The Centre for Biological Information Technology has just released the newest version of Lucid software, version 3.5, which includes a number of new features and important enhancements.
Features include:
Natural Language Template Editor
One of the main new features included is the much anticipated Natural Language Template Editor. The Template Editor allows key builders to define templates, or sets of rules, to specify the structure and formatting of text descriptions exported from their keys scoring data. The editor allows you to manage templates, define and arrange your features into structured groups, and preview the descriptions generated from your templates.
Entity Descriptions
Lucid Builder 3.5 now allows you to attach Lucid generated descriptions to your entities. Entity Descriptions are a special type of media item which can be attached to any entity, and are generated from the scoring contained in your key. Entity descriptions are displayed as HTML media attachments in Lucid Player 3.5. Entity Descriptions are generated from the Natural Language Template defined by the key author, or generated from the default template shipped with the Lucid Builder.
Key Reporting Tool
The Key reporting tool allows you to create reports on the status of a key’s media and scoring. The Key Reporter’s Media and Scoring options can be used in any combination to produce custom reports.
Bulk Import of Media
This new import option enables Lucid to import media data (images and HTML) for entities. The Media List file is an open XML based format. Import options also include removal of existing media and partial entity name matching for attachment as well as reporting of missing entities when attaching media.
Manual Discard of Entities
The Lucid 3.5 Player now supports Manual Discarding of entities. The key user is now able to drag any entities not relevant to their identification from the Entities Remaining window to the Entities Discarded window, manually discarded entities are no longer considered during the identification process. The user may restore a manually discarded entity for consideration by dragging it back to the Entities Remaining window.
Get Score
The Get Score function from previous version of Lucid has also been added to Lucid Player 3.5. The Get Score function is useful for obtaining a quick view of how an entity in a Lucid Key has been scored and how or if it relates to the entity you are attempting to identify. This function can be turned on or off by the key author.
Miscellaneous Enhancements
There are a number of minor enhancements and usability improvements included in Lucid 3.5, including the following;
- The Lucid 3.5 Builder and Player applications can now check for updates on startup.
- The ability to set numeric scores to ranges of cells in the spreadsheet scoring view.
- The ability to define a list of feature states that are pre-selected when the Player opens a key.
- Rotating backups of the key data files are now kept on disk as you work on your keys. This allows the user to roll back recent changes to their key structure and scoring if desired.
We hope you enjoy version 3.5.
The Lucid Team.