
Figure 3.2 Beatfast (beat analysis) dialog

To run a beat analysis enter the following information in the dialog:
1. Enter the name of the input file:

- type the name of the file, or
- click the browse button at the right of the input file drop-down list, or
- drag the filename from a directory displayed with Windows Explorer
and drop it in the Beatfast dialog, or
- if you have used the file before in BeatScope, look for the file in the list of
files that were used recently by clicking the arrow button which is part of
the drop-down list box.
Note After providing the name of the input file, the Portapres M2 file is
interpreted automatically, and data such as the number of channels, sampling
frequency, channel containing the pressure waveform are filled by BeatScope.
After you fill the input file name an 'Output file' box is shown.
2. Enter the name of the output file in the 'Output file' box:
- type the name of the file, or
- click the browse button at the right of the output file drop-down list, or
- click on the Create output name button. The last used output directory is
combined with the filename without extension. Finally the Beatfast default
extension .R00 is added to the name.
note that input and output directory may be different.
Note 1 It is recommended to use the same file name with a different extension.
Beatfast’s default extension for an output file is .R00 so we will use the output file
name EXAMPLE.R00 in this example.
Note 2 During a beat-to-beat analysis both a binary results file (.R00 extension)
and an ASCII text results file (.A00 extension) are generated. The binary file is
compatible with BeatScope 1.0, the other file contains all beat-data in a format that
can easily be used in a spreadsheet program without the need to convert the binary
file first to text format.
Now we have defined the name of an input file and of the output file.
3. Click the Run button.

Since we did not change any other data in the dialog a default analysis is
performed:
• The cardiac output model used by Beatfast is Modelflow, not the formerly
used TNO Pulse contour method,
• The initial cardiac output calibration is set to 100 %
• The finger pressure analysis –finger arterial pressure, since
EXAMPLE.DAT is a Portapres file- is performed without additional
filtering to brachial pressure or other more advanced options.
After clicking the Run button BeatScope runs the program Beatfast. The following
run time screen is displayed during the analysis.
Figure 3.3 Beatfast run time screen
During the beat-to-beat analysis, no user interaction is required. Please refer to the
chapter on Beatfast if you want to get more information about Beatfast's run time
screen. It is however possible to configure the run time screen during the analysis
by pressing:
• F1 To read a help text in the lower panel of the Beatfast run time screen. Use
PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN to browse through the help pages.
• F3 To change the scaling of trends and pressure signal. Use the arrow keys:
- to change pressure scaling
- to change the type and scaling of the left and right axis of the top trend
panel
- to change the time scaling
• F4 To select a channel in the input file to display. In a Portapres file the first
channel is finger pressure the second is the height correction signal.
• F6 To show beat-to-beat variables:
- Pressure SYS=Systolic, DIA=Diastolic, MAP=Mean blood

pressure.
- Time IBI=Pulse interval, HR=Heart rate, LVET=Ejection
time
- Modelflow SV=Stroke volume,CO=Cardiac output,
TPR=peripheral Resistance
- Indexed values (normalized to body surface area) of Modelflow
variables
• Esc To cancel the current analysis.
• ALT+Q To view special waveform if configured.
• ALT+X To change the execution speed.
At the end of the analysis, the Beatfast window is automatically closed and the
Beatfast dialog is re-displayed. Close the Beatfast dialog with the Close button.
Beatfast has now created a beat-to-beat results file EXAMPLE.R00. The data in
this file are stored in a binary format, which means that you cannot view the file
directly with a text editor.
3.2.2 Printing beat-to-beat data with Printres

During a beat analysis with BeatScope 1.1 an ASCII beat data file (.A00 extension)
is output. This file has a fixed format, with columns such as time (s), and the data
derived from every beat.
Figure 3.4 Example of an A00 file opened in an editor window.
Sometimes, however, you need to output the beat results in a different way,
perhaps with the time of day instead of the time in seconds relative to the start of
the measurement, or with averaging applied, or without column labels etc. These
options can be found in the Printres (Print Result file) option of BeatScope.
In the Beat analysis page, select the Printres option.
First select the beat-to-beat results file EXAMPLE.R00. The easiest way to select
this file is to use the small arrow down file history button, which is part of the
drop-down list box. Select the file EXAMPLE.R00 from the list. You can also
click on the browse button at the right of the Beat results file input field and select
the file from a directory. BeatScope now fills the input fields in the dialog box,
based on the information in the beat-to-beat results file.
Figure 3.5 Printres (print beat results) dialog
Subject data displays age, gender, height and weight of the subject This
information can not be changed. If you want to change subject data the beat-to-beat
analysis has to be repeated.
The following options can be selected:

• Select Beats and Events to output both rows with beat data (such as systolic
pressure, stroke volume etc.) and rows with information about run time events
generated by Portapres and additional information generated by BEATFAST.
The other options are Beats only and Events only
• Select None averaging. You can also select time or beat averaging.
• Select seconds in the 'Time format' box. The other options are relative time
(hh:mm:ss) and time of day.
• Select Printer in the ‘Output to’ box. Output can also be directed to a file or
previewed.
Column Description Units

Time Time of upstroke s
(since start of file)
fiSYS1) Systolic pressure (original finger pressure) mmHg
fiDIA1) Diastolic pressure (original finger pressure) mmHg
fiMAP1) Mean pressure (original finger pressure) mmHg
HR Pulse rate beats/min

IBI Interbeat interval (based on pulse rate) s
SV Stroke volume ml
CO Cardiac output l/min
EJT Ventricular ejection time s
TPR Total Peripheral Resistance mmHg.s/ml
(Medical
Units=MU)
Artifact _ Always ‘1’, to get better alignment in spreadsheet column
T No beat detected for 5 s
P Physiocal detected (Finapres, Portapres)
S Spiked waveform detected
R Pseudo-beat detected: e.g. large dicrotic wave (not really an
artifact).
O Oscillations detected on waveform
D Waveform appears damped
/ File separator found (advanced option in BEATPORT.EXE)
Zao Aortic characteristic impedance milli-mmHg.s/ml
(mMU)
Cwk Arterial compliance ml/mmHg
Height Hydrostatic height correction mmHg (Portapres &
Finometer)
1)
If wavefiltering is applied on the finger pressure waveform the column names
change to reSYS, reDIA, and reMAP respectively, indicating that pressure has
been reconstructed. If you are not printing the results of a finger blood pressure
analysis the column headers show SYS, DIA and MAP respectively.
Table 3.1 Column information in beat results output of Printres option.
3.3 Quick tour 3: Viewing data files and exporting data
In this third quick tour we will open the Portapres file EXAMPLE.DAT that we
used before to demonstrate the beat-to-beat analysis with Beatfast. We will also
open the beat-to-beat results file EXAMPLE.R00 and view signals of both files.
You will learn how to browse in files, and how to view the numerical values of the
beat results file without the need to run the Printres option that was used in Quick
Tour 2.
The file EXAMPLE.DAT contains a number of event markers, which were

generated by pressing the the event button on the Portapres Control unit or the
Portapres Main Unit. At the end of the quick tour we will extract the beat results
between two event markers.
To open the View Files utility:

• Click the View Files page in the BeatScope Selection dialog
• Click New session.
Signal selection buttons

Title bar
Menu bar
Speed bar
View Port 1
View Port 2
Time Control
Status Bar Time Scroll Bar Zoom in Zoom out

Browse left/right
Figure 3.6 View files window
3.3.1 User interface of BeatScope's View Files window

The following items can be identified in the View Files window:
• Title Bar displays the name of the program followed by the names of the files
that are currently open.
• Menu Bar contains six drop down menus:
• The File menu contains options to open and close data files, to export
data, to load and save BeatScope sessions, to Print viewports and to Exit
the program.
• The View menu contains options to change the visual appearance of the
BeatScope window, i.e. the number of viewports and the signals to be
displayed in the viewports.
• The Data menu provides tools to enable time or beat averaging in data
files, to do descriptive statistics and to hide certain types of events from
data files.
• The Timing menu enables you to change the time format used in all plots
and dialogs, and to define a new time window to view the data files. The
normalize time option can be used to adjust the current time window so
that the ticks at the time-axis are at 'nice' rounded values.
• The Options menu allows you to configure BeatScope, to load/unload a
text (event file) file with a time string in the first column and a text string
in the second column. This option is a convenient way to display your
own markers/events in the plots.
• The Help menu gives quick access to BeatScope's help file.
• Speed Bar contains a number quick access buttons to invoke frequently used
menu options.
• Time Bar can be used:
- Browse a full page to the left
- To browse a half page to the left
- To browse a half page to the right
- To browse a full page to the right
- To zoom in (time window period is halved)
- To zoom out (time window period is doubled)
• Status Bar provides one-line help information, current patient data and
current time and date
3.3.2 Opening data files
Select Open from the File menu or use the speedbutton.
Directory
File name
File directory
mask
Files that are

already
opened
Figure 3.7 Open File Dialog
BeatScope enables you to view at the same time :

• Two samples files with sampled data, such as Portapres M2 files or files
sampled with an Analog Digital Converter card.
• Two Finometer packet files
• Two beat-to-beat results files, e.g. output files of Beatfast
• Two text files with columns of data (of which one is usually the time in
seconds or hh:mm:ss format)
Displaying a The beat-to-beat data found in either the first beat-to-beat file or the first Finometer
numerical file that is opened can be displayed in a special Beat Results window which is
beat results available to browse in the numerical output of the beat result data. Use the View,
window Beat results option to display the numerical beat results window.
Each time the File Open Dialog is opened, BeatScope assumes that you are going
to open a file from a different measurement, and thus default assumes that the
currently opened files have to be closed. To prevent BeatScope from closing these
files, remove the checkmarks in the checkboxes with open files. You can also use
the button ‘Leave files open’ for that purpose.
Open the Portapres file EXAMPLE.DAT

• Set the Files of type selection to Portapres files to easily find the Portapres
with extension .DAT or .POR. You may also use the ‘Any file *.*’ selection,
since BeatScope will automatically recognize the type of file.
• Browse the C:\Program Files\BeatScope directory and double click the file
EXAMPLE.DAT, you can also type the name, including the path, of the
Portapres M2 samples file EXAMPLE.DAT in the filename field
• Click on the Open button to open the file.
Open the beat results file EXAMPLE.R00

• Re-open the BeatScope File Open dialog.
• Remove the checkmark next to the EXAMPLE.DAT file to prevent BeatScope
from closing the already opened file.
• Set the Files of type selection to Beat data files
• Browse the directory, and locate and open the file EXAMPLE.R00.
• Click on the Open button to open the file.
You can also use the following method to open both files:
To open both the Portapres and the beat results file at the same time:
• Open the BeatScope File Open Dialog
• Type e.g. EXAMPLE.* in the filename field, or select the ‘Any file *.*’ file
type.
• Select both files, while pressing the Ctrl key, both files are highlighted and the
filename field will show “EXAMPLE.DAT” “EXAMPLE.R00”.
• Click the Open Button to open the files.
3.3.3 Selecting signals in the viewports.

After opening the two files, BeatScope automatically shows the first two 'signals' of
each file in a rectangular area (viewport) on the screen, see Figure 3.6.
• The first two signals of a Portapres M2 files, are finger pressure Porta and the
hydrostatic height correction signal Height respectively.
• The first two signals of a beat-to-beat results file are SYS (systolic) and DIA
(diastolic) pressure respectively.
• The first two signals of a Finometer packet file are the pressure waveform used
for the on-line beat analysis (usually finger arterial pressure) and the
hydrostatic height correction signal.
See also Appendix A for more information about signal names.
Each viewport can display up to four signals, the number of viewports can be four,
so BeatScope can display maximally 16 signals simultaneously. To change the
signal selection:
• Click on one of the four signal selection buttons at the top of each viewport, or
• click View and then Setup viewport #, where # is a number 1..4, in the menu.
Note that the signal name is always appended by the @ symbol followed by the
filename (e.g. Porta@EXAMPLE.DAT).
Do not display a signal
Signal
Scaling
Click tabs to define up
to four signals
Figure 3.8 Signal Selection Dialog
The Signal selection dialog displays a notebook with four selection tabs. The tabs
correspond with viewport axes:
• The first tab from the left (and the first selection button at the top of each
viewport) is related to the left axis of a viewport.
• The second tab (and selection button) is related to the axis at the right of a
viewport.
• The third and fourth tab correspond to two hidden axes.
Each selection tab of the Signal selection dialog gives access to the following
options:
Signal The signal drop-down list enables you to select a signal in BeatScope. The
number and type of signals available depends on the files that are currently open in
BeatScope.
Scaling The scaling box enables you to set the scaling for the selected signal. If
you check the Auto checkbox the range of the signal is calculated before the data
are displayed. If necessary BeatScope adapts the scaling to get a full viewport
view.
Color The color box enables you to select one of 15 colors or Auto Color
meaning that BeatScope will assign a default color to the selected signal.
Line type The line type box enables you to select either the line width or a plot
symbol from a drop-down list.
Click OK to view the signal selections.
3.3.4 Browsing in the data file

To browse in the data files you can either use the keyboard or the time control bar.
When using the keyboard six key combinations have been defined to browse in
data files:
• press ARROW LEFT to shift the time window, a half window to the left.
• press CTRL+ARROW LEFT to shift the time window, a full window to the
left.
• press ARROW RIGHT to shift the time window, a half window to the right.
• press CTRL+ARROW RIGHT to shift the time window, a full window to the
right.
• press HOME to jump to the start of the file.
• press END to jump to the end of the file.
3.3.5 Selecting an episode between two event markers

At the end of this quick tour we will extract the beat results between two event
markers. Locate the event markers near 120 and 180 seconds relative to the start of
the file. To make a selection left click in the viewport on the event marker and drag
the mouse to the next marker. Release the left button.
Figure 3.9 View files screen
To view the numerical values of all beats select View, Beat results from menu.
Figure 3.10 View beat results window

You can make a selection either in the Beat results window or in the viewport
screen by clicking with the left mouse button on the starttime of the period you
want to select and by dragging the mouse to the last line of the selection. In the
beat results window you can also use the SHIFT key in combination with the
ARROW UP and ARROW DOWN keys to make a selection.
3.3.6 Exporting beat results to a file

Suppose you want to export the beat results from the selected part of the beat-to-
beat results file to a text file, for analysis with another program.
Click on File and then on Export in the menu. This invokes the Export dialog.
Figure 3.11 Export dialog
1. In the 'Export from file' box select the beat-to-beat results file from the drop-
down list box with files that are currently open in BeatScope.
Note:
Make sure you select the beat results file, i.e. the file with the .R00 extension.
Exporting 60s from e.g. a Portapres M2 samples file creates an output file with
60x100 (Hz) =6000 lines.
2. In the ‘To file’ box type the name of the file to write the data to, or select a file
with the browse button at the right of the To file input field.
3. In the ‘Export type’ box, select To text file.
4. In the ‘Select period’ box the default period is the current selection (if part of
the file is selected), or the current time window when no selection has been
made.
5. Check the time format, averaging, the output format (i.e. fixed width columns
or delimited columns), and whether you want to export beats, events or both
beats and events.
6. You can output a subset of all available signals in a beat-to-beat results file.
Select All for the moment.
Click the Export button, the selected part of the beat-results file will be saved in a
text file.
4. Data files used by BeatScope

Before exploring BeatScope into more detail we first focus on the different file
types that can be used. BeatScope can read the following files:
• Binary samples files: Files with one or more sampled signal channels, e.g.
generated by the module BEATPORT in BeatScope which works with
Portapres M2, and by most data acquisition systems using an Analog Digital
Converter.
• Portapres M2 files: generated by Portapres, containing the finger pressure
waveform, height correction and status information.
• Binary beat data files: generated by a beat analysis with BEATFAST (off-
line) or BEATPORT (on-line), or after unpacking a Finometer packet file into
a samples file and a beat data file.
• Finometer files: generated by the Finometer. A Finometer packet file consists
of four sampled waveforms, including the finger arterial pressure waveform
(finAP), beat data, and comprehensive status and haemodynamic data.
• Text data files: Text files containing lines with one or more columns of data,
separated by e.g. a comma or a tab
This chapter also addresses a number of additional files which are used by
BeatScope, such as header files and batch command files.
4.1 Binary samples files

When you acquire an analog signal via an Analog/Digital converter (ADC) the
signals are usually sampled at a fixed sampling frequency of e.g. 100 Hz. This
means that every 10 ms, a number of channels from the Analog/Digital converter
are converted to numbers and saved in a file on disk. An example of a program that
creates binary samples files is BEATPORT.EXE. A binary samples file contains
binary samples. Such a file can not be loaded in a spreadsheet or text editor
without first converting it.
4.1.1 TNO samples file

The BEATPORT module in BeatScope creates binary samples files in a special
TNO file format. A TNO samples file contains only samples and a small file
header of a few bytes. This file header contains the start time of the file, expressed
as hh:mm:ss (time of day) and the number of channels in the samples file. The file
does not contain information about the signals in the channels and the sampling
frequency used. For this reason not only a samples file is created but also a header
file. The header file is a text file with essential information about the contents of
the samples file (see below).
A TNO samples file is either sampled at 100 Hz or 200 Hz. The number of
sampled channels in the file is either 1, 2, 4 or 8. Each sample is written to disk as
a 16 bit two's complement integer. This means that the file is a binary file, you can
not load the file in a text editor to view its contents.
The resolution of the signals is 2.5 mV or 0.25 mmHg. Zero pressure corresponds
with a zero sample value. The internal format of a two channel (A,B) samples file
is :
HH byte header sA1 sB1 sA2 sB2 sA3 sB3 etc.
with sAn the nth 16 bit sample of signal A and sBn the nth 16 bit sample of signal
B.
Note that the header length HH depends on the number of channels (n). The first n
values in the file are filled with a value 8000H (-32768), followed by an eight word
header consisting of the following words:
hh mm ss cc s0 s1 s2 s3
hours minutes seconds 0.01 s signature information
The program BEATPORT stores pressure and height samples in a 100 Hz file on
disk:
Chan01: Finger pressure
Chan02: Hydrostatic Height Level
4.1.2 'Other' binary samples files

A general binary samples file is similar to a TNO samples file, however, with less
features and less limitations. The number of channels can be any number between 1
and 99. To view the file in BeatScope virtually any sampling frequency can be
used, to analyze the file in Beatfast it must be 100 Hz or 200 Hz sampling
frequency.
The resolution of the signals does not need to be 2.5 mV and a fixed offset can be
compensated for. It is possible to skip a number of bytes at the beginning of a file,
for instance to skip a header block created by another data acquisition software
package.
A non-TNO binary samples file can have 1 to 99 channels. Each channel is stored
as a 2 byte, two's complement integer. The internal format of the file is very similar
to the TNO pressure file format. Note, however, that there is no specific header
block.
4.2 Portapres Model 2 compressed files

