Software design for analysis of multichannel intracardial and body surface electrocardiograms

Analysis of multichannel ECG recordings (body surface maps (BSMs) and intracardial maps) requires special software. We created a software package and a user interface on top of a commercial data analysis package (MATLAB) by a combination of high-level and low-level programming. Our software was created to satisfy the needs of a diverse group of researchers. It can handle a large variety of recording configurations. It allows for interactive usage through a fast and robust user interface, and batch processing for the analysis of large amounts of data. The package is user-extensible, includes routines for both common and experimental data processing tasks, and works on several computer platforms. The source code is made intelligible using software for structured documentation and is available to the users. The package is currently used by more than ten research groups analysing ECG data worldwide.