Knowledge Base

File and Profile Management

8.1 CatWalk Experiments

Create a New Experiment

1. Do one of the following:
   • In the Application Startup Tasks window, select Create a new experiment.
   • Choose File > New Experiment.
   • Click the New Experiment icon in the tool bar.
2. Select an Experiment Setup profile from the Setup Profile list.
3. Enter the Name for your experiment.
4. Accept the default location or browse to a new location. Optionally, you can add a Description and enter a name in the Created by field. The default experiment folder is C:\Users\Public\(Public) Documents\Noldus\CatWalk XT\Experiments.
5. Click Create experiment.

The experiment (*.cwe) is stored in a folder with the same name as the experiment.

Open a CatWalk XT 11.0 Experiment

1. To open an experiment, do one of the following:
   • In the Acquisition Startup Tasks window, click an existing experiment listed under Open an existing experiment or click Open another...
   • Choose File > Open Experiment (Ctrl+O) or click the Open Experiment icon.
2. Double-click the experiment folder, select the *.cwe file and click Open.

Open a CatWalk XT 8/9/10.0/10.5/10.6/10.7 Experiment

When you open an old experiment, it is converted to a CatWalk XT 11.0 experiment. Once the experiment is converted, it cannot be opened anymore in the previous version.

It is not possible to open or import experiments from CatWalk 7.x or earlier.

Before opening a CatWalk XT 8/9/10.0/10.5/10.6/10.7 experiment in CatWalk XT 11.0, you are required to make a backup of the experiment that can still be opened in the previous version. Make sure to store backups in a safe location.

We strongly recommend that you backup your experiments every day, and, for irreplaceable data, more often.

1. Choose File > Open Experiment.
2. In the window that appears, click Yes.
3. In the Backup Experiment window, you can enter the name and folder for the experiment backup. The file name for the backup contains the current date and time. Click Backup to create a backup copy of the experiment and then click OK.
4. If you convert a CatWalk XT 8 experiment, you can select Rat or Mouse in the Animal Type window. Selection of the type of animal is important for Automatic Footprint Classification and for calculation of the Sciatic, Tibial and Peroneal Functional Index (for rat and mouse different Automatic Footprint Classification algorithms and different FI formulas are used). You can also later select the animal type in the Experiment Settings if you are not sure at this point which animal type you should select.
5. Click OK to start the conversion. When conversion is completed, the Open Experiment Tasks window opens. Select one of the options to continue or close the window.

Errors During Conversion

If an error occurs during conversion, you get an error message "An error occurred during the conversion of experiment [experiment name]". Do the following:

1. Click OK and Cancel and close CatWalk XT.
2. In Windows Explorer, go to the CatWalk Experiments folder and delete the complete [experiment name] folder which contains the experiment you wanted to convert. Do not try to open the *.cwe file from the [experiment name] folder.
3. Open CatWalk and restore the backup file that was created in step 3 above.

Possible causes for a conversion error are:

• The disk to which you try to save the experiment is full.
• You do not have write permission for the CatWalk Experiment folder.
• There is an error in the experiment or experiment folder. In this case, send the backup file to our Support department.

Save an Experiment

Choose File > Save Experiment or press Ctrl+S, or click the Save icon in the tool bar.

When you save an experiment, all trials and runs are saved. Settings such as walkway settings, Preferences, Detection Settings, Acquisition Settings and profiles are only saved when you save and exit the experiment.

By default, Auto Save is active and the experiment is automatically saved at 5-minute intervals.

Create a Backup of the Current Experiment

1. Choose File > Make Backup or click the Make Backup icon in the tool bar.
2. Accept the default File name and Folder or change these. Before clicking Backup, you can click Open Output Folder so Windows Explorer opens the folder in which the backup (*.cwz) file is saved.
3. Click Backup. A message appears when the backup file was successfully created.

Restore a CatWalk XT Backup (*.cwz) File

1. Choose File > Restore Backup or click the Restore Backup icon in the tool bar. When you first start CatWalk XT, you can also select Restore Backup in the Application Startup Tasks window.
2. Locate the backup file (*.cwz) and click Open.
3. Accept the default CatWalk XT Experiment folder or browse to another folder in which you want to restore the experiment.
4. Click OK.

If you open a CatWalk XT 8/9/10.0/10.5/10.6/10.7 backup (*.cwz) file, the experiment is converted to CatWalk XT 11.0.

8.2 Trials & Runs

Open a Trial or Run

To open a trial or run, in the Experiment Explorer, right-click a trial or run and select Acquire, Classify, Visualize or View Run Statistics.

If you get a message "An error occurred while loading the data of run 'Run#'", it means the run is corrupt. We advise you to delete this run.

Delete a Trial or Run

You cannot delete an active trial or run (shown in bold and blue in the Experiment Explorer).

If you want to delete trials or runs, you must do this in CatWalk. If you delete trials or runs in the experiments folder in Windows Explorer, this makes your experiment corrupt.

To delete a trial, do one of the following:

• In the Experiment Explorer, right-click a trial and select Delete.
• Open the Trial List, select one or more trials and click the Delete Trial(s) button at the bottom.

To delete a run, do one of the following:

• In the Experiment Explorer, right-click a run and select Delete.
• Open the Acquisition screen, select the corresponding trial and select Live video in the View list. Click one or more runs in the Acquired Runs list and click the Delete Run(s) button.