If you transfer a measurement from the flash memory card in Portapres to a PC a
Portapres M2 file is created. This file contains the sampled waveforms of the finger
arterial pressure signal (Porta) and the hydrostatic height correction signal in a
proprietary compressed format. The file also contains run time events (e.g.
CONNECT CUFF CABLE, EVENT MARKER). Note that the Portapres M2 file
does not contain beat results. A typical 24 hr measurement with Portapres is stored
in a 4 Mb file. Although the data are stored in a compressed format the Portapres
M2 files within BeatScope are handled just like other 2 channel, 100 Hz binary
samples files.
4.3 Beat-to-beat results files

During a beat-to-beat analysis with either BEATFAST or BEATPORT or after
unpacking a Finometer packet file a beat-to-beat results file is created. This file is a
binary file, meaning that you have to convert the file to text format before you can
load the data in a spreadsheet or text editor. A beat results file contains both beat-
to-beat data and markers (events).
All beat-to-beat files start with a header block (consisting of a number of markers
at time 0) with the following information:
• the cardiac output model used (Modelflow method or TNO pulse contour)
• the cardiac output calibration factor (usually 100 %).
• the patient data used in the beat-to-beat analysis.
• and other markers that depend on the kind of beat analysis performed.
The beat-to-beat results file consists of 16 byte records consecutively written

without separators. The 16 bytes in a record can be decoded as follows
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
i i i i s s d d m m v v ej ej h a
Table 4.1 Beat-to-beat file record
byte description format:
iiii the instant of begin usptroke in ms 4 byte longword

ss systolic pressure in units of 0.25 mmHg 2 byte integer
dd diastolic pressure in units of 0.25 mmHg 2 byte integer
mm mean pressure in units of 0.25 mmHg 2 byte integer
vv stroke volume in units of 0.25 ml 2 byte integer
ej ejection time in ms 2 byte integer
h finger height in mmHg [-128 to 127] 1 signed byte
a artifact bitset 1 byte
The artifact bitset (one byte) can be decoded as follows: bit description
0 No pulse has been detected for 5 s

1 Detected a physiocal period (Finapres,Portapres,Finometer)
2 Spiked waveform detected
3 Pseudo-beat detected (see note below)
4 Oscillation in pressure waveform detected
5 Damped waveform present
6 Multiple usage ( not an artifact )
7 Not a beat but a marker.
Note on bit 3: Beat recognition in Beatfast is a two stage process. If a beat was
recognized in the first stage of the analysis, and later rejected in the second stage,
bit 3 of the artifact byte is set (to 1). This can be caused by an artifact in the
pressure waveform but also by a pronounced dicrotic wave.
If artifact bit 7 is set the 16 byte record does not belong to a beat but is a
marker/event record. The combined 'h' and 'a' byte should then be interpreted as a
16 bits word, with the following definition of bits 8 through 15:
bit description
8 marker level change detected
9 patient sex, age, height, weight record
10 current model parameters (afterload, RTF, level correction…)
11 10 character comment
12 time out of xxx minutes
13 thermodilution injection start/stop
14 thermodilution C.O. value
15 Modelflow calibration value
4.4 Finometer files
Finometer stores the sampled unprocessed (raw) finger pressure waveform and
three other waveforms, sampled at 200 Hz, in a so called packet file. Each packet
consists of 0.5 s of data and not only includes the four waveform signals but also
the information of up to two heart beats (maximum heart rate 240 bpm), and
detailed status information about the finger pressure measurement, the upper arm
calibration, and the waveform filtering that is applied.
When a Finometer file is opened in BeatScope, the beat results are automatically
extracted from the file and stored in a temporary beat results file, which has the
same name as the Finometer packet file but with the prefix ‘beat.’, the Finometer
file ‘EXAMPLE.FPF’ thus also opens a beat data file ‘beat.EXAMPLE.FPF’.
BeatScope interprets the Finometer file as a samples file and opens the temporary
beat results file to display the accompanying beat results.
4.5 Text data files

A text data file is a text file with columns of data either comma, TAB, or semicolon
(';') separated. A combination of one or more consecutive spaces in a text data file
is also interpreted as a column separator. Therefore, BeatScope can read text files
with fixed format (space aligned) columns. A text data file may have a preamble
header of maximally 100 lines. If a text data file is opened in BeatScope it is
possible to select a row in the file containing column labels and a row with column
units. One of the columns in a text data file can be used as time column.
4.5.1 ASCII samples files

An ASCII samples file contains lines with data at fixed time intervals. If the time
interval is 10 ms or 5 ms (100 or 200 Hz) the file can be used in the beat-to-beat
analysis program BEATFAST. The lines in a text data file may contain data
sampled at other sampling frequencies or data sampled at variable intervals such as
beat-to-beat results.
If there is a time column, the time data should increase monotonically. If no time
data are available in the text data file a sampling interval can be selected.
4.6 BeatScope batch command files

A BeatScope batch command file is a text file that can be used by BeatScope to
process a series of commands (e.g. beat-to-beat analyses). These commands can
run unattended. If you click the Utilities page in the Selection dialog you can enter
the Batch editor and load a command file from disk. Then you can run the
command file.
There are important differences between BeatScope command files and DOS batch
files:
• In a DOS batch file each single line is interpreted and executed. In BeatScope
command files commands often consist of a number of consecutive lines. The
command name appears first (e.g. '[BEATFAST]','[PRINTRES]') followed by
a combination of the lines INPUT, OUTPUT, OPTIONS and PERIOD.
• It is not possible to run a BeatScope command file from the DOS prompt.
• DOS batch files can not be run in BeatScope, without conversion.
4.7 Session files
In a session file all information to re-build the screen of the View Files utility is
saved. A session file is similar to an .INI file in Windows. Although it is possible to
edit session files this is not recommended. The format of the information in a
session file is further undocumented.
4.8 Header files

BEATFAST and BEATPORT create a number of files during a beat-to-beat
analysis. The most important files are of course the binary and ASCII beat-to-beat
results files. Both programs also create a header file. This header file is a text file
with information to understand and to document the analysis that was performed.
The information in a header file includes:

• The source file path, date and time
• The current date and time
• Sampling frequency, number of channels, offset, sensitivity
• Site of arterial pressure measurement
• The channel with the arterial pressure waveform
• Type of waveform filtering
• Cardiac output method used
• Patient data
If you copy beat-to-beat results files or samples files to another directory it is best
to copy the header files too.
You never have to open a header file manually; if a header file is found it is loaded
automatically by BeatScope.
BEATFAST header files : If you use the extension ‘.R’ followed by two digits (e.g.
‘.R01’, ‘.R49’) in Beatfast, the accompanying header file automatically gets the
same name with an ‘.H’ instead of the ‘.R’. See table below. If you use another
extension the header file always gets the name of the samples file, however the
‘.HDR’ extension is appended to this new file name
Beat results file Header file

EXAMPLE.R00 EXAMPLE.H00
EXAMPLE.R45 EXAMPLE.H45
EXAMPLE.BTB EXAMPLE.BTB.HDR
4.9 File naming conventions
BeatScope helps you finding your samples, beat results files, text data files and
session files. Still it is important to have a basic understanding of the file naming
convention(s) used by e.g. Beatport and Beatfast.
Date+time files If you do not specifically instruct BEATPORT, BEATFAST or

FINOLINK (download program for the Finometer) to use user defined output file
names, a so called 'date+time file' is automatically created.
The filename contains the following information:
Character position filename example: ‘2AU09S12.050’

1 year (1 digit)
2,3 month (ja, fe, mr, ap, my, jn, jl, au, se, oc, no, de)
4,5 day of the month (01, 02, ... 31)
6 file type identifier (H,P,R,S, T)
7,8 start hour of measurement (00, 02, ... 23)
9 ‘.’ period indicating extension
10,11 the start minute of the measurement
12 A digit to avoid overwriting files when two measurements
are started within one minute (usually 0).
Table 4.2 Date+time file name definition
The file type identifier at position 6 in the file name can either be:
File identifier Description

H header file
P Finometer packet file

R beat-to-beat results file
S (binary) samples file
T thermodilution file (not used)
$ incomplete Finometer packet file
An example of a [date+time file] is : 2AU09S12.050 (2002, August 9th, Samples

file, start time 12:05).
For other examples of frequently used files in BeatScope see Table 4.3.
Filename Description
2JA12R07.300 Bat-to-beat results file ('R'), 2002, January 12th at 07:30
0DE25S18.34 Samples file, 2000, December 25, at 18:34
0DE25P18.34 Finometer packet file
0DE25H18.34 Header file
0DE25A18.34 ASCII text file created during from a Finometer file
0DE25$18.34 Incomplete Finometer packet file, cf. Section 8.2.1
EXAMPLE.DAT Portapres M2 file (usually .POR, or .DAT
EXAMPLE.POR Portapres M2 file (usually .POR, or .DAT)
EXAMPLE.PRN Some kind of ASCII text file
EXAMPLE.TXT idem
EXAMPLE.ADC A binary samples file (Analog Digital Converted)
EXAMPLE.R0# (Binary) beat-to-beat results file, #=digit (0..9).
EXAMPLE.S0# (binary) samples file, #=digit (0..9).
EXAMPLE.SES BeatScope session file
EXAMPLE.CMD BeatScope batch command file
EXAMPLE.FPF Finometer packet file (default extension .FPF)
Table 4.3 File names used in BeatScope
5. Portapres, monitoring a measurement

If you run a serial cable between a control unit of a Portapres Model 2 and a serial
port in the PC it is possible to monitor and control a Portapres measurement. There
are two options to monitor a Portapres measurement with BeatScope.
• Basic monitoring The first option is a basic monitoring of the beat data sent
by Portapres. You can view thsee beat-to-beat data (sys, dia, map, HR, height
correction value) and important run time messages. The PC can start and stop
a measurement, switch on/off physiological calibrations (physiocal) and set an
event marker in the memory card of Portapres.
If your Control Unit has software version 1.1E or higher the pressure
waveform is also available in a third plot. It is, however, not possible to store
this pressure waveform.
• Beatport monitoring The second option to monitor a Portapres measurement

is to use the Beatport . To use this option your Portapres control unit should
have software version 1.1E or higher. If you run Beatport, a full beat-to-beat
analysis is performed using the samples that are sent to the PC. Stroke volume,
cardiac output etc. are then available in real-time during the measurement. If
requested the pressure samples can be stored in a samples file on disk. Beat-to-
beat results are always stored.
5.1 Basic monitoring and control
To start monitoring and control select the Portapres page in the Selection dialog
Check that the correct serial port is selected in the ‘Serial COM port’ box. Then
click the Monitoring and Control button.
The monitoring screen is divided into a number of panels, and viewports.
Beat data panel

• At the right of the window the current numerical values of the systolic,
diastolic, and mean blood pressure, heart rate and height correction signal are
displayed.
• If the height correction system is connected and properly zeroed the blood
pressure values are corrected for hydrostatic height differences.
• The line ‘Physio ON/OFF’ indicates whether the physiological calibration -

Physiocal- has been enabled or disabled respectively.
• The line below gives information about the selected finger switching mode:
‘C2 Fixed’ Cuff C2 selected, no finger switching
‘C1 30/24’ Cuff C1 selected, the finger switching interval is 30 min,and the
time to the next switch is 24 min.
Message panel At the top of the window, under the menu, important messages
pertinent to the measurement are displayed. If your control unit has version 1.1E or
higher the current two control unit display lines are displayed in this panel.
Message panel
Beat data panel

Viewport panel
Control panel
Figure 5.1 Portapres, monitoring and control
Viewports Two or three viewports are displayed depending on the software

version in your control unit. The top viewport always contains the systolic,
diastolic and mean blood pressure data. The second viewport contains heart rate
and height correction system value. The third viewport (only shown if your control
unit software version is 1.1E or higher) displays the finger pressure waveform.
Control panel The following control buttons are available:

• Physiocal to enable/disable physiocal.
• Output cal to start an analog output calibration mode in Portapres. In this
mode a regular predefined voltage pattern is output to all analog output
channels (cf. Portapres Manual).
• Event to set an event marker during a measurement.

• Start to start a measurement with Portapres
• Stop to stop a Portapres measurement.
The menu Use the menu to print the current viewports, or to adapt the time scale
of the beat-data trend plots (two upper viewports) and the time window of the
pressure waveform time window. The menu also gives access to the creation of log
files.
5.1.1 Logfiles
During a measurement with Portapres beat-to-beat pressure data are derived from
the finger pressure waveform, in the Portapres embedded software. These beat-to-
beat data are not stored on the built-in Flash Memory Card since a comprehensive
beat analysis is available with the Beatfast option in BeatScope. The beat data are
used internally in the device to control and monitor the measurement, and the data
are sent to the Control Unit and to a remote PC via the serial protocol. The Basic
monitoring function, described in this section, displays the beat data derived by the
Portapres software. It is possible to log these data in text files. An example of such
a log file is shown in the figure.
Note that the beat time is generated in the PC, since it is not part of the serial
protocol. Therefore the use of the other monitoring option, Beatport, is
recommended for research applications since a full waveform analysis is performed
using Modelflow algorithms.
• To start logging Portapres beat data, select File, New logfile.

• When a log file is open you can write comments to the file, via the menu (File,
Add Comment to logfile), or press Ctrl A.
• To stop logging select File, Close log file from the menu.
Figure 5.2 Example of a log file
5.2 Monitoring and control with Beatport
To start monitoring a Portapres measurement with Beatport select the Portapres

page in the Selection dialog. Check that the correct serial port is selected in the
‘Serial COM port’ box.
5.2.1 Beatport data entry dialog

Click Beatport to invoke the Portapres link data entry dialog.
The purpose of this dialog is to provide the Beatport program with the necessary
information to analyze and store the blood pressure waveform and beat results.
Output files Depending on the state of the checkbox 'Create automatically

data+time file names' this field either displays the name of file(s) that are going to
be created by Beatport or the directory where the "date+time files" (automatically
created files with current date and time in the filename) are saved.
Enter the output file name:

• Type the path and output file name in the output file field, or
• Use the browse button at the right of the output file field.
Figure 5.3 Beatport dialog
BeatScope automatically appends the correct extension so that no files will be

overwritten (e.g. .$03).
Note that the '$' character in the name is replaced by 'H' for the header file, 'R' for
the beat-to-beat results file and 'S' for the pressure samples file.
Note that Beatport does not generate an ASCII beat results file during a
measurement as the Beatfast (off-line analysis option) does. You should therefore
convert the binary results file to an ASCII beat results file using the Printres utility.
So if the output files field displays: EXAMPLE.$02, Beatport will create three
files:
• A samples file EXAMPLE.S02, a Beatport samples file is a two channel file
sampled at 100 Hz:
Chan 1: Finger pressure (0.25 mmHg resolution)
Chan 2: Finger height level (0.25 mmHg resolution)
• A beat results file EXAMPLE.R02
• A header file EXAMPLE.H02
No storage of pressure samples

If you check this box, no samples file will be created by Beatport. Normally
samples are stored at a rate of 100 Hz. Therefore, a measurement of one hour
duration takes approximately 1400 kB space on disk.
Automatically create date+time filenames

If this box is checked Beatport will create the name of the output files for you
based on the current date and time and the type of output file. An example of such
a name is 2JA30S10.460 (2002, January 30, 10:46).
Apply brachial filter and continuous level correction

This option will be discussed in the chapter on Beatfast. It specifies filtering of the
finger pressure wave to a brachial wave, in combination with a regression level
shift correction to obtain an estimate of the blood pressure in the brachial artery.
Note: if you select brachial filtering with continuous level correction the beat file
contains ‘brachial’ beat results. In the samples file, however, always the ‘raw’
finger pressure signal is stored. This enables you to re-analyze the pressure
waveform off-line with Beatfast. If you view the beat file and the samples file
simultaneously you will notice that the ‘brachial’ beat results are generally slightly
higher than the unprocessed finger pressure waveform.
Subject data
Gender, Age, Height, Weight The subject's Gender and age should be entered. The
height and weight data may be entered as '0' if these data are not available.
Info
You can enter three lines with additional information about the Portapres
measurement here. The information is stored in the header file that is created by
Beatport.
Click Start to run the Beatport program.
5.2.2 Beatport, Run time screen.

The Beatport run time screen is very similar to the Beatfast run time screen. For a
comprehensive discussion of the Beatfast run time screen please refer to the
chapter about Beatfast, chapter 0. The Beatport screen is divided into a number of
layers:
Title layer
In the title layer information about waveform filtering can be found:
Title layer text Description

P-chanl=01 /at FIN 1 channel samples file, channel 1 is finger
arterial pressure
P-chanl=01 /at FIN/BRA level 1 channel samples file, channel 1 is finger
corrected arterial pressure, finger to brachial filtering
active , level correction active
Flow layer
The top panel default shows the cardiac output and total peripheral resistance. A
beat-to-beat aortic flow waveform is displayed at the left of the trend panel, the
numerical (eight beat averaged) values of the trended signals are displayed at the
right.
Pressure layer
The second panel always shows the beat-to-beat pressure waveform (left), the
diastolic and systolic pressure trends and the (eight beat averaged) systolic and
diastolic pressure.
Information layer
The third panel displays information about the output file(s) that are created (left),
a plot of the Portapres waveform (center), and parameters that are related to the
Modelflow method (right).
Portapres status line

Between the third panel and the Beatport selection notebook a status line shows the
two display lines of the Portapres control unit.
Tabcard layer
The notebook and tabs that are displayed at the bottom of the screen provide an
easy interface to check the current selections and to change setting when necessary.
Notebook pages are selected via the keyboard with function keys F1 to F6.
Beatport is a Dos program and no mouse functions are supported in this program.
Flow layer
Presure layer
Information layer
Portapres line
Tabcard layer
Figure 5.4 Beatport run time monitoring screen
5.2.3 Beatport, Available keys:

The following key and key combinations are defined in Beatport:
F1
To read a help text in the lower panel of the run time screen. Use PAGE UP and
PAGE DOWN key to browse through the help pages.
F2
To enter a comment, press F2 and then start to type. Each time when either 10
letters have been typed, or the ENTER key is pressed, a 10 byte commentary
marker is saved to the beat-to-beat results file.
F3 : Use ARROW keys:

- To change pressure scaling
- To change the type of beat result and scaling of the left and tight axis of the
top trend panel
- To change the time scaling
F4
To select a channel to display. You can either select channel 1 (Portapres
waveform) or channel 2 (height).
F5
To change the calibration factor of the Modelflow cardiac output method. Usually
this factor is 100 %. Changing the calibration factor may be helpful if you want to
make Modelflow cardiac output equal to an independently derived cardiac output.
To change the factor press ENTER. Use the ARROW UP and ARROW DOWN
keys to increase or decrease the calibration factor. If you are finished changing the
calibration factor press ENTER to accept, or ESC to skip.
F6
To show beat-to-beat variables:
- Pressure Sy=Systolic, Di=Diastolic, Mn=Mean blood pressure.
- Time PI=Pulse interval, HR=Heart rate, ET=Ejection time
- Modelflow SV=Stroke volume,CO=Cardiac output, PR=peripheral
Resistance
variables
ESC
To Cancel the current Beatport analysis.
5.2.4 Beatport, Keys to Control Portapres

Four key combinations have been defined to control a Portapres measurement:
• CTRL+E Send an event marker to the Portapres Memory card.
• CTRL+P Enable/Disable physiological calibrations
• CTRL+R Run (start) a Portapres Measurement
• CTRL+S Stop a Portapres Measurement
To stop monitoring press ESC.
5.2.5 Beatport, using a configuration file

If you are using the Beatport program frequently, and if you want display other
beat-data trends, or use another than the default selected time scale you should
consider using a configuration file. The file should be named MODELFLO.CFG.
Detailed information about the information in a configuration file can be found in
Appendix B.
6. Portapres, downloading measurements

This chapter deals with the transfer of data from the memory card in Portapres to
files on disk in the PC. Since measurements with Portapres are often of
considerable length a special high speed Flash link protocol is used to transfer data.
It is essential to understand that Portapres is not always ready for this high speed
‘Flash link’' protocol. Only when the control unit displays either READY MODE
or CONNECT FRONTEND files can be transferred to the PC. In all other modes
the Flash link will fail to start.
6.1 Displaying the flash card directory

To display a listing of measurements recorded by Portapres:
• Run a serial cable between the Portapres control unit and an unused serial port
in your PC.
• Make sure that Portapres is ready to transfer measurements (see above).
• Select the Portapres page in the Selection dialog and click the Download
button.
• Within 10 seconds you should see a listing of measurements in the flash card
Figure 6.1 Portapres download: file selection dialog
Troubleshooting
If the communication between Portapres and BeatScope fails, the message 'Unable
to start flash link' pops up.
1. Check that the correct serial port was selected.

