Graphical user interface framework for Earlab

Abstract

The Earlab Project at Boston University Hearing Research Center (HRC), http://earlab.bu.edu, is a computational simulation system created by the HRC to allow researchers to run simulations efficiently, using software representations of physiological pathways. The existing complexity of Earlab presents difficulty for users who may wish to adjust the parameters necessary to change from models of the ear to models that simulate other physiological pathways. To address this difficulty, several approaches were explored to assist in formulating a new framework for editing files associated with Earlab. XML, a mark-up language, was used to derive a series of prototype XML based documents as replacements for existing Earlab files. Microsoft Visual Studio and C# was then used to create a prototype of a graphical user interface that is capable of displaying an XML based document in a visual manner. The resulting framework shows the process of the intake of an XML document of an sample Earlab model, the presentation of the model in a graphical framework and the ability to edit the model and receive feedback on the suitability of values in the model.