# Measured traces and notes

> Import REW, .frd, .zma and CSV measurements into 00 Simulator, link and align them with a design, style them, and pin notes to your graphs.

Source: https://simulator.00aud.io/docs/guides/measurements

Put a real measurement on the same graph as the simulation, line its level up with the design, and write notes on the graphs for whoever opens the design next. Traces and notes are saved with the workspace.

## Bring a measurement in

1. **Export it as text.** From your measurement software, export frequency and level per line, with phase if you have it: a REW text export, an .frd for SPL, a .zma for impedance, or a CSV.
2. **Drop it on the tile it belongs to.** Drag the file onto **SPL (dB)**, **Impedance**, **Phase** or **Max SPL (dB)**. The tile says **Drop to add a measured trace**, and the tile decides what the numbers are: ohms on **Impedance**, decibels on **SPL (dB)**. To paste a table instead, click the tile and paste.
3. **Check what was read.** The trace draws at once, linked to the enclosure you have selected. A card at the foot of the dashboard says what was **Added**: the file, its range, how many points and whether phase came with it. Change the link there, open **Details** or **Undo**. The card goes after 12 seconds, unless something failed or the file could be read two ways, when it waits with **Treat as**.

Two more ways in: **Add measured trace**, at the foot of **Measured traces** under the enclosure list, and **Export** › **Measured trace…** in its Import part. Both take several files at once. If the tile for a trace’s kind is not on the dashboard, it is added.

## What it reads

| Kind | Draws on | Comes from |
| --- | --- | --- |
| SPL | **SPL (dB)** | An .frd file; anything dropped on the tile; a table that looks like decibels |
| Impedance | **Impedance** | Every .zma file, wherever it lands; anything dropped on the tile; a table that looks like ohms |
| Phase | **Phase** | Anything dropped on the tile; a table that swings either side of zero |
| Max SPL | **Max SPL (dB)** and **Headroom** | Anything dropped on the tile; a short table of peak levels, such as a CEA-2010 result, when you choose it |

- Only lines that start with a number are read. Each is a frequency, a value and, optionally, phase in degrees, separated by spaces, tabs, commas or semicolons. Everything else is kept as the file’s header.
- A file added with **Add measured trace** or from the **Export** menu has no tile to go by, so unless it is a .zma or .frd its kind is guessed from the numbers. Whenever a file could be read two ways, the card asks with **Treat as**; a table of decibels with 64 rows or fewer is offered as **Max SPL** too.
- It needs at least 5 rows. A sweep with about 48 points per octave or more is stored on a 48-per-octave grid and drawn as a line; anything sparser, or 64 rows or fewer, is kept as it is and drawn as points.
- The header is read for the measuring software (REW, ARTA, CLIO, DATS, VituixCAD, Klippel, OmniMic), the date and any smoothing it already applied.
- A workspace holds up to 24 traces.

> **Not read yet** REW .mdat files, impulse responses (.wav), ARTA .pir files and Klippel exports. Export a frequency response as text from them first; the app says the same if you drop one.

## Link it and line it up

_Figure: The Measured traces section with one trace, linked to Vented Example, and its details open: Name, Kind, Linked to, the Display settings with Offset and Align…, and the measured conditions._

A sweep pasted onto **SPL (dB)** while Vented Example was selected, with its details open. Every setting shown is how a new trace starts.

1. Kind and the enclosure it measures
2. Level offset and Align…
3. How it is drawn
4. How it was measured

Click a trace in **Measured traces**, or its pill in a graph’s legend, to open its details.

