ANN2RR(1)

NAME
ann2rr, rr2ann - convert annotation files to interval lists and vice versa

SYNOPSIS
ann2rr -r record -a annotator [ options ... ]
rr2ann -r record -a annotator [ options ... ]

DESCRIPTION
These programs are typically used to obtain RR interval series from ECG annotation files, or to create an annotation file from such a series, but they have a wider range of uses.

  ann2rr

Use ann2rr to extract a list of intervals, in text format, from an annotation file. By default, the intervals are listed in units of sample intervals (use sampfreq(1) to determine the sampling frequency of the input record if necessary). Options for ann2rr include:

-A  Print all intervals between annotations. By default, ann2rr prints only RR intervals (those between QRS (beat) annotations). This option overrides the -c and -p options.

-c  Print intervals between consecutive valid annotations only. (See discussion below).

-f time
    Begin at the specified time. By default, ann2rr starts at the beginning of the record.

-h  Print a usage summary.

-i format
    Print intervals in the specified format. By default, intervals are printed in units of sample intervals. Other formats include s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours), and t (time interval in hh:mm:ss format). Formats s, m, and h may be followed by an integer between 0 and 15 inclusive, specifying the number of decimal places (default: 3). For example, use the option -is8 to obtain intervals in seconds with 8 decimal places.

-p type [ type ... ]
    Print intervals ended by annotations of the specified types only. The type arguments should be annotation mnemonics (e.g., N), as normally printed by rdann(1) in the third column. More than one -p option may be used in a single command, and each -p option may have more than one type argument following it. If type begins with ``-'', however, it must immediately follow -p (standard annotation mnemonics do not begin with ``-'', but modification labels in an annotation file may define such mnemonics).

-P type [ type ... ]
    Print intervals begun by annotations of the specified types only.

-t time
    Stop at the specified time.

-v format
    Print final times (the times of occurrence of the annotations that end each interval). This option accepts all of the formats defined for -i, as well as T (to print the date and time in [hh:mm:ss dd/mm/yyyy] if the starting time and date have been recorded in the header file for record). If this option is chosen, the times appear at the end of each line of output.

-V format
    Print initial times (the times of occurrence of the annotations that begin each interval). Any of the formats usable for the -v option may be used with -V. If this option is chosen, the times appear at the beginning of each line of output.

-w  Print final annotations (the types (N, V, etc., as for -p above) of the annotations that end each interval), immediately following the intervals in each line of output.

-W  Print initial annotations (the types of the annotations that begin each interval), immediately before the interval in each line of output.

The -c option, used without the -p option, causes ann2rr to filter out intervals between beats that have intervening non-beat annotations, such as rhythm or signal quality change annotations. Used with the -P and -p options, the -c option causes ann2rr to reject intervals between annotations of the type(s) specified by -p if there are annotations of any other types intervening; thus, for example, ``-c -P N -p N'' yields only intervals between consecutive normal beats, and intervals between pairs of normal beats surrounding an ectopic beat are discarded from the output. As another example, ``-c -P N -p V'' yields premature ventricular coupling intervals only (a coupling interval is the interval between a normal beat and an immediately following premature ventricular contraction).

The default output contains a single column of intervals only; by using the -v, -V, -w, and -W options, up to five columns, separated by tabs, may be output. The order of the columns is fixed (initial times, initial annotations, intervals, final annotations, final times).

  rr2ann

Use rr2ann to create an annotation file from the standard input, which should usually be a list of intervals in the format produced by ann2rr. (For exceptions, see -T, -w, and -x below.) The first token on each line is taken as an interval, and (if the -w option is present) the second token is taken as an annotation mnemonic; anything else on the same line is ignored, as are empty lines, spaces and tabs at the beginning of a line, non-numeric tokens and anything following them on the same line, negative intervals, and zero intervals. The output consists of a binary annotation file (record.annotator), and (if it does not exist already) a text header file (record.hea). Options for rr2ann include:

-F frequency
    Assume the specified sampling frequency. This option has no effect unless it is necessary for rr2ann to create a header file; in this case, a sampling frequency of 250 Hz is assumed if the -F option is omitted.

-h  Print a usage summary.

-T  Interpret the input as times of occurrence, rather than as intervals.

-w  Set each annotation type from the mnemonic (N, V, etc.) in the second column of the input (in the format produced by ann2rr using its -w option).

-x n
    Multiply input by n to obtain intervals (or, if -T is also used, times of occurrence) in units of sample intervals). Default: n = 1.

Note that wrann(1) also provides a way to generate an annotation file from text. Unlike that of rr2ann, wrann's input format permits specifying annotation subtypes and other fields.

ENVIRONMENT

It may be necessary to set and export the shell variable WFDB (see setwfdb(1)).

FILES

record.hea
    header file

record.annotator
    annotation file

SEE ALSO
rdann(1), sampfreq(1), setwfdb(1), wrann(1)

AUTHOR
George B. Moody (george@mit.edu)

SOURCE
http://www.physionet.org/physiotools/wfdb/app/ann2rr.c
http://www.physionet.org/physiotools/wfdb/app/rr2ann.c