{{Infobox software , name = Synapse , screenshot = synapse screen.jpg , screenshot size = 250px , caption = Design mode in Synapse , developer = Peltarion , operating_system =

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, genre =

Neural network software Neural network software is used to simulate, research, develop, and apply artificial neural networks, software concepts adapted from biological neural networks, and in some cases, a wider array of adaptive systems such as artificial intelligenc ...

, license =

EULA An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user. The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has ...

, website
Synapse homepage
Synapse is a component-based

development environment In software deployment, an environment or tier is a computer system or set of systems in which a computer program or software component is deployed and executed. In simple cases, such as developing and immediately executing a program on the same m ...

for

neural network A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a network can perfor ...

s and

adaptive system An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either cont ...

s. Created by '' Peltarion'', Synapse allows

data mining Data mining is the process of extracting and finding patterns in massive data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and ...

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of ...

, visualization, preprocessing,

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

and training of neural networks and adaptive systems and the deployment of them. It utilizes a plug-in based

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

making it a general platform for

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, Scalar potential, potential fields, Seismic tomograph ...

. The first version of the product was released in May 2006.

Platform

Due to its plug in-based design, the usage of Synapse can be very general. Synapse is based on the

Microsoft .NET The Microsoft .NET strategy is a marketing plan that Microsoft followed in the early 2000s. Steve Ballmer described it as the company's "most ambitious undertaking since Internet Strategy Day in 1995". In support of this strategy, between 2000 an ...

framework and all Synapse components are also .NET components. Although Peltarion has yet to release an official

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

for the Synapse platform, user made components are emerging, some of them being original, demonstrating the openness of the platfor

Features

The development cycle in Synapse is based on the canonical

cycle. A notable difference however is that in Synapse that cycle is not

linear In mathematics, the term ''linear'' is used in two distinct senses for two different properties: * linearity of a '' function'' (or '' mapping''); * linearity of a '' polynomial''. An example of a linear function is the function defined by f(x) ...

, but supports an

iterative Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration. ...

approach where the user can freely move between the steps. Synapse features four different operating modes that make up the development cycle.

Preprocessing

The preprocessing mode is for data mining and data preparation. In this mode the user can import, visualize, explore and transform data in a variety of ways. Data is imported through the use of ''format'' components. The standard release includes format components for reading and writing data from CSV (text) files,

SQL Structured Query Language (SQL) (pronounced ''S-Q-L''; or alternatively as "sequel") is a domain-specific language used to manage data, especially in a relational database management system (RDBMS). It is particularly useful in handling s ...

databases,

images An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a project ...

and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

. The imported data can be visualized through visualizer components and filters can be applied to the data. The filter components range from simple data rearrangement to more advanced FFT and outlier removal filters. The visualizers include a variety of plots and grids, which can be interconnected and branched out to perform complex data mining tasks.

Design

In design mode components are linked to construct a

topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

. Linked components enable a signal flow creating a pipe filter machine. When a signal is set on a component, it filters the signal in some way and the filtered signal can then be piped to the next component in the linked chain of components that form the topology. The components can be either static or adaptive. Besides regular filters, they can be sources or sinks (like plots or data loggers). The standard distribution of synapse comes with a variety of components, ranging from simple neural network components such as weight layers and function layers, to whole neural networks such as

self-organizing map A self-organizing map (SOM) or self-organizing feature map (SOFM) is an unsupervised machine learning technique used to produce a low-dimensional (typically two-dimensional) representation of a higher-dimensional data set while preserving the t ...

s and more complex static elements like for instance the

fuzzy logic Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth value of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1. It is employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely ...

component. The

control system A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial ...

is chosen and configured in design mode as well.

Training

The training mode is used for training (adapting) the system, or more generally to start the control system that regulates the information flow. It is visually similar to design mode and the same components are displayed. As the components have support for context sensitive displays, they can have a different visual appearance in training. In addition to running the control system, training mode allows the execution of high-level optimizers such as

genetic algorithms In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to g ...

particle swarm optimization In computational science, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a computational method that Mathematical optimization, optimizes a problem by iterative method, iteratively trying to improve a candidate solution with regard to a given measure of qu ...

and

simulated annealing Simulated annealing (SA) is a probabilistic technique for approximating the global optimum of a given function. Specifically, it is a metaheuristic to approximate global optimization in a large search space for an optimization problem. ...

. Remote execution and training is also possible in this mode.

Postprocessing

The postprocessing mode is for analyzing a trained system and the preparation of such a system for end use. System performance can be tested using statistical analysis, the sensitivity of the input-output relations of a system can be analyzed (

sensitivity analysis Sensitivity analysis is the study of how the uncertainty in the output of a mathematical model or system (numerical or otherwise) can be divided and allocated to different sources of uncertainty in its inputs. This involves estimating sensitivity ...

) and reports can be generated. One of the most important postprocessing components is the deployment component.

Deployment

The deployment component allows the export of a system made in Synapse to a single

.NET The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...

component. The system in the development environment is downscaled so that it only contains the minimal necessary requirements for execution and then compiled into an assembly. This assembly can then be used in any

framework or .NET Compact Framework application. The latter allows the deployment to embedded devices. ''Example code in C#'': DeployedNeuralNet net = new DeployedNeuralNet(); // Create nn object Matrix input = someSensor.GetData(); // Get data from some sensor net.Input_Sensor = input; // Set inputs to the nn net.Run(); // Run the nn control system someMotor.Power = net.Output_Port0; // Set the power of some motor to the output of the nn

External links

Levity
Peltarion shut down on September 30, 2022 purchased by King. Neural network software