Restoring a Chromatogram from Raw Data

When restoring a chromatogram from the raw data, Chromeleon connects equidistant data points with straight lines, thus creating a diagram that resembles the measured signal.

The resemblance (and thus the precision of integration) increases as the number of data points per time unit increases. However, a higher data rate requires more disk space. To integrate the narrowest peaks, which are usually the earliest peaks, with the same precision as the widest peaks, the step width  must be set in such a way that a minimum of 10 data points is stored for the narrowest peak (at a constant sampling rate). However, this results in huge data volumes, especially for wide peaks and long baseline sections.

Using a variable step rate can solve this problem. Chromeleon is capable of continuously optimizing the step rate during an analysis. This means that Chromeleon stores few data points during baseline sections, but stores many data points during peaks. The current step rate is set according to the actual information volume, so that the deviation between the resulting diagram and the measured signal is neither greater nor smaller than the actual noise component of the signal. This method ensures that neither too many nor too few data points are stored, but always the optimum. The step rate values vary between 0.01 and 5 seconds.