OSP Tools

OSP provides several stand-alone applications for physics teaching and student activities. These tools are designed for the creation of curricular packages or to support student modeling and laboratories.

Data Tool

DataTool is a data analysis tool for plotting and fitting data from the laboratory, simulations, video analysis, or any other data set organized into columns. A click of a checkbox in DataTool allows the user to change the appearance of plots, see standard statistics for the data set or apply built-in linear, quadratic or cubic fits to the data set. DataTool also includes a number of standard mathematical functions that can be applied to the data set, allowing for further analysis and extending the range of potential fits to the data. Features of DataTool include:

• changing the appearance of plots
• getting standard statistics for the data set
• showing the slope (tangent) and area under curve
• automatic fits of data to pre-defined analytical expressions
• Fit Builder: fitting data to user-defined analytical expressions
• Data Builder: applying standard mathematical manipulations to the data set

Although it is a stand-alone tool set, DataTool is built on the Open Source Physics code library and integrated into many OSP and Easy Java Simulations (EJS) simulations. This means that a right-click on plots automatically imports the data into the DataTool for further analysis. This makes it easy to analyze and compare data from simulations, video analysis (especially using Tracker) and the laboratory.

• Data Tool Program and Documentation