Data
Data are the values for each feature for each item (artifact, or assemblage if you have chosen Use Assemblages from the Assemblages or Artifacts menu). The data are presented in the Data table in a spreadsheet format. Each row of the spreadsheet represents the values for a single item (artifact or assemblage); each column the values for a single feature. Blanks are okay - it is not necessary to have a value for every feature for every item. In the features table you can specify how OptiPath is to consider blanks and zeroes in the data (as unknown, zero, absence, or a combination of these). Right clicking on the column brings up a popup menu that allows you to set all features with one click.
Data can be logical (true/false, 0/1, present/absent, etc.), nominal (red, blue, green, big, medium, small, etc.) or numerical (0, 1, 73, 3.14159, 2.71828, etc.). However, within a given column all data should be of the same type.
You can import data from Excel or a tab delimited text file or you can create it from scratch in OptiPath. You may also export data to a tab delimited text file.
There is nothing in the Data table that is not in the Artifacts table. The advantage of the Data table is that it is more compact, containing only the data and not many of the other columns available in the Artifacts table.
Data Menu
Show/Hide Table allows you to open/close the Data table and edit the artifacts (assemblages) and their parameters and their data.
Show/Hide Values allows you to open/close the Values table which displays your data in the form OptiPath will use in its algorithms for seriation. The values displayed in the Values table may be quite different than the data in the Data table. For example, if the original data represents the number of occurrences of a style, but you have chosen to Use Frequencies, then the values will represent frequencies between 0 and 1. Similarly, a blank may be replaced by "Absent & Zero", depending upon your settings for Blanks.
Use Frequencies is a toggle that allows you to specify that the data in the Data table should be converted to frequencies for frequency analysis. If you have selected Frequency as the seriation technique, Use Frequencies will be set automatically and you will not be able to change it without changing the technique (on the Seriations table).
Data Table
In the Data table you can edit artifact (assemblage) names and indices and their data, but you cannot add or delete items.
Index - an integer value assigned to an artifact (assemblage) that allows you to sort artifacts in a list.
Artifact - a name that uniquely identifies the artifact (assemblage). Artifact (assemblage) names are restricted to 50 characters. The name is required for each artifact (assemblage). Artifact (assemblage) names are automatically synchronized with the artifacts (assemblages) table. An artifact (assemblage) cannot have the same name as another artifact (assemblage) and cannot have the same name as an assemblage (artifact). If you add/delete/edit an artifact (assemblage) name on the spreadsheet it will be updated elsewhere and vice versa.
Features - there is a separate column for each feature. Feature names cannot be edited in this table. Each cell in a feature column reflects the value of the measure for that feature for artifact (assemblage) in the corresponding row. Values can be numbers or letters or words, depending upon the feature data type.
Warning! The following entries in feature data will be interpreted literally:
Present & Zero,
Absent & Zero,
Present & Unknown,
Absent & Unknown,
Unknown & Zero,
Unknown
These six values (they are case sensitive) are the only allowed values for Earlier and Later, and Blanks and Zeroes. However, OptiPath will interpret them literally wherever they appear in the feature data.
For information on the Feature parameter data, see Features.