Cell Function Dialog
Applicability: Cranium, Synapse (core versions 0315+)

The Scratch Pad Dialog is a very useful tool for manipulating physical property values into a form that can be stored within Cranium and Synapse. Pressing the dialog's Function button activates the Cell Function Dialog that enables you to insert the results of function calculations into the scratch pad's cells.

Dialog Controls

The dialog provides a number of mathematical functions that can be combined a large variety of calculations.

1
 Function Control: the function entered into this control is calculated and inserted into the scratch pad's selected cells.
2
 Recent Button: activates the Recent Function Dialog that displays a list of recent functions that can be selected for insertion into the Function Control.
3
 Function List Control: lists those functions that can be used for calculations.
4
 Description Control: displays documentation for the selected function.
5
 Calculate Button: calculates the function and insets the results into each selected scratch pad cell.
RCell (relative cell) Function

You will often use the RCell function to calculate function using the value of other cells as input. The RCell function's documentation states:

Retrieves the value of the cell relative to the current cell. The first argument is the offset in rows. The second argument is the offset in columns. For example, RCell(0, -2) means that the value of the cell in the same row and two columns to the left of the current cell would be retrieved.

Example: Multiplying values by a constant factor

It is very common for values to be reported in 'implicit scientific notation'. For example, the values in the table to the right were all reported as values multiplied by 1000. To paste these values into Cranium or Synapse, we must first convert these values into explicit scientific notation. For example, the first value of 7.442 must be converted to 0.007442.

103 Reported Value Needed
7.442 0.007442
5.391 0.005391
7.68 0.007681
3.201 0.003201
4.114 0.004114
0.813 0.000813
  1. Use the keyboard sequence ctrl-shft-s to activate the Scratchpad Dialog.
  2. Copy the values from the above table and paste them into the scratch patch table control.
  3. Select the cells in the second column next to the just inserted values.
  4. Press the dialog's Function button and enter:

    RCell(0,-1) / 1000

    into the function control. Then press the dialog's Calculate button.
  5. The application will calculate the function for each cell and insert the result into the Scratchpad Dialog's table. (Note that since the function is calculated for each cell, the RCell function will retrieve a new value for each function call.)
Related Documentation
Topic Description
Getting Started using Synapse provides a quick tour of Synapse's capabilities including examples of chemical product design.
Getting Started using Cranium provides a quick tour of Cranium's capabilities including a discussion of structure editing.
Estimating Chemical Properties a short video demonstrating how to estimate the physical properties of chemicals using either Synapse or Cranium.
Estimating Mixture Properties a short video demonstrating how to estimate the physical properties of mixtures using either Synapse or Cranium.