2. Make sure the serial port is not in use by another program, e.g. a fax, modem,
or a data link with a handheld computer or camera…
3. Check that the cable is connected firmly to both ports
4. Make sure Portapres is in READY MODE or CONNECT FRONTEND mode.
5. Make sure that the Portapres main unit and the control unit are switched on.
6. Try to monitor a Portapres measurement by either starting Beatport or
monitor and control. If the monitor and control option in BeatScope is not
able to connect to Portapres, e.g. when Portapres is in Ready Mode, either the
cable or the control unit may be defective.
Figure 6.2 Flash link error message
6.2 Selecting files to transfer

You can output the directory of measurements for documentation purposes:
• use the Print button to print the Flash card directory
• use the To File button to write the directory to file
Locate the measurements you want to transfer, use the vertical scrollbar if
necessary.
• Selecting a single measurement: Click (with the left mouse button) the
measurement you want to transfer.
• Selecting multiple sequential measurements: Click the first measurement
you want to transfer, and then drag the cursor to the last item you want.
• Selecting multiple nonsequential measurements: Press and hold down
CTRL, and then click each item you want.
Finally click Download to invoke the Download files dialog.

6.3 Defining the output directory and filenames
The Download files dialog enables you to define the output directory and
filenames of the measurements you have selected.
Figure 6.3 Portapres download: file naming dialog
First select the output path. All measurements that were selected in the directory
will be saved in this output path. To enter the output path:
• Type the name of the output path, or
• Select a directory with the Browse button at the right of the Output path field.
The dialog lists all measurements you have selected. The column Number refers to
the measurement number, ranging from 1 to 255, and the column FileName lists
the filenames that are going to be used. To change the names of the files you are
going to transfer:
• You can edit the fields in the Filename column.
• You can also use the fields in the ‘File mask’ and ‘File numbering’ boxes to
instruct BeatScope to create file names (semi-) automatically. Such filenames
consists of :
Output path+ File Mask+ File Number+ .File Extension

C:\EXAMPLE\ STUDY 29 .DAT
• There are two file numbering schemes:

• Auto increment files numbers sequentially
• Run number use the Portapres measurement number
If you make changes in the 'FileMask', 'Extension' or 'File numbering' boxes you
should click the Apply button to update the filenames in the Filename column.
6.4 Transferring data to the PC
Click the Download button to start the transfer of data.
During the download process a status window is displayed, with information about
the current measurement that is transferred and the speed of the serial link
(baudrate).
Normally, this baudrate should be 115000 Baud (115 kBaud). If the computer is
not fast enough to handle this high speed protocol, data loss may occur and the
warning 'Serial line errors' is displayed. BeatScope then automatically selects a
lower baudrate. If the baudrate ends up lower than 57 kBaud do the following:
• make sure there is no activity at all on the serial port you are using.
• limit the concurrent activity on other output ports in your computer, i.e.
suspend printing and/or working with a ZIP drive.
• the power management in some (notebook) computer cause problems with
high speed serial communication. If you frequently experience problems with
the Flash link, try switching the power management off to see it that makes a
difference.
• try the program on a faster computer to check that the control unit is
functioning properly. If you suspect a problem in the control unit of Portapres,
contact Finapres Medical Systems BV.
After finishing the data transfer the Flash card directory dialog is displayed
again. You can select another set of measurements to transfer or click on the Close
button to return to the Selection dialog.
7. Portapres, file utilities

On the Portapres page of the Selection dialog additional commands can be found
to work with Portapres M2 files.
• Event file to create a file with a listing of all run time events and warnings that
are stored in the Portapres M2 file.
• Decompress file to create a non-compressed 100 Hz binary samples file with
either 1 channel (Porta pressure) or 2 channels (pressure and height).
• Merge Portapres files: to make one data file out of two subsequent
measurements files that were interrupted e.g. because of a battery running out
of power.
7.1 Creating a Portapres event file
Use the Portapres event file option to get:

• status information (switching interval, finger selection, physiocal status),
• errors (such as CHECK AIR SUPPLY),
• run time warnings (such as ERROR PHYSIOCAL),
• event markers
Click the Event file button on the Portapres page of the Selection dialog.
Figure 7.1 Portapres event file dialog

Note: If you select the View Files utility in BeatScope, and if you open a Portapres
M2 file, the events in the file are automatically extracted.
The Portapres event file dialog has the following fields :
1. Portapres Model 2 file Select the name of the Portapres file from the drop-
down list, or click the browse button at the right of the filename field to locate
the file.
2. Time format options are:
• seconds relative to the start of the measurement,
• hh:mm:ss format relative to the start of the measurement
• the time of day.
3. You can either Output to:
• Printer to print the event listing.
• File to write the events to a file, type the name of the event file or select
the browse button at the right of the filename field.
• Screen to display the event listing.
Finally click the button above the Close button which is named 'Print', 'To File' or
'View' depending on your selection in the 'Output to' box.
Example of a Portapres event file :
Figure 7.2 Portapres down load: file naming dialog
Click on Close to close the dialog and to return to the Selection dialog.
7.2 Decompressing a Portapres M2 file
Portapres M2 files contain:

• samples of the finger arterial pressure waveform
• samples of the height correction signal
• status and event information.
Since the samples are stored in a compressed format, you should unpack a
Portapres M2 file if you want to use the pressure samples in a non-TNO analysis
package.
Note: If you want to use a Portapres M2 file in a beat-to-beat analysis with

Beatfast or if you want to view the file with View Files utility, you do not have to
decompress the Portapres M2 file.
To invoke the Decompress Portapres file dialog, click the Decompress file
button on the Portapres page of the Selection dialog.
Figure 7.3 Portapres down load: file naming dialog
The Decompress Portapres file dialog has the following fields :
• Portapres Model 2 file Select the name of the Portapres file from the drop-
down list, or click the browse button at the right of the filename field to locate
the file.
• Output file BeatScope default suggests an output filename with the
extension.ADC. If you want to change the output file name either type the
name or click the browse button at the right of the output file field.
• 1 or 2 channels The decompress command converts the Portapres M2 file in a

simple uncompressed binary samples file, sampled at 100 Hz, and with one or
two channels:
1. channel : create a 1 channel samples file (Porta)
2. channels: create a 2 channel samples file (Porta and Height).
Note: By converting the Portapres M2 compressed file to a simple binary samples

file without header information you loose the information that is used by
BeatScope to interpret the file. If you open such a binary file in BeatScope you will
have to define the number of channels and sampling frequency manually, see also
section 12.3.3.
Click the Run button to run the decompress command.
Click on Close to close the dialog and to return to the Selection dialog.
7.3 Merging two Portapres files

By merging two Portapres files a new Portapres file is created containing the data
of both files but with a gap in between the data of both measurements. The
advantage of a merged file is that data analysis of one data file is much easier than
combining the results of two separate measurements.
Remarks:
• The first file should end, before the start of the second file
• The gap between both files should be less than 24h.
To merge two Portapres files:

• Press the browse button next to the first Portapres file and select the Portapres
files that was interrupted.
• Press the browse button next to the second Portapres file and select the
Portapres file that comes after the first.
• Define a name of the merged file, you can not use the name of either of the
two Portapres files here!
• Press the Merge button to create file.
Figure 7.4 Portapres merge files dialog

8. Finometer
On the Finometer page buttons can be found that give access to functions to work
with Finometer and its files:
• The Monitor function enables the on-line real time monitoring, and limited
control, of Finometer measurements.
• The Download function can be used to download measurements from
Finometer via a serial line to the PC.
• The Read pack function is used to split a Finometer packet file into four
different files:
1. An eight channel binary samples file, sampled at 200 Hz
2. A BeatScope beat-to-beat data file
3. An ASCII file with a comprehensive set of physiologic data for each beat
4. A header file
• The Classico function enables you to transfer data of semi-automatic blood
pressure measurements performed when Finometer is in ‘Classico Mode’.
Figure 8.1 Selection Dialog, Finometer page.

8.1 Connecting Finometer to the PC
To establish a connection between the Finometer and the PC do the following:

• Connect the provided ‘null-modem’ serial cable between the ‘RS232’ port of
Finometer and a free serial COM port in the PC.
• Turn on the power of the PC and Finometer.
• Start BeatScope. Go to the Finometer-page. Select the proper COM port.
• Press either Download or Monitor.
Note: the serial connection is not necessary for the Readpack function.
8.2 Monitor function
Use Finolink, the Finometer monitor function in BeatScope, to monitor a

measurement with Finometer on the PC. The Monitor function displays the
pressure waveform, beat data, pressure and cardiac output trends and other
information very similar to the Finometer sceen. For a detailed discussion of the
on-screen elements please refer to the Finometer User’s Guide.
Figure 8.2 Finolink, monitoring screen.

8.2.1 On-line data storage in the PC

During a measurement Finometer always stores data in data packages on its built-in
disk. These data packages contain waveform information, beat to beat data and
status information. The same data packages are also sent to the PC, via the serial
communication with Finolink. The Finolink monitor stores these data packages on
the PC’s hard disk, using the same file names as in Finometer. You can give the
name of the directory where your on-line measurements are to be stored. Click on
Configure, Directory in the Finolink menu to change.
Note:
• If Finolink is running and connected with Finometer via the serial line during
an entire measurement, the same data file can be found on the Finometer disk
and on the PC disk and there is no need to download the measurement.
• If Finolink could not monitor an entire Finometer measurement, either because
of a bad serial connection or because monitoring was started too late, or
stopped to early, the data file on the PC is incomplete. This is signalled with a
‘$’ instead of the ‘P’ in the Finometer packet file name. See the example
below:
Data file in Finometer Data file in PC after monitoring Status

with Finolink
Data file not complete,
1ap11$12.123 download file to get entire
1ap11p12.123 measurement.
Data file is complete, files are
1ap11p12.123 identical
Table 8.1 Monitoring file naming convention
8.2.2 Finometer control

Remote Finometer control is only possible when Finometer is in the ‘Research
Mode’. In the ‘Clinique Mode’ remote control is not possible, however, a
measurement can be monitored. A measurement can be started when the message
‘No measurement’ is displayed.
Figure 8.3 Finolink, monitoring screen, closeup of command buttons.

During a monitoring session the following buttons are available:

• [Mark] To put an event marker in the data file
• [Physiocal] To toggle Physiocal
• [Start RTF] / [Stop RTF] To start and stop a return to flow calibration.
• [Start] / [Stop] To start or stop a measurement
• [Close] To close the program, the measurement
continues.
Notes
• Patient information such as age and gender must be set on the Finometer.
For correct cardiac output computation you should enter patient data before
starting a measurement.
• Configuring Finometer, e.g. the selection of waveform filtering or selection of
external input channels, can only be performed on the Finometer device itself.
• A return to flow (RTF) procedure can be started about two minutes after the
start of a measurement.
Influence of serial communication on the display of signals

• Due to the serial communication between Finometer and the PC there is a
delay of about one second between Finometer and the PC, therefore, the effect
of commands (i.e. the Mark-key) is visible only after a small delay.
• If you start monitoring a Finometer measurement, which is already running,
buffering of file packets in the Finometer causes the first packets to arrive in
the PC at a higher rate than normal. As a consequence Finolink has to update
the screen more frequently. Although beat results are properly displayed in this
period, the beats in the pressure waveform plot seem to occur at a higher rate
for several seconds, do not be alarmed by this. When in doubt check the beat
results display.
8.3 Download function
To transfer measurements from Finometer to the PC:

1. Check that the correct serial port is selected on the Finometer tab in
BeatScope.
2. Start the Finolink function in Download Mode, by clicking on the Download
button.
Note: it is not possible to do measurements with Finometer during

downloading. Likewise it is not possible to download data when Finometer is
measuring.
3. Click on ‘Connect’ to transfer directory information to the PC.
The opening screen of the download function displays on the left the local files
in the the currently selected destination directory of the PC. In the right panel
the files on the Finometer are shown.
4. Click on ‘Date’ to sort the list of filenames on date, with the most recent file
on top.
Columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header. Clicking it once
more will reverse the order of the sorting. A small triangle indicates the
direction of sorting; if it points upward the smallest value is on top. Note that
sorting on file name gives a different order compared with sorting by date.
Columns can be resized with the mouse.
Connect/
Disconnect
Download
Figure 8.4 Finolink, download screen.
Finometer files have unique filenames containing the date, time and file type. The
naming of these date + time files is addressed in Section 4.9.
5. Click on one or more filenames in the directory. Use the CTRL Key to select
non-sequential files.
6. Click on ‘Local files’ to select a destination directory
7. Click on ‘<’, to download the selected files. If you want to transfer only a
single measurement you can also double click the filename.
Note: The ‘Gndr’ (Gender) column may contain three letters ‘D’ – Decide, ‘F’ –
Female, and ‘M’ – Male. The ‘D’ signals that neither before nor during the
measurement the patient information was set. Default patient information: Age,
Height (‘Hght’) and Weight (‘Wght’) is assumed.
Always enter the correct patient information before starting a new

measurement!
After clicking the ‘<’ button to download the selected files, the following dialog is
shown.
Figure 8.5 Finolink, file rename dialog.
The file rename dialog enables you to use your own file naming. Use the ‘File
naming’ radio buttons:
• to select the usage of the Finometer filename convention (date + time
filenames, such as 2ap20p12.212), or
• to rename the file names using a mask. If the mask is set to ‘EXAMPLE’ and
the ‘starting with’ value at 20, then the first selected file will get the filename
example20.fpf. The extension .fpf stands for ‘Finometer packet file’.
8.4 Readpack function
Use the Readpack function to decompose a Finometer packet file into a number of
standard data files.
Figure 8.6 Readpack dialog.

To use the Readpack function:
1. Click the Readpack button on the Finometer page in BeatScope
2. Select a Finometer packet file

- Type the name of the file, or
- Click the browse button at the right of the input file drop-down list, or
- Drag the filename from a directory displayed with Windows Explorer
and drop it in the dialog, or
- if you have used the file before in BeatScope, look for the file in the list of
files that were used recently by clicking the arrow button which is part of
the drop-down list box.
3. Select an output directory
4. Use the radio button to select one of two options:
• Predefined (=Finometer) file names
• User defined file names.
5. If you have selected ‘User defined names’, type the mask that you want to use
(EXAMPLE2 in the figure)
6. Four files will be created, you can however skip the creation of files by
removing the corresponding checkmarks.
Predefined (Finometer) name User defined name

Samples file 1ap16s12.212 example2.adc
Beat data file 1ap16r12.212 example2.res
Header file 1ap16h12.212 example2.hdr
Text data file 1ap16a12.212 example2.asc
Samples file
Readpack outputs an eight channel (TNO format) samples file, as defined in
Section 4.1.1, sampled at 200 Hz.
• Channel 1 is the unprocessed (raw) finger pressure, i.e. without waveform
filtering and level correction. The pressure signal is, however, height
corrected. It is important to realize that this channel always contains the
unprocessed pressure even if the Finometer measurement was performed with
finger to brachial pressure reconstruction active.
• Channel 2 is the hydrostatic height correction signal
• Channel 3 is the upper arm cuff pressure transducer signal
• Channel 4 is the plethysmograph signal.
• Channel 5 is the reconstructed brachial pressure signal, this channel is only

defined if the option waveform filtering to brachial pressure was active in
Finometer during the measurement.
• Channels 6,7 and 8 are reserved for future use.
Note: The definition of channels 2, 3 and 4 depends on the selected configuration

in Finometer. The channel definition presented in the table is the default
configuration.
Beat data file

a TNO beat data, as defined in Section 4.3. These binary beat data files contain
beat information that can be used in BeatScope in e.g. the Printres (Section 10) and
the Plotfast (Section 11) options. Note that the beat results in the binary beat data
file are a subset of the information in the ASCII results file.
TNO Header file

An ASCII text file with information about the samples and beat data file.
ASCII results file

An ASCII text beat results file with the following columns:
reSYS 1) mmHg ‘reconstructed brachial’ systolic blood

pressure, the maximum pressure in arterial
systole.
reDIA 1) mmHg ‘reconstructed brachial’ diastolic blood
pressure, the lowest pressure just before
the next upstroke.
reMAP 1) mmHg ‘reconstructed brachial’ mean blood
pressure, the true integrated mean between
upstrokes.
LevelCor mmHg Regression level correction applied to this
beat
LevelCal mmHg Total correction (see next column) –
LevelCor, based on a Return to Flow
(RTF) calibration
Total mmHg Total correction applied to this beat
HR bpm Pulse rate, derived from interbeat interval.
IBI s Interbeat interval, time between two
consecutive upstrokes.
LVET ms Left Ventricular Ejection Time, time
between upstroke and dicrotic notch.