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Kind** | SPL, Impedance, Phase or Max SPL: which graphs the trace draws on. |
| **Linked to** | The enclosure this is a measurement of, or **Not linked**. A linked trace takes a shade of its enclosure’s colour, sits under it in the legend and hides with it; an unlinked one keeps its own colour. |
| **Offset** | Shifts the drawn level, from −60 to +60. The legend pill shows it whenever it is not zero. |
| **Align…** | Works the offset out for you: pick the enclosure to **Match** and a **Band** (60 to 120 Hz to start with), and it shows the new offset beside the old one and what is left over once it is applied (**Residual after aligning**, as an RMS). **Apply** stores it. |

> **Align takes out the constant, not the disagreement** A measurement at 2 m on a ground plane and a simulation at 1 m in half space differ by a fixed amount that says nothing about whether the model is right. Align removes that amount; the residual is how well the shapes agree over the band. Pick a band where the room and the microphone are not in charge.

> **Your numbers are never rewritten** Offset, smoothing and colour change only how a trace is drawn. **Export** in its details, or **Export** › **Measured trace…**, writes the stored values back as .frd (.zma for impedance, .csv for Max SPL), with any offset and smoothing noted in the header rather than applied.

## How a trace is drawn

| Setting | Choices |
| --- | --- |
| **Smoothing** | None, 1/48 octave, 1/24 octave, 1/12 octave, 1/6 octave, 1/3 octave. For sweeps; display only. |
| **Line** | Dotted for a sweep, dashed between points, or solid. A point trace can also have no line. |
| **Markers** | Dot, Ring, Square or Cross, for point traces. |
| **Colour** | From the enclosure, a shade of it when several traces share one, or a colour you pick. The arrow beside it goes back. |

- The eye on a trace’s row hides it everywhere. The eye on its legend pill hides it on that graph only.
- Each pill shows the trace’s badge (M1, M2…), its name, its offset when it has one, and its value at the cursor, so you can read it against the simulated curves.
- **Measured conditions**, all optional: **Distance**, **Space** (Half space, Full space, Quarter space, Eighth space or Ground plane), **Drive**, **Mic**, **Date** and **Notes**. Fill them in when you share a design, so others know how it was measured. The date comes from the file when it says.

## Graph notes

A graph note points something out on a graph, for you later or for whoever you share the design with. It is saved with the workspace, published with its shares and kept when someone makes a copy.

1. **Add one.** Right-click a graph and choose **Add note**: a point on an enclosure’s curve, a line at that frequency, a band around it or a level. Or click the graph to hold the readout and press **Note here**. On a phone, tap the graph, then **Note here**.
2. **Write it.** **Label on the graph** is the short label drawn on the chart, up to 48 characters. **Say more (optional)** takes up to 280. Switch between **Point**, **Line**, **Band** and **Level**, type exact frequencies, and pick the enclosure a point rides on or a mark takes its colour from.
3. **Keep it.** **Done** closes the note; a note closed with nothing written in it is removed, and Esc puts it back as it was. Click its label on the graph to edit it again, with **Delete**, **Delete all** and **Copy link** at the foot.

- Up to 6 notes on one graph and 30 in a workspace.
- Headroom, Compare, Metrics, Insights, Schematic, Horn Editor, Fold, Baffle Layout and T/S Parameters take no notes; the other graphs all do.
- Someone opening your shared design clicks a note’s label to read it and copy a link to it.

## Show or hide annotations

Beside **Undo** and **Redo**, a button (**Hide annotations**, then **Show annotations**) hides your notes and your assistant’s marks together, and brings them back. It only appears when there is something to hide, and adding a note turns annotations back on.

Your assistant’s marks are the numbered bands, lines, levels and points it draws while it explains a design through the 00 Simulator connector (`annotate_graphs`). They sit on the graphs in the tab you have open, never change the design, and clear themselves once the design changes. [Watch it work live](https://simulator.00aud.io/docs/ai/live) has more.

## Ask your AI

**Ask your AI**

The connector can import traces, compare them with a simulation and store the offset, so your assistant can check a build against its model.

> Using 00 Simulator, compare each measured trace in my open workspace with the enclosure it is linked to, between 40 and 200 Hz. Tell me the level offset, the RMS residual once that is removed, and where the largest remaining difference is. Do not apply the offsets yet.