For Analysis	For Development
Commonly used laboratory file formats can easily be imported into the common sigTOOL data format	No knowledge required of the original data file format	Code developed can be applied to any supported file format and is therefore immediately portable between laboratories.
	Versatility. The sigTOOL data format supports spike trains, continuously and episodically sampled waveform data, video and image data.	Integrated facilities to analyze multiple data types
Raw data is represented within sigTOOL-defined objects	These objects use memory mapping from disc through the operating system’s virtual memory.	Ability to analyze very large data files
	Access to the data is via the easy-to-use methods associated with those objects. No detailed knowledge is required of the sigTOOL data format	Speed. The methods have been heavily profiled and optimized.
	Code within the object methods is optimized for speed and memory management for both disc and RAM access. Data are organized to take full advantage of MATLAB’s matrix algebra functions.	Speed. Data that are likely to be accessed in sequence are organized in contiguous memory areas. This speeds data access and optimizes the chances of calculations being performed in CPU cache memory (providing an additional speed enhancement of ~10 fold).
	The object methods deal transparently with platform-specific data issues such as IEEE endian format	Platform independence. To-date, sigTOOL has been tested on Windows XP, Fedora & Ubunti Linux and Mac OS10.4 (PPC) & 10.6 (Intel)
Results are represented within sigTOOL-defined objects	These objects are fully supported without further programming	The plot method invokes the standard sigTOOL result view providing tools for user interaction (selection of plot type, colour scheme, line thickness, axes limits etc).
	Support for printing, and exporting data and publication quality graphics is made available through the associated methods without further programming	Full sigTOOL functionality available including printing, and exporting both raw data and publication graphics. Spreadsheet access to data. ActiveX interaction with Excel, SigmaPlot and Origin software on Windows platforms.
sigTOOL GUI	User-written code is incorporated into the GUI automatically	Ease of adding third-party developed extensions
	Provides easy access to a full range of MATLAB built-in and Java Swing interfaces	User-friendly GUI
	Records a user history that includes support for third-party additions.	History files can be used for batch processing data files