SV ml Stroke Volume from Modelflow simulation
CO lpm Cardiac Output as the product of stroke
volume and heart rate.
TPR MU Total Peripheral Resistance, as the ratio of
mean pressure to cardiac output, thus
assuming zero venous pressure (at the right
atrium)
artifact 100000000 Artifact bits, refer to Table 3.1
Height mmHg Height correction applied to this beat
Zao mMU Ascending aorta characteristic Impedance
at the current diastolic pressure
Cwk MU Total arterial compliance at the current
diastolic pressure
Dist mMU Distensibility of the aorta
SPTI mmHg.s Area under the systolic part of the aortic
pressure waveform.
DPTI mmHg.s Area under the diastolic part of the aortic
pressure waveform.
DPTI/SPTI % Cardiac Oxygen supply : demand ratio
index (Buckberg index)
RPP mmHg/min Rate pressure product: product of heart rate
and systolic aortic pressure.
DPTI/RPP s^2 Cardiac Oxygen supply : demand ratio
index
dp/dt mmHg/s Maximum slope of unprocessed pressure
rise during the upstroke.
Table 8.2 Readpack function, definition of columns in ASCII results file
Note : If waveform filtering to brachial pressure was applied during the Finometer
measurement the beat results are labeled as ‘reconstructed’ (prefix re), if not they
are labeled with the prefix fi.
9. Performing a beat-to-beat analysis with

Beatfast
The program Beatfast detects heart beats in an arterial pressure waveform and
derives many parameters from it. Heart beats are detected and systolic, diastolic
and mean blood pressure, interbeat interval, heart rate, and ventricular ejection
time are detected and measured. In addition stroke volume, cardiac output and
systemic vascular resistance are computed using the Modelflow method developed
by TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation.
9.1 Overview of features of Beatfast
This listing provides a quick overview of the basic and more advanced features of
Beatfast:
• Beat-to-beat data : From each heart beat detected in the pressure waveform
twelve parameters are derived.
• Arterial pressure sites : Beatfast supports the following arterial pressure
sites: aorta, femoral artery, temporal artery, brachial artery, radial artery, and
finger artery, the latter from Finapres, Finometer or Portapres.
• Marker detection : Detection of sudden level changes in a specified (marker)
channel.
• Physiocal detection : Detection of interruptions in the finger arterial pressure
waveform, due to physiological calibrations (Physiocal) of Portapres and
Finapres recordings.
• Waveform filtering : Application of filters that correct for pressure wave
distortion when arterial pressure is obtained in a peripheral site such as a
finger artery or the radial artery.
• Level correction : In addition to waveform filtering a built-in level shift
correction can be applied to correct for the pressure decrement of mean blood
pressure between the heart and the finger. This level correction can only be
activated for finger arterial pressures.
• Level calibration : Beatfast can analyze a specified (return-to-flow) channel
with cuff pressure measured in an upper arm Riva-Rocci cuff to calibrate the
individual level correction that is needed to move pressure levels to brachial
artery levels. Level calibration can only be activated for finger arterial
pressure waveforms.
• Special channel analysis : Beatfast can analyze a specified (special) channel
and determine in that channel either the average, the integral, or the peak-to-
peak signal value, for each beat detected. The pressure channel can be
advanced or delayed 500 ms with respect to arterial pressure.
9.2 The Beatfast beat-to-beat analysis dialog
Click the Beat analysis page of the Selection dialog then click on Beatfast.
Figure 9.1 Beatfast dialog
Each time you invoke the Beatfast dialog a default session is assumed. In a default
session Beatfast:
• Uses a TNO standard 100 Hz samples file or a Portapres file
• Uses the Modelflow method to compute cardiac output with a Modelflow
calibration factor of 100 %
• Does not use waveform filtering, level correction or level calibration.
• Does not perform a special channel analysis
• Does not detect markers in a marker channel
9.2.1 Entering information about the input file

If you are an advanced Beatfast user this is a good time to load a previously saved
Beatfast configuration file from disk.
To open the input file that you want to be analyzed by Beatfast:

- Select the file from the drop-down list, or
- Click on the browse button at the right of Input file field, or

- Drag the filename from Windows Explorer to the Beatfast dialog, or
- type the name of the samples file.
Beatfast can either use:

• A Portapres M2 file,
• A TNO samples file created by Beatport
• A binary samples file as described in the section ‘Other binary files’,
• An ASCII text samples file
The input file is opened when you either press Enter (while editing text in the input
field) or when you move the cursor to another field in the dialog.
Then BeatScope tries to collect all necessary information about the samples file by
reading additional information from the samples file and subsequent from an
accompanying header file.
Note for Finometer users: To re-analyze a Finometer packet file, you should
unpack the Finometer file and redo the analysis on the samples file that is created.
This analysis is normally not necessary since a full beat analysis is already
performed during the measurement and stored with the samples in the packet file.
Since on-line in Finometer more information is present about the pressure signal,
and e.g. the occurrence of Physiocals, an off-line analysis may be less accurate than
the original Finometer packet file.
Input file box
Note: If you selected a Portapres M2 file, all fields are filled with the proper data.
Since a Portapres M2 file has always the same format it is not possible to change
any of the remaining fields in the 'Input file' box.
Verify the data in the following fields for other file types and correct them if
necessary:
# Channels : The number of channels in the samples files. If you have opened an
ASCII text data file, enter the number of columns in the file.
In TNO samples files the number of channels is obtained directly from the header
block in the samples file itself.
Pressure : The channel that contains the pressure waveform to be analyzed.

Marker : If you want markers to be detected in a separate channel, which must be

different from the pressure channel, you can define a marker channel. If the marker
channel is '0' no marker analysis is performed.
Figure 9.2 Beatfast dialog
Markers are detected whenever the voltage in the marker channel rises or drops
step wise to a new steady level within 10 ms. The new level must be held for at
least 100 ms. The time of onset and the new signal level are stored as an event in
the beat-to-beat results file. Bits 7 and 8 of the artifact bitset of this event are set.
Note: in a Portapres M2 file the marker channel is always set to ‘2’. In this way
Beatfast automatically merges the run time events found in the Flash Memory Card
with the beats detected.
Height corr.: The channel containing the hydrostatic height correction signal of
Portapres, or Finometer.
Note: in a Portapres M2 file the ‘height corr.’ channel is always ‘2’. Therefore, the
hydrostatic height correction value is available as one of the beat results.
The height correction value is used only to be stored with the other beat data in the
beat results file. The value is not used to correct the arterial pressure waveform. It
is assumed that the pressure waveform is the blood pressure at heart level (i.e.
height corrected).
RTF : Selecting a return-to-flow channel is only necessary if you want to apply the
pressure correction option with R.T.F. calibration in Beatfast. Specify the channel
with the cuff pressure measured in an upper arm Riva Rocci cuff proximal of the
finger cuff.
Type : The type of input samples file:

• Portapres M2 file : Compressed Portapres M2 samples file
• TNO samples file : Samples file created with Beatport
• Samples file : Other binary samples file
• ASCII file : Text file with columns of numbers
Site : The site of arterial pressure measurement:

• Aorta
• Femoral artery
• Temporal artery
• Brachial artery
• Radial artery
• Finger artery
Freq : The frequency, either 100 or 200 Hz. Beatfast supports samples files with
these sampling frequencies.
Offset and resolution : This box enables you to specify a non zero offset and the
resolution of the pressure waveform.
• Resolution (Scaling)
- Binary samples files : the resolution is usually 2.5 mV ( 0.25 mmHg ). If the
polarity of the signals is negative you may enter a scaling of e.g. -0.25 mmHg.
- ASCII text files : the scaling is the multiplication factor that is used to convert
the pressure values in the text files to mmHg. Therefore, if the pressure
column already has mmHg units the scaling field should be 1.000. Negative
scaling values are allowed when polarity of the pressure signal has to be
inverted.
• Offset is the zero offset level, only for binary files. If a pressure sample is read
from file with a value equal to offset, the pressure is 0 mmHg.
Skip : Skip specifies the number of bytes or lines (ASCII text file) that have to be
skipped at the start of the samples file. Use this value to skip a header block in a
samples file or header lines in an ASCII samples file.
Entering Subject information
Since the Modelflow cardiac output method critically depends on the proper age
and gender it is important to check the fields in this box:
- Age : The age of the subject (yr).
- Sex : The gender of the subject (male, female).
- Height : The height of the subject (cm). If the height is unknown, then enter a
'0' in this field.
- Weight : The weight of the subject (kg). If the weight is unknown, then enter a
'0' in this field.
Selecting the execution speed
A Beatfast analysis can be performed at different execution speeds. The beat-to-

beat analysis, and the beat results file are not affected by the execution speed
- Highest : The highest execution speed provides the fastest analysis; only text
information (no graphics!) is displayed showing the progress of the analysis.
- Very high : During the beat-to-beat analysis a graphics screen is displayed
with trend panels and numerical values of selected beat-to-beat parameters.
There is no internal delay in this mode, so the analysis is as fast as possible.
- High : The execution speed is approximately 10 times real time, meaning a 10
min period in a samples files is analyzed in approximately 1 min. During the
beat-to-beat analysis a graphics screen is displayed with trend panels and
numerical values of selected beat-to-beat parameters.
- Normal: The execution is approximately real time. This speed is obviously
too slow to analyze a 24 hr recording, since the analysis will also take about
24 hr. Still this execution speed is often useful to inspect the flow and pressure
waveform panels.
Note: You can change execution speed during a beat-to-beat analysis with
ALT+X.
Selecting an output file

The next step in the Beatfast dialog is to name the output file(s). Beatfast always
outputs three files per analysis:
1. A binary beat results file (default extension .R00).
2. An ASCII beat results file (default extension .A00) with the full set of beat
results available, cf. Table 8.1 for information about the beat data columns.
3. An ASCII header file (default extension .H00) with information about the beat
analysis
The Beatfast dialog only prompts you to enter the name of the binary results file,
the filenames of the header file and the ASCII beat results file are based on the
name of the binary results file.
To define an output name either:
• Click the Create Output name button. The default filename is a combination
of:
- The last used output directory (which can be different from the input
directory)
- Followed by the input file name (without extension)
- Followed by the extension .R00, or
• Type the name of the output file, you can use long file names, or
• Click the browse button at the right of the output field
Beatfast header/ASCII beat results files : If you use the extension ‘.R’ followed
by two digits (e.g. ‘.R01’, ‘.R49’) in Beatfast, the accompanying header file
automatically gets the same name with an ‘.H’ instead of the ‘.R’ in the extension,
and likewise the ASCII beat results file gets the extension with an ‘.A’ instead of
the ‘.R’. See the table below. If you use another extension the header file always
gets the name of the samples file with the ‘.HDR’ extension appended to the file
name.
Binary beat results file Ascii beat results file Header file
EXAMPLE.R00 EXAMPLE.A00 EXAMPLE.H00
EXAMPLE.R45 EXAMPLE.A45 EXAMPLE.H45
EXAMPLE.BTB EXAMPLE.BTB.TXT EXAMPLE.BTB.HDR
You are now ready to do a default analysis with Beatfast. If, however, the Run
button is still disabled (grayed) the status line at the bottom of the Beatfast dialog
displays which information is still missing or wrong.
9.2.2 Selecting additional options for the analysis

To select advanced analysis options in Beatfast click on Setup.
Selecting TNO pulse contour method or Modelflow
The 'Cardiac output model' box allows to select either the standard Modelflow
model or the former 'corrected characteristic impedance (cZ) model' further
referred to the 'TNO pulse contour method'. The model computes stroke volume
using the contour of the pressure waveform. The original method was developed
around 1970 and a number of publications have appeared since then demonstrating
its precision in following changes in stroke volume and cardiac output. The model
is a uniform aortic transmission line, but non-linear corrections upon changes in
mean pressure and heart rate are implemented in an age dependent manner.
In 1993 TNO introduced the Modelflow method to derive an aortic flow pulse
from a continuous pressure waveform. The Modelflow method follows changes in
cardiac output with better accuracy than the TNO pulse contour method and
provides a rather complete afterload description in its model parameters and is
therefore the preferred model to compute cardiac output.
Figure 9.3 Beatfast dialog, after selecting Setup.
Changing the calibration factor

The calibration factor is not for the pressure, but for the cardiac output. Modelflow
and the TNO Pulse contour method both compute stroke volume based on
algorithms with parameters which are not exactly known for each individual
subject. The Modelflow method for instance assumes a population average aortic
area depending on the gender, age, height and weight of a subject. If the individual
aortic area is in fact 20% larger than average the computed waveform is smaller
than true flow and calibration should be increased to 120 %. It is generally not
recommended to change the calibration factor unless you have an accurate
independent (invasive) cardiac output method to compare with. The calibration
factor used in a beat-to-beat analysis is stored in the beat results file. The
calibration factor can be any integer value in the range between 25 % and 400 %.
Analyzing the same file twice
• Once : Default; Beatfast performs a beat analysis of the file only once.
• Twice : Beatfast needs a small number of beats to adapt various (model)
parameters to the subject and the signals. However, on short files of only a few
beats the number of beats used for this purpose could be a substantial part of
the file. Valid results are produced only in the remaining beats. It is, therefore,
possible to play a file twice. The first play is used to adapt, the second to
produce beat-to-beat results.
• Continuously : For demonstration purposes it is also possible to play a file
continuously, in this mode no beat-to-beat results file is created.
Enabling filtering and pressure level correction
If arterial pressure is measured in the finger, radial or brachial artery the pressure
waveform is always more or less distorted and some pressure pulse amplification
may occur. For a pressure recorded as peripherally as the finger additionally a
pressure gradient causes mean pressure levels to be below arterial. TNO TPD
Biomedical Instrumentation has developed a number of methods to correct the
pulse wave distortion and the pressure gradient. The 'Pressure correction' box can
be used to select the desired pressure correction method:
• No correction : Default; the pressure waveform is analyzed without additional

waveform filtering or level shifts.
• Finger to brachial, no level correction : This option enables the finger to
brachial waveform filtering. The reconstructed brachial wave is then shown in
the pulse wave panel. It does not have consequences for stroke volume
computation but is does affect values for systolic (most), diastolic and mean
pressure in beat results file.
Note: One of the consequences of waveform filtering is that systolic blood

pressure no longer coincides with the highest value of the 'raw unfiltered'
pressure signal during systole. The same holds true for diastolic blood
pressure, but to a lesser degree.
• Finger to brachial : level corrected : This option not only enables the Finger
to brachial waveform filter, but does also a regression based level correction.
• Finger to brachial : R.T.F. calibrated : This option is similar to the previous
option, however, in addition it enables the calibration of the applied level
correction in a subject. To achieve a correct level calibration one has to record
the cuff pressure of an upper arm Riva-Rocci cuff in a so-called RTF channel
of the samples file. The offset and scaling of this RTF channel should be 0 and
1V/100 mmHg respectively. The cuff must be placed on the upper arm
proximal of the finger pressure recording site. With the finger pressure
measurement ongoing inflate the upper arm cuff (either manually or with a
special device) rapidly to a pressure about 30 mmHg higher than the expected
systolic pressure, and then deflate slowly at 2 to 3 mmHg/s. Once inflated the
finger pulse disappears. Upon slow deflation the finger pressure reappears and
this first pulsation (return-to-flow) is automatically detected by Beatfast. The
upper arm cuff, at this moment of return to flow, is stored in the beat results
file. Next, the finger pressure which is already converted to brachial waveform
by the filter, is automatically corrected to upper arm blood pressure.
• Radial to Brachial : This option enables the radial to brachial waveform
filtering.
Analyzing signals in a special channel
One of the beat results that is stored in a beat-to-beat results file is ventricular
ejection time. This value is, however, not necessary sometimes. Beatfast enables
the storage of another parameter value instead of ejection time in its beat-to-beat
results file:
• Extreme values in a special channel
• Average values in a special channel
• Integrals per beat in a special channel
• The finger pressure level shift
• Pulse interval
• Systolic area.
Note: If a special channel is analyzed storage is in mV (milli-Volt) for the average

or the peak-to-peak value and in mV.s for the integral.
To specify a special channel and analysis:

• Click the Setup button in the 'Special output' box of the Beatfast dialog.
• Click on the Special channel page of the notebook in the Advanced Beatfast
settings dialog.
Special channel number : To do a special channel analysis provide:

• The channel number you want to analyze, or
• Ejection time (default), or
• Pulse interval in ms, or
• Level shift of finger or radial pressure by the correction and calibration system
• Systolic area [mV.s]
Figure 9.4 Advanced Beatfast settings, special channel
Action : As described above the analysis can examine the special channel for
extreme values, average values or integrals per beat.
Channel delay : This option delays the special channel with respect to the primary
pressure waveform signal to account for up to ±500 ms time shifts between signals.
Filing pressure and (model) flow waveforms
It is possible to produce a file similar to a samples file with 8 channels containing

signals all computed from the input pressure signal. If the analyze twice option is
enabled the samples are taken from the second run only.
Stored in the 8 channels binary samples file are the following computed signals:
Channel Computed signal

1 Original (finger) input pressure1
2 Brachial pressure + [level correction] & [level
calibration]
3 Aortic pressure + [level correction] & [level calibration]
4 Windkessel pressure in the model
5 Computed (aortic) inflow waveform
6 Aortic outflow to tissue
7 Special channel (delayed)
8 Ejection period marker
Table 9.1 Pressure and (model) flow waveforms file
1
Low pass filtering is applied to the input pressure waveform: 16.7 Hz at 100 Hz
sampling frequency, and 24.5 Hz at 200 Hz.
Click on the Advanced page of the notebook in the Advanced Beatfast settings
dialog to set up Modelflow waveform filing.
If you check the ‘Output Modelflow pressure and flow curves to disk’ checkbox
Beatfast will write samples to a file with the name pqv0.adc, pqv1.adc, pqv2.adc
etc. in the output directory. The output file name Beatfast selects depends on the
files with the mask PQV*.ADC that already exist in the output directory. You
should specify a start time (From) and a stop time (To) in seconds.
Configuring the Beatfast run time screen
In the upper trend panel in the Beatfast run time screen various signals can be
selected to trend display. Default cardiac output and peripheral resistance are
displayed. During a beat analysis you can change the trends but it is also possible
to configure the trends To change this selection, click on the Display page of the
notebook in the Advanced Beatfast settings dialog.
The 'Left trend' and 'Right trend' boxes enable the selection of the two trend signals
in the upper trend panel. The pressure (trend) display scaling can be changed in the
'Pressure display' box. The time window, which is default 6 min, can be changed to
30 min, 2, 8, 24 hr. Finally, if you prefer to view the trend signals and their
numerical values against a dark background select the Distance option in the View
from box.
Figure 9.5 Advanced Beatfast settings dialog, display tab.
Click the OK button to close the dialog and to return to the Beatfast, beat-to-beat
analysis dialog.
9.2.3 Loading and saving a Beatfast configuration

