Logging Additional Information

This tutorial will show you how to use a project template to attach extra information to your project and your captured layers. For example, you can use a project template to associate a part number with every project.

Creating a Project Template

1. Go to the Home tab and click Manage Templates.

   

2. Click the Add Template button to add a new template. Enter a name for the template and press Ok.

   

Adding Properties

You should now be looking at the Edit Template window:

You can use the Edit Template window to add properties to a template. A property is a variable (e.g. “Part Number”) that an operator can fill out.

There are two property lists that you can add properties to:

• New Project - The operator will enter these properties when creating a new project. The properties in this list should be the same for every layer.
• Capture Config - The operator will enter these properties when they are setting up a new run in the capture config window. The properties in this list should vary from layer to layer.

You can add a property by clicking the Add property button. There are two types of properties you can create:

• Text - A text property is the default type of property. The user can set this property to any value they want to.
• Multiple Choice - A multiple choice property is a special property that has a fixed set of possible values. For example, if the property is “Location”, then you could force the user to choose one of the following values: “Lab A”, “Lab B”, or “Lab C”. Each possible value should be entered on a new line in the Choices text box.

You can use the arrow buttons to change the order the properties are listed in. When the properties are shown to the operator, they will be in the order that you specify here.

Managing Columns

Click the Columns tab to see the list of spreadsheet columns defined by this template. When an operator exports the information for all of the layers to a spreadsheet, this list will determine which columns will be exported, and what order they will be in.

You can include or exclude a column from the spreadsheet by toggling its checkbox, and you can use the arrow keys to change the order of the columns.

Any properties that you have added to this template will also be available as columns in this list.

When you are finished, click Ok to save this template.

Managing Templates

The template you just created should now be displayed in the Manage Templates window. This template will now be available as an option whenever you create a new project using this user account.

If this is the only computer you use to create new Pix2Net projects from, then you don’t have to do anything else. However, if you need to create new Pix2Net projects from another computer, then you can use the Export template and Import template buttons to copy this template to other computers.

Click Ok to return to the main window.

Creating a New Project

1. Go to the File tab and click the New Project button. Select the template you created and fill in the properties you added. Click Create to create the project.

   

   Note: A copy of the template was passed into the project you just created, and that copy can no longer be changed. You can still makes changes to the original template in the Manage Templates window, but those changes will only apply to future projects.

2. After the project is created, go to the Home tab and click Project Properties.

   

3. If you ever need to review or modify the project properties, you can do it in this window:

   

4. Click Cancel to close the Project Properties window.

Capture Config

1. Go to the Capture tab and click Capture Config.

   

2. Click the Add area button to add a new area. After creating the area, you should see the properties you added to the Capture Config property list.

   

3. Click Cancel to close the window.

Viewing Capture History

After you have captured some layers, you can view and export the information for those layers at any time.

1. In the Layers window, click the Show Capture History button.

   

2. The Capture History window will show information about each layer that has been captured.

   

3. You can use the Select columns button to edit the columns that are shown. By default, the settings will be the column settings that you specified when you created the template.

4. You can use the Export button to export the columns to a csv file, which can be opened as a spreadsheet by Microsoft Excel.