If you want to save the analysis options selected in the Beatfast dialog you can
click the Save button in the 'Configuration' box. The configuration file does not
store subject data, input file name and output file name. If you start Beatfast again
at a later time you can load the analysis settings with Load button. Just select the
configuration file and click the Open button.
If you Reset a configuration file, all analysis options are set to their default values.
See Appendix B for more information about Beatfast configuration files.
9.3 Starting a beat-to-beat analysis
Click Run to start the analysis immediately.
You can also use the Add button at this time. Then the Beatfast command is not
executed immediately but stored in a batch command file. Use the Edit button to
view and edit the current batch command file. Refer to section 14 for detailed
information about creating and running batch command files.
9.3.1 Troubleshooting
If Beatfast does not start please check the following possible causes:
• Check that BEATFAST and BEATSCOPE are in the same directory.
• Make sure there is enough memory to run DOS programs. An easy way to
check free memory in DOS is to click the Start button on the Windows
Taskbar, click Programs and then MsDos prompt. If you see the Dos
command prompt type MEM.EXE and then press ENTER, the program
reports the maximum memory size that a program can allocate. This memory
size should be 520 kB or more.
9.4 Beatfast, run time screen

This section describes the run time screen of Beatfast. However, since the Beatport
run time screen is very similar the two screens are described in one section.
Flow trend
layer
Run time
messages Pressure
trend layer
Info layer
Tab card
layer
Figure 9.6 Beatfast run time screen
The run time screen is an interactive graphics screen which, with the PC keyboard,
allows user control. Note that Beatfast and Beatport are DOS programs, and that
the mouse is not functional in the run time screen. Nevertheless, user control is
easy via the keyboard since only the function keys (F1 to F6) are used in
combination with ARROW UP and ARROW DOWN to select pages of a notebook
displayed at the bottom of the screen and to configure the run time screen.
The screen is divided into five horizontal layers: the title layer, the flow trend
layer, the pressure layer, the information layer and the tab card layer:
Title layer
• Displays the program name and the cardiac output model that has been
selected (mf=Modelflow, cZ=TNO Pulse contour) followed by the version.
• Displays the number of the pressure channel, followed by 'BRA converted' if
waveform filtering was enabled to brachial artery followed by either 'RTF
calibrated' or 'level corrected' if selected.
Flow trend layer

• Flow waveform : The computed flow curve at 1000 ml/s full scale.
• Trend panel : A plot of 2 beat parameters, usually cardiac output and total
peripheral resistance.
• Trend values : A panel with the 8 beat running averaged numerical values of
the two signals selected in the trend plot.
Pressure layer
• Pressure waveform displays the full pressure waveform of the heart beat
which was recognized last.
• Diagnostic info : At the top of the pressure waveform window a diagnostic
status line is shown with information about the beat analysis.
• Pressure trend panel : A trend panel displaying systolic, diastolic, and mean
blood pressure.
• Pressure values : This panel displays the current systolic and diastolic
pressure (eight beat running average) as big numbers.
Information layer
• File information data fields
[Beatfast]:
♦ Dat : current date
♦ Tim : current time
♦ Fil : input samples file name (without path)
♦ Siz : size of the samples file, expressed in HH:MM:SS format
♦ Pos : current position in the file, expressed in HH:MM:SS format
♦ Spd : execution speed (‘normal=real time, ‘high’=10x real time, ‘very’=
the highest execution speed with graphics output)
[Beatport]:
♦ Dat : current date
♦ Tim : current time
♦ Rat : current sampling frequency (100 or 200 Hz)
♦ Out : output file name
♦ Siz : size of the output file, expressed in HH:MM:SS format
♦ Store : Storage mode
‘NOT’ : no storage of samples at all
‘contin’ : continuous uninterruptable storage of samples
• Raw input signal view : This panel default displays the pressure channel of the
samples file, during an analysis you can view other channels by selecting the
Configure A/D signals tab of the notebook.
• Cardiac output model parameters

♦ Cal : calibration factor, default 100, [%]
♦ Dao : thoracic aorta diameter [mm]
♦ Zao : aortic characteristic impedance [milli-mmHg.s/ml = mMU, Medical
Units]
♦ Cwk : arterial compliance [ml/mmHg = MU]
♦ Rp : total peripheral resistance (not SVR) [mmHg.s/ml = MU]
♦ Pat : subject data female/male followed by age [yr]
♦ BSA : Body surface area [m2]
Tab card layer

This layer displays a notebook with six tabs:
• Help :
To display help pages, use ARROW UP and ARROW DOWN or PAGE UP,
PAGE DOWN to browse.
• Enter Comment :
In Beatport used to enter short comment texts. Each time you type 10
characters (or when you press ENTER) the comment is saved in the beat-to-
beat results file as a timed marker. (Not available in Beatfast)
• Configure trends :
To change the full scale of the pressure related signals. To select a left and a
right signal axis in the upper trend plot:
♦ HR : Heart rate [bpm]
♦ LVET : Left ventricular ejection time [ms]
♦ SV : Stroke volume [ml]
♦ CO : Cardiac output [l/min]
♦ TPR : Total peripheral resistance [dyn.s/cm5] is mean cardiac output
divided by cardiac output. [dyn.s/cm5 = 4/3*milli-mmHg.s/ml].
♦ Zao : Aortic characteristic impedance [milli-mmHg.s/ml, mMU (Medical
Units)].
♦ Cwk : Aortic Windkessel compliance [ml/mmHg, MU (Medical Units)].
• Configure A/D signals :
To select the signal (and scaling) that is used in the 'raw input signal view'.
• Calibrate C.O. :
In Beatport to change the calibration factor of the model (Modelflow, or TNO
Pulse contour) to compute cardiac output.
To change the factor press ENTER. Use the ARROW UP and ARROW
DOWN keys to increase or decrease the calibration factor. If you are finished
changing the calibration factor press ENTER to accept, or ESC to skip. (not
available in Beatfast)
• Show variables :
To show beat-to-beat variables:
- Pressure Sy=Systolic, Di=Diastolic, Mn=Mean blood pressure.
- Time PI=Pulse interval, HR=Heart rate, ET=Ejection time
- Modelflow SV=Stroke volume,CO=Cardiac output, PR=peripheral
Resistance
variables
9.5 Beatfast, available keys
The following keys are available when Beatfast is analyzing data:

• F1 : To select the Help page of the notebook.
• F3 : To select the Configure trends page.
• F4 : To select the Configure A/D signals page.
• F6 : To select the Show variables page.
• Esc : To stop the program.
• ALT+Q: To display the special channel waveform instead of the flow
pulsation in the upper left panel of the run time screen (only Beatfast).
• ALT+X: To change the execution speed (only Beatfast).
9.6 Beatfast, beat analysis messages
At the top of the Pressure waveform window in the run time screen a diagnostic
status line shows information about the beat analysis. Messages that are displayed
on the screen are also always stored in the beat-to-beat results file.
9.6.1 Damped pulse

The damped pulse message is displayed when the quality of the arterial pressure
signal is bad. If this messages comes on more often than incidentally for a beat or
two damping in most cases is such that cardiac output is substantially
underestimated already. Damping may have a physiological cause, depending on
the state of the arm arterial system leading to the transducer. Damping may also be
instrumental and due to an insufficiently flushed catheter-manometer system. The

latter can be tested with the use of the fast flush valve on the catheter flushing
device. See Gardner (1995) for details. If a beat has a damped pressure waveform
the above mentioned warning is displayed and the 'damped' bit is set to 1 in the
artifact byte of that beat.
9.6.2 No pulsation
As soon as no beats are detected for more than five seconds a no pulsation warning
is issued. The first beat that is recognized after this no pulsation state will have the
'time out' bit set to 1 in its artifact byte. If no pulses are detected for 60 s, a special
timeout marker is written to the output file and the '.. min NO pulse' warning is
displayed. This message is repeated once every minute until beats are again
detected in the pressure waveform.
9.6.3 Physiocal detected

If a finger blood pressure waveform is analyzed, physiological calibrations are
recognized automatically. During a Physiocal blood pressure levels can not be
measured, since pressure is kept at constant levels. However, the instant of
upstroke of a heart beat that occurs during a Physiocal can be estimated from the
precise timing of the pressure changes.
The beat-to-beat analysis outputs a beat at such a time instant with a systolic,
diastolic, and mean pressure level equal to the last detected beat that did not occur
during a Physiocal. If a beat is generated during a Physiocal the 'physiocal' bit in
the artifact byte of that beat is set to 1.
9.6.4 Special channel info

At the top of the Flow waveform window in the run time screen a diagnostic status
line shows information about the special channel analysis (if selected). The
message: SPC2|-20MS shows the current special channel (2) and the delay (-
20ms).
9.7 Pattern recognition and storage

Beatfast uses a syntactic pressure recognition algorithm to detect pressure
pulsations in a pressure signal channel. An additional expert system judges the
validity of each recognized beat. Periods of no pulsations are also detected and
marked. Special adaptive logic in the expert system facilitates the recognition of
irregular beats during arrhythmia’s.
Low pass filtering
Beatfast detects and outputs the systolic, diastolic and mean pressure levels for
each detected beat which are recognized after digital low pass filtering of 16.7 Hz
at 100 Hz and 24.5 Hz at 200 Hz sampling frequency. In case of relatively high
frequency noise, such as 50 Hz hum or tape flutter, is present on the original
samples such disturbances will be removed before measuring the pressure levels.
This may lead to slightly different systolic and diastolic pressures than detected
with software without such filtering. It was found that levels from such filtered
pressures come much closer to true, undisturbed pressure levels than unfiltered
ones.
The following beat data are available:

• Instant of upstroke (t)
• Systolic pressure is the highest pressure level during ejection.
• Diastolic pressure is arterial end-diastolic pressure just before the sharp rise
(upstroke) in pressure at the beginning of systole. It is thus not the lowest
pressure in diastole which, at high heart rate and in peripheral pressure waves,
may occur just after valve closure in diastole.
• Mean pressure is the true integrated mean pressure during one beat, i.e.
between two consecutive instants of begin upstroke.
Storage is such that in each beat are combined: the instant of begin upstroke (t), the
diastolic pressure at that instant (t), the immediately following systolic pressure.
The delay between the instant of upstroke and this highest pressure point is not
further specified. the mean pressure level, integrated from instant t to begin
upstroke of the next beat (t+ibi).
• Heart rate (bpm)

• Interbeat interval (ibi) is defined as the time interval between instant (t) and
the next beat at instant (t+ibi).
• Stroke volume during ejection (ml)
• Cardiac output (l/min)
• Ejection time immediately following the begin upstroke
• Peripheral resistance
• Aortic characteristic impedance
• Aortic compliance
• Hydrostatic height correction level (Portapres, Finometer)
10. Converting a beat results file to text with

Printres
In this chapter a utility Printres is described to convert a binary file containing
beat-to-beat results, created either by Beatfast, by Beatport or by Finometer, into
text format. You can either print this text output or save it in a file on disk. All beat
data are output with this utility. Beat or time averaging can be applied.
If you want to be able to output only part of a beat-results file or if you want to
hide certain beat data columns you should use the View Files utility (cf. first page
of BeatScope's Selection dialog or the Exporting data utility).
Click the Printres button on the Beat analysis page of the Selection dialog
10.1 Entering data in the Printres dialog
The Printres dialog has the following inputs:
Beat results file (.R00 extension or .FPF for Finometer files)

To enter the name of the input file here:
• select the file from a list of previously used beat-results files in the drop down
file history list, or
• click on the browse button at the right of the filename field to select the file
from a directory, or
• type the name of the beat results file, or
• click the beat results file in Windows Explorer and drag the file to the
Printres dialog, then drop the file (release mouse button).
Subject data
Usually subject info such as age, gender, height and weight are automatically read
from either the beat results file or from an accompanying header file. It is not
possible to change subject info here. If wrong subject info was used during a beat-
to-beat analysis the analysis must be repeated with the proper subject info entered.
Results box
• Beats and Events : output both beat data lines and events stored in the beat
results file
• Beats only : output only beat data lines
• Events only : output only the events stored in the beat results file
Note1: To warn you that no beat-to-beat data will be available in this mode, the
Events only option is colored red when selected.
Note2: If you check the No Model info checkbox, afterload information and level
correction and level calibration markers are suppressed.
Figure 10.1 Printres (print beat results) dialog
Averaging to enable beat-data averaging:

• None: no averaging, every beat is output
• Beat: apply beat averaging, output averaged beats results every Nth beat
• Time: apply time averaging, this produces beat results regularly spaced in
time.
Note: If you select Beat or Time averaging an input field is shown to enter the
number of beats or seconds to average. More information about beat and time
averaging can be found in Appendix C.
Time format to define how the time of each beat should be output:
• Seconds : output the time, relative to the start of the file.
• hh:mm:ss relative output the time, relative to the start of the file in hh:mm:ss
format.
• hh:mm:ss time of day output the time of day in hh:mm:ss format.
Output to box. You can either direct the output to a printer or to file or to the
screen (preview).
• Printer :
- The button in the Printres panel changes its caption to ‘Print’
- Click this Print button to direct the output to the printer specified.
- To select another printer or to change printer properties use the Printer
Set Up button.
• File :
- The button in the Printres panel changes its caption to ‘To File’ .
- An edit field and browse button are displayed to enter the name of the
output file:
type the name of the output file,
or select a file with the browse button.
- Click the To File button to direct the output to the file specified.
• Screen :
- The button in the Printres panel changes its caption to ‘View’.
- Click the View button to display a Print preview window.
You can show all printer pages one by one. With most monitors (800x600
pixels) the output is readable.
10.2 Running Printres

In the blue control panel, in the Printres box you will find a button with the text
Print, To File or View depending on the selection in the ‘Output to’ box. If this
button is disabled (grayed) one or more errors were detected in the dialog. If this is
the case an error message is displayed at the bottom of Printres window.
The To file and Print options of Printres are not further discussed since the output
is handled automatically, without user interaction.
You can also use the Add button at this time. Then the Printres command is not
information about batch command files.
10.2.1 Screen preview

The Screen preview option shows a Print preview window (in portrait or landscape
mode) depending on the printer settings. At the right (in Portrait mode) or at the
bottom (in Landscape mode) of the Print Preview window a small window is
displayed with two buttons Next and Cancel. Click on Next to see the next page,
or Cancel to stop the screen view mode. If you are currently displaying the last
preview page, the small Next/Cancel Window is closed automatically. Click the
Close button on the Print preview window to close the window.
10.3 Information in Printres output
Refer to “Table 3.1 Column information in beat results output of Printres option.”
on page 29 for detailed information about the output of the printres command.
11. Stripchart printing with Plotfast

Plotfast is a utility to print a stripchart plot of the data in a beat-to-beat results file
or in a Finometer packet file. The stripchart plot always displays four viewports.
• The first viewport (at the top) displays blood pressure data.
• The second pulse heart rate and hydrostatic height (Finometer, Portapres).
• The remaining two viewports can be configured to display stroke volume,
cardiac output, total peripheral resistance and Modelflow parameters.
Figure 11.1 Plotfast (plot beat results) dialog
It is not possible to change the number of viewports, to select part of a beat-to-beat

results file or to use other signals in the plots than predefined in the Plotfast
dialog. If you want to use one these more advanced options you should use the
Vies files utility.
Click the Plotfast button on the Beat analysis page of the Selection dialog.
11.1 Entering data in the Plotfast dialog
The Plotfast dialog has the following inputs:
1. Beat results file, extension .R00 or .FPF (Finometer file):

To enter the name of the input file:
- select the file from a list of previously used files in the drop down list, or
- click on the browse button at the right of the filename field to select the
file or
- type the name of the beat results file, or
- click the beat results file in Windows Explorer and drag the file to the
Printres dialog, then drop the file (release mouse button).
2. Plot #1 :
The first (upper) plot displays pressure data:
- [SYS & DIA] Systolic and diastolic pressure
- [SYS & DIA & MAP] Systolic, diastolic and mean pressure
3. Plot #2 :
The second plot can display:
- [Height & HR] Height correction signal and heart (pulse) rate
- [Height & IBI] Height correction signal and interbeat interval
- [HR & IBI] Heart (pulse) rate and interbeat interval
4. Plot #3 :
The third plot has the following options:
- [SV & CO ] Stroke volume and cardiac output
- [SV & TPR] Stroke volume and total peripheral resistance
- [CO & TPR] Cardiac output and total peripheral resistance
5. Plot #4 :
The fourth (lower) plot has options to display:
- [TPR & Zao] Total peripheral resistance and characteristic impedance
- [TPR & Cw] Total peripheral resistance and aortic compliance
- [Zao & Cw ] Aortic characteristic impedance and aortic compliance
6. Averaging to enable beat-data averaging:
- [None] No averaging, every beat is output
- [Over Time] apply beat averaging, output beats results every Nth beat
- [Over Beats] apply time averaging, this produces beat results regularly
spaced in time.
7. Page Width :
The time period that is plotted on one page of the stripchart Select a period
from the list 1 min, 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2hr, 4 hr, 8hr and 24 hr.
8. Y axis maximum
sets the full scale values of the signals in the plots.
9. Options
- [Draw markers] Check this box to show events. Events are displayed as
vertical lines with a label.
- [Time Format] Select time in seconds relative to the start of the file, or
hh:mm:ss format relative, or hh:mm:ss time of day.
11.2 Running Plotfast
In the blue control panel, in the Plotfast box click the Print button to start
printing.
You can also use the Add button at this time. Then the Plotfast command is not
11.2.1 Screen preview

The Screen preview option shows a Print preview window (in portrait or landscape
mode) depending on the printer settings. At the right (in Portrait mode) or at the
bottom (in Landscape mode) of the Print Preview window a small window is
displayed with two buttons Next and Cancel. Click on Next to see the next page,
or Cancel to stop the screen view mode. If you are currently displa ying the last
preview page, the small Next/Cancel Window is closed automatically. Click the
Close button on the Print preview window to close the window.
Figure 11.2 Plotfast preview screen

12. Viewing data files, fundamentals

This chapter describes the basic features of the View Files utility of BeatScope.
The View Files utility enables you:
• To open samples files, Portapres M2 files, Finometer files, beat-to-beat results
files and text data files.
• To change the name, scaling and plot color of signals in a file.
• To browse signals in one to four viewports on screen.
• To print these viewports and/or numerical beat-to-beat data.
• To view numerical beat-to-beat data simultaneously with the signals in the
viewports.
• To save the current viewport information in a session file containing all
information to re-open your files and to re-display the signals at a later stage.
The BeatScope View files utility has a number of additional options which are
described in the next chapter, including:
• Export data (a selected period) from a file.
• Do descriptive statistics on the signals.
• Average signals in a file over time or over beats.
12.1 Selecting a BeatScope session
The first page, View files of the Selection dialog enables you to open session files.
A session file contains all information necessary to rebuild the BeatScope View
files screen.
• New Session : To reset BeatScope and to display two empty viewports by
default
• Open Session : To open a session file that you saved before in an earlier
BeatScope session.
• Last Session : To load the settings of the most recent session.
12.2 The View files run time screen
The run time screen consists of a menu, a speedbar with a button row to quickly
select frequently used options and 1 to 4 viewports.
At the bottom of the run time screen a time control (scroll) bar, and status bar with
six status fields can be found. To hide or display the speed bar, time bar and/or
status bar click Options menu and then Configure.
Signal selection buttons

Title bar
Menu bar
Speed bar
View Port 1
View Port 2
Time Control
Status Bar Time Scroll Bar Zoom in Zoom out

Browse left/right
Figure 12.1 View files screen
12.2.1 Viewport layout

A viewport is a rectangular area on the screen where signals can be displayed.
Default you can find in a viewport:
• Two Y axes (one left and one right)
• One time axis
• A signal bar with four signal selection buttons.
With a signal selection button you can select the signals to plot and define their
color and scaling. You can drag (copy) the contents of one signal selection button
to another signal selection button.
The top viewport is always viewport 1, the second viewport 2, etc. The number of
viewports can be configured via the View menu option.
Figure 12.2 Adapted view files screen
The viewport layout - i.e. number of Y axes, time axis, plot grid - can be changed
(cf. Configure in Options menu). Viewports can not be configured individually,
the layout is always the same in each viewport. You can change:
• the number of Y-axes : none, one (left axis) or two (one left axis and one right
axis).
• signal bar : default a signal bar is displayed at the top of each viewport. This
signal bar has four signal selection buttons.
Default only the signal names and units are displayed. Optionally the scaling
can be added to each signal button. It is also possible to hide the entire signal
bar, as is shown in the figure.
• time axis : default each viewport has its own time axis. However, to increase
the signal display area it is possible to show only one time axis for all
viewports at the bottom of the screen.
• plot grid : show/hide the horizontal and vertical grid lines in the viewport.
12.3 Opening files
This section explains how to open data files in BeatScope.
12.3.1 File information in title bar

The title bar of the View files window of BeatScope always displays the currently
open files, e.g. BeatScope EXAMPLE.DAT, EXAMPLE.R00. Each file name can
be followed by information about the current averaging (AT indicates that the file
is time averaged, AB indicates that the file is averaged over samples, beats, or text
data lines respectively). If the averaging option is not used this extra information is
not displayed.
If a Finometer file is opened, the embedded beat data are automatically extracted in
a separate temporary beat data file with the same name but with the prefix ‘beat.’.
This beat results files is also shown in the title bar:
‘(beat.EXAMPLE.FPF), EXAMPLE.FPF’
12.3.2 The file open dialog

To open files click the Open item in the File menu. Note that the Open dialog is
shown automatically when there are initially no files opened.
BeatScope enables you to view at the same time :

• Two samples files with sampled data sampled with e.g. an Analog Digital
Converter Card or beatport.
• Two Portapres M2 files.
• Two Finometer packet files
• Two beat-to-beat results files, e.g. output files of Beatfast
• Two text files with columns of data (of which one is usually the time in
seconds or hh:mm:ss format)
Each time the File Open Dialog is opened, BeatScope assumes that you are going
to open a file from a different measurement, and thus assumes that the currently
opened files have to be closed. To prevent BeatScope from closing these files,
remove the checkmarks in the checkboxes with open files. You can also use the
button ‘Leave files open’ for that purpose.
To open one or more files:

• Set the Files of type selection to the type of file you are looking for. You may
also use the ‘Any file *.*’ selection, since BeatScope will automatically
recognize the type of file.
• Click the file you want to be opened by BeatScope.
• Note that BeatScope displays file information about the selected file.
• Repeat the process described in steps 1 to 3 to select other files. Press the
CTRL key, while selecting the file, to add the new selection to the list of files
that are going to be opened.
• Click on the Open button to open the selected file(s).
12.3.3 Defining the file format

If you open a text data file or a samples file (without accompanying header file)
BeatScope may ask for additional information about the file contents.
Binary samples files
If you open a samples files and BeatScope does not have enough information to
read the file correctly, the following dialog is displayed
Figure 12.3 Define sample file format

You should check and if necessary change the following fields:

• Frequency : The sampling frequency (Hz)
• A/D channels : The number of channels in the samples file
• Number of bytes to skip : If the samples file contains a header block with
information of another data acquisition program, you can instruct BeatScope
to skip a number of bytes before reading the samples from the file.
• Channel settings : If you opened a similar samples file in the last session, and
if changes were made in the channel names in that session, you may want to
load these previously used channel names from the session file by checking the
Use last radio button. Otherwise select the Use predefined options to create
signals names. BeatScope automatically creates the signal names for you: in a
samples file channels are named 'Chan' followed by the channel number (01 to
16), e.g. Chan12.
Text Data files
If you open a text data file BeatScope always needs more information to correctly
interpret the file. The following dialog is displayed.
Figure 12.4 Define text file format
Check and if necessary change the following fields:

• Time increment and Time column : If the text data file has a column with
time values enter the number of that column in the time column field. The first
column is column 1. If the time increment between consecutive text lines is
fixed you can enter this value [s] in the Time Increment field.
• First data in row : If the text file only contains data and no header
information the data starts at row 1. In case of a header information in the top
of the file you should adjust the row number so that the first data line is
selected.
Hint: if you double click the ‘First data in row’ box, the first lines of text data
file are displayed. Find the first line containing numerical data.
Figure 12.5 Define first data line, column names and units.
Double click in this viewer the first data line. In the example the first data start
at line 5.
Column settings There are three options to set column names:

• Use last : If you opened a similar text data file in a previous session, and if
you changed the column names in that session, you can load the previously
used column names from the session file.
• Use predefined : BeatScope automatically creates names for you. The name
always starts with 'Col' followed by the channel number.
• Read from file : If the text data file has a line with column names, you can
enter the line number in the Labels in row field, which is displayed when the
Read from file option is selected. If you also enable the Units from row
checkbox, an additional field is shown where you can enter the row (=line)
number that contains the column units information.
Hint: you can double click the Labels from row and Unit from row fields to view
the contents of the text data file, just as described for the First data in row field.
In Figure 12.5 the first data are at line 5, the column headings at line 3, and the
column units at line 4.
12.4 Displaying signals
If you open a file in a new View files session with BeatScope, the first two signals
of the file are displayed by default, cf. Appendix A for information about signal
names:
File Signals
Portapres M2 file Portapres presure and height
Finometer file Finger blood pressure without (finAP) or with (reBAP)
waveform filtering (depending on measurement
configuration) and height
Beat data file Systolic (SYS) and diastolic (DIA) pressure
Samples file Channel 1 and 2 of the samples file
Text data file The first two columns in the file, not including the time
column
If you want to change the signals that are displayed you can:
• click one of signal buttons of a viewport's signal selection bar (Figure 12.1
View files screen), or
• click the appropriate Setup Viewport menu item in the View menu, or
• you can also copy one signal button to another by dragging. That is, click a
signal button and drag the button to another signal button. When the mouse
cursor is over the other signal button release (drop) the button.
Up to four signals can be displayed in a viewport. The four buttons in the signal
bar of a viewport correspond with these signals.
• The first signal (button) in a viewport is always coupled to the left Y-axis.
• The second signal (button) is coupled to the right Y -axes
• The third and fourth signal can have their own scaling, however, they do not
have their own axes displayed.
12.4.1 Signal Selection dialog

The Signal selection dialog enables the selection of four signals to be displayed in
a viewport. You can set the plot color, scaling and line type.
Figure 12.6 Signal selection dialog
The dialog displays a notebook with four tabs (signals), corresponding to the four
signals that can be displayed in each viewport:
• The first tab corresponds to the first signal (left Y axis)
• The second tab corresponds to the second signal (right Y axis).
• The remaining two tabs correspond to signals that do not have their own axes.
You can use CTRL + TAB or CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to select the next or
previous notebook page respectively.
The tabs of the notebook give access to four signal selection pages, here you can:
• Select the signal from a drop-down list of available signals. Click the None
button to display no signal at all.
• Select Scaling from three buttons with different pre-defined scales. Selecting
the fourth button enables the definition of a user defined scaling for this signal.
• Auto If checked, the signal will be displayed automatically full scale until the
‘Auto’ check mark is removed.
• Color Select a color from the drop-down list of available colors. Autocolor
indicates that the color depends on the current BeatScope configuration. You
can either couple signals to colors (e.g. define that Systolic pressure should be
red) or couple axes to colors. Refer to Configure item in the Options menu.
• Line type Available line types are:
1. thin line : default solid line
2. thick line : thick solid line
3. crosses : draw plus ('+') symbols
4. stars : draw star ('*') symbols.
5. dots : draw small ('.') dots.
6. triangles : draw triangle ('∆') symbols
7. Squares : draw square (←) symbols
8. Vert. line : draws a vertical line to the X-axis.
After finishing data entry in one notebook page you can either select another
notebook page or click the OK button to close the dialog.
12.5 Changing the time window

There are a number of options to change the current time window:
12.5.1 Changing the time window via the keyboard
• Press + on the numerical key pad, to zoom in. The current time window is
halved.
• Press - on the numerical key pad, to zoom out. The current time window is
doubled.
• Press END to jump to the end of the file. The current time window width is not
changed.
• Press HOME to jump to the beginning of the file. The current time window
width is not changed.
• Press ARROW RIGHT to jump a half time window to the right.

• Press ARROW LEFT to jump a half time window to the right.
• Press CTRL+ARROW RIGHT or CTRL+ARROW LEFT to jump a full window
to the right or to the left respectively.
12.5.2 Changing time window with the menu

Click the Time menu.. item in the Timing menu. The following dialog is shown
(free time range enabled, disabled respectively).
Figure 12.7 Timing dialog
Depending on your BeatScope configuration, you can:

• Select a time window width from a list of predefined values:
♦ From : Start time
♦ Interval : Time window width
• Define a time window by proving the start time and the stop time (Free time
range has been checked):
♦ From : Start time of the time window
♦ To : Stop time of the time window
♦ Width : the time difference between 'From' and 'To'.
12.5.3 Displaying hh:mm:ss or seconds time format

Use the Timing menu to change the current time format to:
• Seconds (rel) : Time in seconds relative to beginning of file.
• HH:MM:SS (rel) : Time in hh:mm:ss format relative to beginning of file.
• Time of day : Day time in hh:mm:ss format.
Note: Changing the time format, also affects the way time is displayed in all other
dialogs.
12.5.4 Normalizing a time window

If you repeatedly use the zoom in and zoom out functions, the time axis is often
displaying rather odd start and stop values A time axis running from 10.7 to 34.6 s
is not easy to interpret. If you use the Normalize time option in the Timing menu,
BeatScope updates the time axis so that a more convenient start and stop time are
displayed, e.g. 0 to 50 s in the example mentioned above.
12.6 Changing and viewing the internal file structure

If you open a file, BeatScope automatically create signals names for you, cf
Appendix A. You can rename the signal names, the units text, offset and scaling in
this dialog. To change channel names or to inspect additional information about the
internal file structure click on File menu and then on Info Structure.
In the header of the File structure information dialog the file name, the time
stamp of the file, the size of the file in bytes, and the file type are displayed. If
more than one file is currently open the dialog displays a notebook with a number
of tabs. Click a tab to select a page (file) of the notebook.
The information that is displayed in the notebook depends on the type of file.
Figure 12.8 File structure information dialog
12.7 Displaying a numerical beat results window

If you are browsing signals of a beat-to-beat results file and/or of a Portapres M2
file or Finometer file it is possible to display the beat results and (Portapres,
Finometer) events in a separate window.
Click the View menu and then Beat results window to display this separate
window.
If the Beat results window partially overlaps the View files run time screen you can
use View, Tile Windows horizontal option to split the current screen and display
the View files run time screen at the right half of the screen and the Beat results
window at the left.
You can also use View Tile Windows vertical option to split the screen in two
windows above each other, the Beat results windows at the top, and the run time
screen at the bottom.
Figure 12.9 View files screen and View beat results window.
12.7.1 Available keys to browse in a beat results window
Use the following keys to browse in the Beat results window:

• ARROW DOWN to move the cursor to the next line.
• ARROW UP to move the cursor to the previous line.
• PAGE DOWN to move the cursor one page down.
• PAGE UP to move the cursor one page up.
12.7.2 Events in the beat results window

Event lines are displayed as follows:
Time Origin Message

12:34:27.89 [Por] CONNECT CUFF CABLE
The message displays a run time error message found in a Portapres M2 file.
Origin Description
Evt External event file
Fin Finometer file
Por Portapres file
Res Beat results file
12.7.3 Beat results window features and limitations

The Beat results window enables a view on the numerical beat data simultaneously
with the signals in the viewports. The beat results file can have any size. If
averaging options or event masking (cf. next sections) are enabled the Beat-results
window is automatically updated to the new situation.
However, the window is NOT an edit window. You cannot edit, add or delete beat
or event lines.
12.7.4 Beat results window contents

Refer to Table 3.1 Printout of beat results on page 29 for information about the
beat results displayed in the Beat results window.
Note: To hide/view beat results in the Beat results window, click on the yellow
header line of the window or right click and select the setup option from the pop-
up menu.
You can select a subset of all available signals if you want. Only the channels with
a check mark are shown.
• All : To put a check mark next to every signal in the box.
• None :To remove the check marks of all signals.
• Disp : To select only the signals that are currently displayed.
Figure 12.10 Beat results window setup dialog.
12.8 Printing
Before you start printing it is recommended (especially in a network environment)

to check the currently installed Printer and to check the Printer properties.
To Print the viewports that are currently displayed click the File menu, and then
Print.
Figure 12.11 BeatScope’s print dialog.
There are two options:

• Print Screen : Select the Print Screen option to output the current viewports
(without speed bar, time control bar and status bar) to a printer.
• Print Chart : If you select the Print Chart option you can additionally define
a time period and a page interval. If you specify a page interval that is smaller
than the time period to be printed, the print is divided into a number of pages,
similar to the plotfast utility.
Hint:
Another easy way to print the BeatScope screen is to type ALT + PRINTSCREEN.
Then a bitmap of the BeatScope Window is copied to the Clipboard in Windows.
You can paste this figure in e.g. a Word or Excel document.
12.9 Saving and loading session files
You can load and save session files from within the View Files utility.
To load and save session files, click the File menu and then:
• Save session : To save the current screen layout to a session file.
• New session : To create a new session, if changes were made in the session
that is currently open, the message 'Save Current Session?' is shown.
• Load Session : To open a session file stored on disk. Before loading the
session file the message, "About to overwrite current settings with settings
from session file” is displayed. Click Cancel to abort loading the session file
and OK to load data from the session file.
13. Viewing data files, options

This chapter deals with additional options that are available in the View files
utility:
• Exporting data
• Averaging data in a file
• Describing your data with descriptive statistics
• Loading a file with event markers
• Masking events
• Adjusting start timing of data files
13.1 Exporting data
This section describes the Export option. Use this option to extract data from one
file to another file or to the clipboard..
13.1.1 Filling the Export dialog

The actual layout of the Export data from file dialog depends on the type of file
from which you are going to export data and the type of output (text file, binary
file, clipboard) that you have selected. Therefore, we will discuss the Export
options only in general terms.
Export from file box. Select the file name from a drop-down list of currently open
data files.
Note You can only export data from a file which has been opened via the File
Open menu. If you want to output data from another data file, without opening the
file first in View files you should select the Export button on the Utilities page of
the Selection dialog.
Export type. There are three options to export your data:

• To binary file You can export data to a binary data file. If you want to output
data from a text data file, this option is not available.
• To text file You can always export data to a text file.
• To clipboard You can always export (text) data to the Clipboard.
Select period Type here the period that has to be exported. You can either select:
• Current Selection : The currently selected (highlighted) period in the

viewports. If no period was selected this option is not available.
• Current Window : The current time window in the viewports
• Entire file : The period from beginning to end of the file.
• From, To : To define another period.
The boxes described below are only visible if they make sense. An example: you
can not have a fixed format or comma separated output format when you export
data to binary files, therefore the output format box is only available if you output
(text) data to the clipboard or to a file.
Figure 13.1 BeatScope’s export dialog with a Finometer file opened.
Output Check the header box to put a header block with two lines above the data
table (text files and clipboard). The first line of the header contains the column
labels, the second line contains the column units.
Averaging You can select averaging over time (s) and over beats here. If you want
to output all data of a file, the averaging option should be off (Averaging None).
Refer to Appendix C for information about beat and time averaging.
Data Column width The format of the columns in the clipboard data or the text
file can either be:
• Fixed : Column width is determined by BeatScope, columns are aligned with
spaces.
• Delimiter : Columns are separated by one of the following delimiters (comma,
TAB, semicolon (;)).
Export beats and/or events

If you export data from a beat-to-beat results file you can either export:
• Events only : The output will not contain beat data.
• Beats only : The output will not contain markers.
• Both : The output displays all information in the beat results file.
Select channels to output

You can select a subset of all available signals if you want. Only the channels with
a check mark are saved.
• All : To put a check mark next to every channel in the box.
• None :To remove the check marks of all channels.
• Disp : To select the channels that are displayed.
Note: A Finometer packet file contains both samples and beat-to-beat data. If you
export data from a Finometer file to e.g. a text file, export either samples or beat-
to-beat data. BeatScope can only export data with the same timing.
13.1.2 Exporting
To export data click the Export button in the Export data from file dialog.
You can also use the Add button at this time. Then the Export command is not
After you have exported data from a file you can continue with the same file, or
select another file to continue, or click the Close button to close the dialog without
further exporting data.
13.2 Averaging data in a file
To enable time or beat averaging in a file, click on Data menu and then on
Averaging.
Figure 13.2 Data averaging dialog.
The files that are currently open are listed. To change data averaging click the
name of the file first, then click either on:
• No averaging, or
• Time averaging and enter the number of seconds to average, or
• Beat averaging and enter the number of beats (or lines, samples) to average.
Press OK to close the dialog. If you click on Cancel the current averaging is not
changed.
Note : Refer to Appendix C for more information about beat and time averaging.
13.3 Performing descriptive statistics

To obtain descriptive statistics of the signals in the files that are open or the signals
that are displayed in the viewports click on Data menu and then on Statistics.
13.3.1 Data entry in Statistics dialog

The Statistics dialog displays all available options.
Figure 13.3 Statistics dialog.
Select period First you should define the time period.

• Current Selection : The currently selected (highlighted) period in the
viewports. If no period was selected this option is not available.
• Current Window : The current time window in the viewports .
• Entire file : The time between file start and end of file.
• From, To : A custom defined period to analyze.
At intervals of defines the analysis interval. Use this field to do the same analysis
repeatedly at consecutive intervals in the time. You can for instance output
descriptive statistics at 30 min intervals, which is a convenient way to analyze a 24
h file recorded with Portapres.
Include : The box enables you to select a subset of all available analysis results:
• Mean mean signal level
• SD standard deviation of the mean
• Min,Max minimum and maximum values.
• Median 10,90 % the 10th and 90th percentiles.
• Area defined as mean signal level times analyzed period (s).
• FileNm to include the filename in the output

• Period to include the analysis period in the output.
Format determines how the output is saved.

• One Data Row : All calculated statistical values in all selected signals are
output as one line with (many) fields. If you perform a statistical analysis and
if the analysis is divided into different consecutive time intervals, each new
analysis is appended to the output file and so a complete data table is created.
Such a table can be easily imported with a spreadsheet program for further
analysis. Note that each signal can have up to eight output values
(mean,SD,min,max,median,10%,90%,area). The column names are therefore
automatically created. The first three letters of the signal name are combined
with the strings 'MEA', 'SD', 'MIN', 'MAX', 'MED', '10', '90', 'ARE'
respectively. An example of the standard deviation of a Portapres signal is
PorSD.
• Data table : The Data table is easier to interpret. Each signal is displayed in a
new row of the table, columns correspond to the analysis results that were
selected.
Statistics You can either calculate statistics in all signals (possibly in different
files) that are visible on screen or you can analyze all signals in a specified file.
Select the file from the drop-down list with files which are currently open.
Note: The statistical analysis always uses all data (beats, samples) in a time period
independent of the currently selected beat or time averaging.
13.3.2 Statistical analysis

If you click the Apply button the statistical analysis is performed and the results
are automatically displayed in the edit box.
You can also use the Add button at this time. Then the statistics command is not
The edit box can be used to copy (selected) data to the clipboard, and to output
analysis results to a Printer Print or file Save. Finally you can wipe the text with
the Clear button to start all over again.
13.4 Loading a file with event markers
It is possible to load your own event files and to display the event markers in the
viewports and in the numerical Beat results window. An event file should always
contain a time column followed by a string of characters (the event text).
100.20 START_VALSALVA
201.40 STANDING
The time column can be either in seconds (relative to start of the other files), in
hh:mm:ss (relative to the other files), or the time of day. Events loaded from such a
separate event file are labeled ‘[Evt]’ in the Beat results window and in the printer
and file output.
To load an event file, click Options menu and then click Load Event file. If you
do not want to use the extra events anymore click Options and then click Unload
event file.
13.5 Masking events

BeatScope can mask event groups. Usually not all events are equally important in
an analysis.
Figure 13.4 Events filter dialog.

With the Events filter dialog you can define which type of events you want to
hide. Click on Data menu and then on Event masking. You can either use :
• All events, there are no masked events
• Do NOT use the following events. Set a checkmark next to each event type
that you want to hide from now on.
If you have selected the events that have to be masked click the OK button.
13.6 Adjusting start time of data files

Suppose you want to compare two Portapres measurements. These measurements
did not start at the same time. If you open both files, you can not compare
waveforms since BeatScope uses the start time of both files. As a consequence the
two measurements can be hours apart. To display both files simultaneously you
need to change the start time of either Portapres file (or both). If you want to
change the starting time of one or more files, click the Options menu and the
Adjust start timing of files.
Figure 13.5 Adjust start timing dialog.
In the Start timing of files dialog the filename and the corresponding start time of
all open files are displayed in a table. Update the start time(s) of the files, then
click the OK button to effectuate.
14. Batch command files

A number of functions in BeatScope can be called by batch command files. In a
batch command file you can put commands to analyze, print, and export data files.
If you run a batch command file all commands are executed sequentially.
Batch command files can be useful to document an analysis or to process a number

of time consuming tasks sequentially without user interaction.
Note : Although you can run beat-to-beat analyses unattended it is highly

recommended to either look at the waveform and beat results during the analysis or
to browse in the data files after the analysis using the View Files utility, in order to
get an impression of the quality of the measurement and the performance of the
beat analysis.
14.1 Syntax
The following information is important if you want to edit batch command files:
• Batch command files are ASCII text files.
• Batch command files can only be used in combination with BeatScope
• Information in the batch command files is not case sensitive
• A line starting with ‘%’ is treated as a comment.
• Empty lines are allowed
• If the keyword ‘STOP’ is found, BeatScope will stop processing the batch
command file.
• If a line starts with a word preceded by ‘:’ (colon) that word is treated as a
label, e.g. ‘:ERROR’ is a label with the text ‘ERROR’. You can use GOTO
ERROR to jump to the ERROR label and continue processing commands after
the label.
• Usually all commands consist of a combination of the following lines:
[PROGRAM] Command between ‘[‘ and ‘]’

INPUT= The input file name. See note 1.
OUTPUT= The output file name (if any)
OPTIONS= Command options. See note 2.
PERIOD= Time period and interval. See note 3.
Notes:
1. INPUT statement. Filenames can have up to 255 characters. File names cannot
include any of the following characters: forward slash (/), backslash (\), greater
than sign (>), less than sign (<), asterisk (*), period (.), question mark (?),
quotation mark (“), pipe symbol (|), colon (:), or semicolon (;).
The filename may, however, be followed by a comma and 3 numbers,

separated by comma's e.g.
INPUT=MYSAMPLES.ADC,200,4,0
The interpretation of these three numbers is dependent on the type of input

file:
File 1st 2nd 3rd Number

Binary samples Sample freq. Number of channels Bytes to skip
Text data file Time column Time increment [s] Lines to skip
Beat-to-beat results Not used Not used Not used
2. OPTIONS statement. Options are always separated by comma’s. Note that this
differs from command line options in a DOS or Windows program, where
spaces are used. Options can be entered in any order.
3. PERIOD statement: The period line consists of two or three tokens separated
by comma’s:
- The start time in seconds, or hh:mm:ss format, followed by
- The stop time in seconds, or hh:mm:ss format, or the 'END', followed by
- The time interval (optional). May be omitted or set to 0.0 if not used.
14.2 Batch files created on different Windows systems.

The exact syntax used in batch command files is dependent on the definition of the
decimal separator and the list separator in the regional settings of Windows. In
many countries the decimal separator is ‘.’ and the list separator is a comma (‘,’) as
in the following sequence of number “0,0.5,1”. The same sequence of numbers on
a Dutch system with the comma decimal separator and the ‘;’ list separator would
be “0;0,5;1”.
An example of a batch file on a computer configured using the United States

regional settings:
INPUT=C:\PROGRAM FILES\BEATSCOPE\EXAMPLE.DAT,2,100,0
OUTPUT=D:\beatscop\OUT\EXAMPLE.R00
OPTIONS=m30,h180,w80,mf100,very,ch2,Fin1,mrk2,
and the same command on a Dutch PC is (comma decimal separator, ‘;’ list
separator)
INPUT=C:\PROGRAM FILES\BEATSCOPE\EXAMPLE.DAT;2;100;0
OPTIONS=m30;h180;w80;mf100;very;ch2;Fin1;mrk2;
14.3 Batch commands
The easiest way to find out which options are available for a certain command is:
• to invoke the dialog corresponding to the batch command you are going to
use,
• to configure the dialog, and then
• to click the Add button instead of the Run button.
Figure 14.1 The Add/Edit buttons used in dialogs.
If you click the Add button the batch command is created by BeatScope and added
to the end of the current batch command file. If no batch file has been opened yet,
the default internal name ‘COMMAND FILE’ is used, until you save the file.
If you click the Edit button the current batch command file is displayed. You can
edit the batch command file if necessary. To close the dialog, click on Close.
Although the view on the batch command file is now closed, it can be reopened
any time when you click the Edit button. The current batch command file is not
saved or closed yet, the Close button only hides the batch command file dialog.
To run the batch command file click on the Run button in the dialog shown above.
Then the following message is displayed:
Figure 14.2 Batch commnd file.
You can run a batch analysis without saving it, but generally it is recommended to
first save the batch command file.
Before the batch command file starts the following message is displayed.
Figure 14.3 Standard batch command warning.
The batch file usually contains commands that output data to files on disk. If one or
more output files already exist data are overwritten by the batch analysis. Click the
Yes button to start processing the batch command file, click No to cancel.
14.3.1 Beatfast
Configuration section A beat to beat analysis batch command usually starts with a
[CONFIG] section with configuration details for the Beatfast analysis. The most
recent [CONFIG] section is used in a beat analysis command. Therefore, it is

allowed to have e.g. one [CONFIG] section at the top of the batch command file
followed by a number of beat-to-beat analysis and other batch commands. All
Beatfast analysis commands will then use the same configuration details. If no
[CONFIG] section is found a default configuration is assumed. To reset an earlier
[CONFIG] section to a default configuration you can insert an empty [CONFIG]
section, as is shown below:
[CONFIG]
%empty section, default configuration
[BEATFAST]
INPUT=
The [CONFIG] section is further detailed in Appendix B.
[BEATFAST] section
INPUT= Samples file

OUTPUT= Beat-to-beat results file
OPTIONS= Beatfast options
PERIOD= n/a (always entire file)
The OPTIONS line:
OPTIONS= Description Range

M47 Male & age [yr] 0..100 yr
F47 Female & age [yr]
H176 Height [cm] 0..250 cm
(0 if height is unknown)
W68 Weight [kg] 0..250 cm
(0 if weight is unknown)
MF100 Modelflow method (100 % cal.) 25..400 %
CZ100 TNO Pulse contour (100 % cal.) 25..400 %
norm Execution speed (real time)
high ,, (10x real time)
very ,, (highest with graphics)
text ,, (highest without graphics)
SR100 Sampling frequency 100 Hz (Default)
SR200 Sampling frequency 200 Hz
CH4 Number of input channels 1,2,4 or 8
FIN1 Finger pressure input channel 1..8
FIN1B ,, and convert to brachial pulse
MRK2 Marker channel (0=NO markers) 0..8
SPC4 Special channel 0..8
SPCA-45 Special channel with A=averaging,I=integration
or E=peak-to-peak & delay in ms

RTF5 Return to flow channel 0..8
An example of a Beatfast command:
[CONFIG]
numchan=2
mrkchan=2
hitchan=2
[BEATFAST]
INPUT=C:\PROGRAM FILES\BEATSCOPE\EXAMPLE.DAT,2,100,0
OPTIONS=m30,h180,w80,mf100,very,ch2,Fin1,mrk2,
14.3.2 Printres
Use the Printres command to convert beat-results to ASCII text files that can be
further processed with a text editor or spreadsheet program.
[PRINTRES] section
INPUT= Binary beat-to-beat results file

OUTPUT= ASCII text file with beat results
OPTIONS= Printres options
PERIOD= 0,END (default)
However, you can also use another start and stop time.
The OPTIONS line:

BEAT Output beat results only, no events
COMM 1) Output events only, no beat results
BOTH 1) Output events + beats results (default)
AB1 No beat averaging, use every beat (default)
AB4 Output one beat result for every 4 beats 1..1800 beats
AT4 Output beat results at 4 seconds intervals 1..1800 s
(see Appendix C)
TSR Time in seconds relative to start of the file
THR Time in hh:mm:ss relative to start of the file
THA Time of day
Note 1). If a ‘-’ is appended (e.g. COMM-) additional information about

Modelflow parameters, level correction and return to flow is suppressed.
An example of a Printres command:
[PRINTRES]
INPUT=C:\PROGRAM FILES\BEATSCOPE\EXAMPLE.R00
OUTPUT=C:\PROGRAM FILES\BEATSCOPE\EXAMPLE.PRN
OPTIONS=beat,at10,thr
PERIOD=0.00,End,0.0
14.3.3 Plotfast
Use the Plotfast command to print stripchart graphs on your printer.
[PLOTFAST] section
INPUT= Binary beat-to-beat results file

OUTPUT= (not used)
OPTIONS= Plotfast options
PERIOD= 0,END,page interval in seconds (default)
you can use another start and stop time.
The OPTIONS line:

BEAT Output beat results only, no events
BOTH Output events + beats results (default)
AB1 No beat averaging, use every beat (default)
AB4 Output one beat result for every 4 beats 1..1800 beats
AT4 Output beat results at 4 seconds intervals 1..1800 s
(seeAppendix C)
THA Time of day
S200 1) Plot Systolic pressure (mmHg)
D200 Plot Diastolic pressure (mmHg)
M200 Plot Mean pressure (mmHg)
R200 Plot Rate (bpm)
I2 Plot Interbeat interval (s)
V100 Plot Stroke volume (ml)
O10 Plot Cardiac output (l/min)
T2 Plot TPR (mmHg.s/ml)
Z200 Plot Characteristic impedance (MU)
C40 Plot Compliance (ml/mmHg)
H50 Plot Height (mmHg), note 0 mmHg centered
Note 1: The number following the signal code is the maximum Y-axis value.
Therefore, the S200 option requests an Y-axis 0 to 200 mmHg for systolic
pressure.
Note 2: The plot options can be combined. Use e.g. V100;C40 to combine stroke
volume and compliance in the same ViewPort. An example:
OPTIONS=S200;M200,R200;H50 defines two viewports :

• Viewport 1 = Systolic and Diastolic pressure (0 to 200 mmHg)

• Viewport 2 = Heart rate (0 to 200 bpm) and Height (-50 to 50 mmHg)
14.3.4 Export
The export command enables you to export and convert data from one file to
another file.
[EXPORT] section
INPUT= Binary beat results file or samples file

OUTPUT= Binary or ASCII output file
OPTIONS= Export options
PERIOD= start time, stop time
(interval not applicable)
The OPTIONS line:

BIN Output to binary samples file
ASC Output to ASCII text data file.
AB1 No averaging, use every beat or sample default
AB4 Output one result for 4 beats or samples 1..1800
AT4 Output results at 4 seconds intervals 1..1800 s
(see Appendix C)
THA Time of day
HDR ASCII output: Header above data
NOHDR ASCII output: Omit header above data
FRM ASCII output: Output formatted data
NOFRM ASCII output: Columns separated by ‘,’
SEP1 Special separator use in NOFRM output:
SEP0=comma separated Default
SEP1=TAB separated
SEP2=Semi-colon (;) separated
p:q&r The signals to export: 1..16
1:4 selects signals 1,2,3 and 4
1:8&12 selects signals 1 to 8 and 12
1:2&4:5 selects signals 1,2,4 and 5
(see Appendix A for signal definitions)
An example of an Export command :

[EXPORT]
OUTPUT=D:\beatscop\OUT\example.out
OPTIONS=ASC,AB1,TSR,NOHDR,NOFRM,BEAT,1:9
PERIOD=130,160
14.3.5 Statistics
Use the descriptive statistics command to analyze (selections of) your data files.
[Statistics] section
INPUT= Binary beat results file or samples file

OUTPUT= ASCII output file
OPTIONS= Statistics options
PERIOD= start time, stop time, interval
(the interval is optional)
The OPTIONS line:

DATAROW Output one row with results
DATATABLE Output a table with results
MEAN Calculate average
STDEV Calculate Standard deviation
MINMAX Calculate Minimum and Maximum
MEDIAN Calculate Median
PERC Calculate 10 and 90 % percentile
AREA Calculate area
FILE Show input file name
TIME Show time period selected
THA Time of day 1)
p:q&r The signals to analyze: 1..16
1:4=selects signals 1,2,3 and 4
1:8&12 selects signals 1 to 8 and 12
1:2&4:5 selects signals 1,2,4 and 5
(see Appendix A for signal number
definitions)
Note 1: If THA is selected the start and stop time are interpreted as time of day
too.
An example of a Statistics command:
[STATISTICS]
OUTPUT=D:\beatscop\OUT\stat.txt
OPTIONS=DATAROW,Mean,StDev,Median,File,Time,tsr,1:9
PERIOD=0.000,100.000
14.3.6 Execute
Use the execute command to run a Windows or DOS program from the batch
command file.
[EXECUTE] section
CURDIR= New current working directory

COMMAND= Full path to executable file &
optional command line options
An example of an Execute command:

[EXEC]
CURDIR=C:\WINDOWS
COMMAND=NOTEPAD D:\MYFILE.TXT
14.3.7 Exitprogram
Use the EXITPROGRAM command to close BeatScope, and to return control to
the calling program, perhaps a Windows batch file.
Appendix A. Signal definition in files
Signal Portapres M2 Finometer Beat Results Text Data Binary

File File File File (1) Samples
File (2)
01 Porta finAP 3) SYS Col01 Chan01
Finger pressure Unprocessed Finger systolic pressure
[mmHg] pressure [mmHg]
[mmHg]
02 Height Height 4) DIA Col02 Chan02
Hydrostatic height Hydrostatic height diastolic pressure
correction system correction system [mmHg]
[mmHg] [mmHg]
03 n/a Armcuff 4) MAP Col03 Chan03
Upper arm cuff mean pressure
pressure [mmHg] [mmHg]
04 n/a Pleth4) HR Col04 Chan04
Plethysmogram pulse rate
[a.u.] [bpm]
05 n/a reBAP , or IBI Col05 Chan05
NotAvail 3) interbeat interval
Reconstructed [s]
Finger pressure
[mmHg]
06 n/a Pulse SV Col06 Chan06
(sys-dia) pressure stroke volume
[mmHg] [ml]
07 n/a SPTI CO Col07 Chan07
(aortic) systolic area cardiac output
[mmHg.s] [ l/min ]
08 n/a DPTI LVET 5) Col08 Chan08
(aortic) diastolic left ventricular
area ejection time
[mmHg] [s]
09 n/a dp/dt TPR Col09 Chan09
maximal slope total peripheral
during upstroke resistance
[mmHg/s] [mmHg.s/ml]
Signal Portapres M2 Finometer Beat Results Text Data Binary

File File File File (1) Samples
File (2)
10 n/a LevelCor Artifact 6) Col10 Chan10
regression based analysis bits :
pressure level _TPSROD2
correction
[mHg]
11 n/a LevelCal Zao character- Col11 Chan11
pressure correction istic impedance
based on return to [milli-
flow calibration mmHg.s/ml]
[mmHg]
12 n/a SVI Cw windkessel Col12 Chan12
Indexed stroke compliance
volume [ml/mmHg]
[ml/m2]
13 n/a CI Height height Col13 Chan13
Indexed cardiac corr. system
output (Portapres/
[(l/min)/m2] Finometer)
[mmHg]
14 n/a PRI Col14 Chan14
Indexed total
peripheral resist.
[(mmHg.s/ml) /m2]
15 n/a BeatHeight n/a Col15 Chan15
Beat to beat height
correction value
[mmHg]
16 n/a n/a n/a Col16 Chan16
1) These are the default signal names for a text data file. Use the File, Info
Structure menu to change column names and/or units
2) The table shows the default names of signals in a binary samples file. Use the
File, Info Structure menu to change channel names and/or units
3) A beat-to-beat analysis in Finometer can be either performed on the ‘raw’
finger pressure (finAP) or on the waveform filtered and level corrected finger
pressure (reBAP). If no pressure waveform filtering to brachial pressure was
applied during the Finometer measurement the reBAP signal can not be
computed in BeatScope and is thus ‘NotAvail’.
4) If external inputs were used, the height channel, the arm cuff channel and/or
the channel containing the plethysmogram will contain the external inputs.
5) If a special channel is used in a Beatfast analysis, this signal may have another
name and units
6) Analysis information: see table in section 3.2.2
Appendix B. Beatfast configuration

The table below describes the configuration options in a Beatfast configuration file
or in a configuration section of a batch command file. In a configuration file the
format is important. Each line in the file should consist of a mnemonic followed by
an equal sign ‘=’ and the selected option. Spaces are not allowed. An example:
dsptype=near
sigleft=vol
Mnemonic Option Description

dsptype= near View display from near by
far a distance
sigleft= sys Left trend signal systolic
dia diastolic
mea mean
dur interbeat interval
rat heart rate
ejt ejection time
vol stroke volume
coc cardiac output
tpr total peripheral resistance
zao characteristic impedance
cwk windkessel compliance
svi stroke volume index
cai cardiac index
pri tpr index
scaleft= vl Left trend full scale very low
lo low
me medium
hi high
vh very high
sigrite= sys..pri Right trend signal cf. sigleft description
scarite= vl..vh Right trend full scale cf. scaleft description
Mnemonic Option Description

prscale= vl..vh Pressure full scale cf. scaleft description
prsunit= mmHg Pressure display unit
hPa 1 hPa=0.75 mmHg
kPa 1 kPa=7.50 mmHg
timscal= 6m Trend time scale 6 min
30m 30 min
2h 2 hour
8h 8 hour
24h 24 hour
samplef= 100 Sampling frequency 100 Hz (default)
200 200 Hz
filetyp= tno Samples file type standard TNO file
bin foreign binary file
ascii ASCII samples file
numchan= 1..8 Number of ADC e.g. numchan=2
channels
autzoff= N TNO zero offset (0)
autreso= N TNO resolution milli-mmHg
(250)
autpola= pos TNO signal polarity positive
neg (pos) negative
aloskip= N BIN skip preamble
bytes
alozoff= N BIN zero offset
(TNO: 0)
aloreso= N BIN resolution (m- milli-mmHg
mmHg)
alopola= pos BIN signal polarity positive
neg negative
ascskip= N ASCII skip preamble
lines
ascsepa= C ASCII separator ASCII character
character
ascreso= R ASCII resolution (m- usually 1000.0 (*1)
mmHg) milli-units
mnemonic Option Description

ascpola= pos ASCII signal positive
neg polarity negative
prssite= aor Pressure measured in thoracic aorta
fem femoral/abdominal
tem temporal artery
bra brachial artery
rad radial artery
fin finger artery
prschan= N Pressure channel nr
hitchan= N Height channel nr Height corr. system
mrkchan= N Marker channel nr
rtfchan= N R-T-F channel nr Return to flow
spechan= [1..8] Special channel nr Spec analysis chan.
0 none selected
ejt ejection time
ibi interbeat interval
lvl level correction
asy systolic area
specact= avg channel action.. average
int integrate
ext peak-to-peak
specdel= N & channel delay (+/- in ms
ms)
qmethod= cz Continuous CO TNO pulse contour
mf method Modelflow
prsfilt= not Filter pressure no filtering
bra to brachial artery
prslevl= ori Correct pressure original pressure
cor level yes level correct
prescal= not CALibrate pressure no RTF calibration
cal level calib
playfil= once Play TNO only input
twice file
cont continuously
execute= slow Execution speed
medi
fast
text
(no graphics screen)
fileres= not File bt-bt results NO results file!
res
yes make file
filewav= not File model

pqv
waveforms
mnemonic option Description
begtime= N start time at (ms)
endtime= N stop time at (ms)
Where N is a number.
Appendix C. Beat and time averaging

Time averaging
If you specify Ns averaging, beat results are calculated at fixed intervals of

Ns, starting at t0=0. Therefore, always a fixed time grid of Ns intervals is used
throughout the entire file. This time grid is independent of the currently displayed
period.
Each data line (at time t) has the averaged data of the beats and/or parts of the
beats in the episode t-N to t+N, i.e. twice the interval N. Note that averaged data
contain partially overlapping episodes.
As is explained in Section 14.1 a PERIOD line in a batch command file consists of

a start time, a stop time and an optional time interval. If you are analyzing data
using a batch command file the start time (ts) of the PERIOD line is used to shift
the time grid so that data lines are found at ts, ts+1N, ts+2N, etc. This is useful if you
want to analyze a maneuver that starts at a well defined time instant, e.g. standing,
or a Valsalva’s maneuver.
Beat averaging
If you specify averaging over N beats, each Nth beat a beat result is output.
The instant of the median (M) beat is displayed, the beat data are the averaged beat
results of beats M-N to M+N-1. Note that averaged data contain partially
overlapping episodes.
Appendix D. Recommended literature
Finapres
Imholz B P M, Wieling W, Langewouters G J L, van Montfrans G A, Continuous

finger arterial pressure; utility in the cardiovascular laboratory. Clin Autonomic
Res 1991; 1:43-53.
Wesseling K H, De Wit B, Van der Hoeven G M A, Van Goudoever J, Settels J J.

Physiocal, calibrating finger vascular physiology for Finapres. Homeostasis 1995;
36:67--82.
Parati G, Casadei R, Gropelli A, Di Rienzo M, Mancia G. Comparison of finger

and intra-arterial blood pressure monitoring in rest and during laboratory tests.
Hypertension 1989;13:647-55
Imholz BPM, Settels JJ, van den Meiracker AH, Wesseling KH, Wieling W.
Noninvasive continuous finger blood pressure measurement during orthostatic
stress compared to intra-arterial pressure. Cardiovascular Research 1990;24:214-
221.
Portapres
Imholz B P M, Langewouters G J, Van Montfrans G A, Parati G, Van Goudoever

J, Wesseling K H, Wieling W, Mancia G. Feasibility of ambulatory, continuous
24-hour finger arterial pressure recording. Hypertension 1993; 21:65--73.
Waveform filtering
Gizdulich P, Wesseling K H. Reconstruction of brachial arterial pulsation from

finger arterial pressure. Proc 12th Ann Int Conf IEEE-EMB 1990;1046--1047.
Gizdulich P, Imholz B P M, van den Meiracker A H, Parati G, Wesseling K H.

Finapres tracking of systolic pressure and baroreflex sensitivity improved by
waveform filtering. J Hypertens 1996; 14:243--250.
Waveform filtering and level correction
Gizdulich P, Prentza A, Wesseling K H. Models of brachial to finger pulse wave

distortion and pressure decrement. Cardiovasc Res 1997; 33:698--705.
Return to flow method
Bos W J W, Van Goudoever J, Van Montfrans G A, Van den Meiracker A H,

Wesseling K H. Reconstruction of brachial artery pressure from noninvasive finger
pressure measurements. Circulation 1996; 94(8):1870-1875.
Modelflow cardiac output
Wesseling K H, Jansen J R C, Settels J J, Schreuder J J. Computation of aortic

flow from pressure in humans using a nonlinear, three-element model. J Appl
Physiol 1993; 74:2566--2573.
Langewouters G J, Wesseling K H, Goedhard W J A. The static elastic properties

of 45 human thoracic and 20 abdominal aortas in vitro and the parameters of a new
model. J Biomech 1984; 17:425--435.
Hirschl M M, Binder B, Gwechenberger M, Herkner H, Bur A, Kittler H, Laggner

A N. Noninvasive assessment of cardiac output in critically ill patients by analysis
of the finger blood pressure waveform. Crit Care Med 1997; 25: 1909-1914
Harms M P M, Wesseling K H, Pott F, Jenstrup M, van Goudoever J, Secher N H,

van Lieshout J J. Continuous stroke volume monitoring by modeling flow from
non-invasive measurement of arterial pressure in humans under orthostatic stress.
Clinical Science, 1999; 97:291-301.
Jellema W T, Wesseling K H, Groeneveld A B, Stoutenbeek C P, Thijs L G, van

Lieshout J J: Continuous cardiac output in septic shock by simulating a model of
the aortic input impedance: a comparison with bolus injection thermodilution.
Anesthesiology. 90(5):1317-28, 1999 May.
Jansen J R C 2001, Schreuder J J, Mulier J P, Smith N T, Settels J J, Wesseling K

H: A comparison of cardiac output derived from the arterial pressure wave against
thermodilution in cardiac surgery patients. British Journal of Anaesthesia 2001; 87:
212-22.
Arterial pressure qualitity
Gardner R M. Direct blood pressure measurements – Dynamic response

requirements. Anesthesiology (1981) 54: 227-236
See also the list of references in our web-site: www.finapres.com

Index
A
Add (to batch file) button..................................................................................... 133
Adjust start timing of files ................................................................................... 130
Arterial pressure sites............................................................................................. 77
Artifacts ........................................................................................................... 29, 42
Auto scaling ......................................................................................................... 114
Averaging .................................................................................................... 126, 151
B
Batch command file ....................................................................................... 43, 131
Beat results window............................................................................................. 117
BEATFAST
available keys..................................................................................................... 94
batch command ................................................................................................ 134
Beat analysis messages ...................................................................................... 94
Configuration ................................................................................................... 147
PROGRAM........................................................................................................ 11
Run time screen ................................................................................................. 90
Beatport
Control keys....................................................................................................... 55
Entering Comments............................................................................................ 54
Run time screen ........................................................................................... 52, 90
Samples file ....................................................................................................... 51
Beat-to-beat file record .......................................................................................... 41
Beat-to-beat results file.......................................................................................... 41
Binary samples file ................................................................................................ 40
BMI ......................................................................................................................... 9
Browsing................................................................................................................ 35
C
Calibration factor ............................................................................................. 55, 85
Cardiac output........................................................................................................ 96
CO.......................................................................................................................... 29
Color selection for signals ................................................................................... 114
CONFIG section .................................................................................................. 134
Configuration file..................................................................................... 55, 89, 147
Configuration section........................................................................................... 134
Customer support................................................................................................... 15
Cw.......................................................................................................................... 29
cZ method .............................................................................................................. 84
D
Damped pulse ........................................................................................................ 94
Date+time files....................................................................................................... 45
Decompress Portapres M2 file............................................................................... 63
Dias........................................................................................................................ 28
Diastolic pressure............................................................................................. 12, 96
Dicrotic notch ........................................................................................................ 12
Dongle ................................................................................................................... 18
Download......................................................................................................... 58, 60
E
Edit button ........................................................................................................... 133
Ejection time.................................................................................................... 12, 96
E-mail address ....................................................................................................... 15
Event file.............................................................................................................. 129
Event filter ........................................................................................................... 130
Event masking...................................................................................................... 130
EXAMPLE.DAT ................................................................................................... 23
Execute batch command ...................................................................................... 141
Execution speed ..................................................................................................... 82
Export .................................................................................................................... 37
Export batch command ........................................................................................ 139
Exporting ............................................................................................................. 123
Extension
.H00 ................................................................................................................... 46
.R00 ................................................................................................................... 24
.S00.................................................................................................................... 46
F
File format definition ........................................................................................... 109
File names.............................................................................................................. 46
File structure information .................................................................................... 116
Finapres ................................................................................................................... 9
Finapres Medical Systems ..................................................................................... 15
Flash card directory ............................................................................................... 57
Flash link ............................................................................................................... 58
troubleshooting .................................................................................................. 57
Flash Memory Card ............................................................................................... 10
FMS ....................................................................................................................... 15
G
GOTO .................................................................................................................. 131
H
Header file ....................................................................................................... 40, 44
Heart rate ......................................................................................................... 12, 96
Height correction system ....................................................................................... 10
Hgt ......................................................................................................................... 29
I
Ibi........................................................................................................................... 29
INPUT line .......................................................................................................... 132
Interbeat interval.................................................................................................... 96
L
Label in batch file ................................................................................................ 131
Level calibration .............................................................................................. 77, 86
Level correction ......................................................................................... 52, 77, 85
Line type .............................................................................................................. 114
Literature ............................................................................................................. 153
M
Marker ................................................................................................................... 80
Marker detection.................................................................................................... 77
Mean ...................................................................................................................... 28
Mean arterial pressure............................................................................................ 12
Mean pressure........................................................................................................ 96
MODELFLO
PROGRAM........................................................................................................ 11
Modelflow Method .......................................................................................... 10, 84
Monitoring and Control (Portapres) ...................................................................... 47
N
No pulsation........................................................................................................... 95
Normalize time .................................................................................................... 116
P
Parallel port protection device ............................................................................... 18
Peripheral resistance .............................................................................................. 96
Physiocal.......................................................................................................... 77, 95
Plotfast
Batch command ............................................................................................... 138
Program ........................................................................................................... 101
Porta....................................................................................................................... 47
Portapres ................................................................................................................ 10
Control unit........................................................................................................ 10
Event file............................................................................................................ 62
M2 file ................................................................................................... 41, 63, 80
Pressure and flow waveforms file .......................................................................... 88
Pressure level shift ................................................................................................. 86
Pressure sites.......................................................................................................... 77
Printing ................................................................................................................ 119
Printres
Batch command ............................................................................................... 137
Program ............................................................................................................. 97
Pulse contour ......................................................................................................... 84
Pulse interval ................................................................................................... 12, 86
R
R.T.F...................................................................................................................... 86
Rate........................................................................................................................ 29
Return-to-flow channel .......................................................................................... 81
Run time events ..................................................................................................... 41
S
Samples files.......................................................................................................... 39
Samples files, defining......................................................................................... 109
Selection dialog ..................................................................................................... 22
Session file............................................................................................. 44, 105, 121
Signal names .......................................................................................................... 34
Signal selection.............................................................................................. 34, 113
Signals ........................................................................................................... 33, 112
Site......................................................................................................................... 81
Special channel .......................................................................................... 77, 86, 95
Speed Bar............................................................................................................... 31
Start timing .......................................................................................................... 130
Statistics
Batch command ............................................................................................... 140
Utility............................................................................................................... 126
Status Bar............................................................................................................... 31
STOP ................................................................................................................... 131
Stroke volume.................................................................................................. 12, 96
Support .................................................................................................................. 15
Syst ........................................................................................................................ 28
Systolic area........................................................................................................... 86
Systolic pressure .............................................................................................. 12, 96
T
Tej.......................................................................................................................... 29
Text data file.................................................................................................. 43, 110
Time....................................................................................................................... 28
Time Bar ................................................................................................................ 31
Time format ......................................................................................................... 116
Time window ....................................................................................................... 114
Timing menu........................................................................................................ 116
TNO pulse contour method.................................................................................... 84
TNO samples file................................................................................................... 39
TNO-TPD-Biomedical Instrumentation................................................................... 9
TPR........................................................................................................................ 29
U
Upstroke .......................................................................................................... 12, 96
Utility
Beat analysis ...................................................................................................... 22
Portapres ............................................................................................................ 22
Utilities .............................................................................................................. 22
View files........................................................................................................... 22
V
View Files
Run time screen ............................................................................................... 105
Utility......................................................................................................... 30, 105
Viewport setup..................................................................................................... 112
Viewports............................................................................................................... 34
Vol ......................................................................................................................... 29
W
Waveform filtering .......................................................................................... 52, 77
WWW site ............................................................................................................. 15
Z
ZO.......................................................................................................................... 29

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BeatScope 1.

FMS, Finapres Medical Systems BV

Copyright & Trademarks

FMS, Finapres Medical Systems BV, Arnhem, The Netherlands.

This document is for information purposes only.

WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATIONS

FMS MAKES NO WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION, EITHER EXPRESS

FMS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL

IN NO CASE SHALL FINAPRES MEDICAL SYSTEM BV’S LIABILITY

Modelflow, Portapres, Finapres and Finometer are trademarks. Windows is a

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a

THE DATA PRODUCED BY BEATSCOPE OR ONE OF ITS COMPONENTS

4.6 BeatScope batch command files ........................................................... 43

9.6 Beatfast, beat analysis messages ........................................................... 94

13.1 Exporting data..................................................................................... 123

BeatScope is a Windows program featuring:

1.1 TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation

Recently the Dutch company Finapres Medical Systems BV (FMS) started to

Finapres is a non-invasive device, which measures blood pressure continuously in

TPD Biomedical Instrumentation and was later commercially available as the

The availability of continuous non-invasive arterial blood pressure, including the

1.4 Modelflow method

In 1993 TNO TPD Biomedical Instrumentation introduced a new method to

dependent aortic compliance, characteristic impedance and time varying systemic

1. BEATPORT.EXE for on-line, real time analysis of Portapres measurements

1.7 Beat analysis software

1.8 Release notes

1.9 Document conventions

BeatScope type styles:

Edit box Checkbox

Figure 1.1 Windows dialog definitions

1.10 Customer support

For all (technical) support questions on Portapres, Finometer and BeatScope

Sales and marketing:

Phone: +32 53 685 626

2.1 Operating system

BeatScope will install on either one of the following operating systems:

2.2 Installing BeatScope on your system

2.2.1 De-installing a previous BeatScope version

To de-install a previous version of BeatScope:

2.2.2 Installing BeatScope 1.1

To install BeatScope 1.1:

2.2.3 Copy protection

Parallel port key

Figure 2.1 License key error message

Software license key

To unlock the program:

The license is now copied from the computer to the diskette.

To install the license on the other computer:

3.1 Quick tour 1: The selection dialog

Figure 3.1 The selection dialog

This Selection dialog is central in BeatScope. It is displayed as a notebook with

Use the Close button of the Selection dialog to exit BeatScope.

3.2 Quick tour 2: Analyzing a (Portapres) measurement.

3.2.1 Analyzing a Portapres file with Beatfast

file history list

Figure 3.2 Beatfast (beat analysis) dialog

To run a beat analysis enter the following information in the dialog: