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Version 6.0 (R2008a) Neural Network Toolbox™ Software

This table summarizes what's new in Version 6.0 (R2008a):

New Features and Changes
Version Compatibility Considerations
Fixed Bugs and Known Problems
Related Documentation at Web Site
Yes
Details below
Yes--Details labeled as Compatibility Considerations, below. See also Summary.
Bug Reports
Includes fixes
Printable Release Notes: PDF

Current production documentation

New features and changes introduced in this version are:

New Training GUI with Animated Plotting Functions

Training networks with the train function now automatically opens a window that shows the network diagram, training algorithm names, and training status information.

The window also includes buttons for plots associated with the network being trained. These buttons launch the plots during or after training. If the plots are open during training, they update every epoch, resulting in animations that make understanding network performance much easier.

The training window can be opened and closed at the command line as follows:

Two plotting functions associated with the most networks are:

Compatibility Considerations

To turn off the new training window and display command-line output (which was the default display in previous versions), use these two training parameters:

New Pattern Recognition Network, Plotting, and Analysis GUI

The nprtool function opens a GUI wizard that guides you to a neural network solution for pattern recognition problems. Users can define their own problems or use one of the new data sets provided.

The newpr function creates a pattern recognition network at the command line. Pattern recognition networks are feed-forward networks that solve problems with Boolean or 1-of-N targets and have confusion (plotconfusion) and receiver operating characteristic (plotroc) plots associated with them.

The new confusion function calculates the true/false, positive/negative results from comparing network output classification with target classes.

New Clustering Training, Initialization, and Plotting GUI

The nctool function opens a GUI wizard that guides you to a self-organizing map solution for clustering problems. Users can define their own problem or use one of the new data sets provided.

The initsompc function initializes the weights of self-organizing map layers to accelerate training. The learnsomb function implements batch training of SOMs that is orders of magnitude faster than incremental training. The newsom function now creates a SOM network using these faster algorithms.

Several new plotting functions are associated with self-organizing maps:

Compatibility Considerations

You can call the newsom function using conventions from earlier versions of the toolbox, but using its new calling conventions gives you faster results.

New Network Diagram Viewer and Improved Diagram Look

The new neural network diagrams support arbitrarily connected network architectures and have an improved layout. Their visual clarity has been improved with color and shading.

Network diagrams appear in all the Neural Network Toolbox graphical interfaces. In addition, you can open a network diagram viewer of any network from the command line by typing

New Fitting Network, Plots and Updated Fitting GUI

The newfit function creates a fitting network that consistes of a feed-forward backpropagation network with the fitting plot (plotfit) associated with it.

The nftool wizard has been updated to use newfit, for simpler operation, to include the new network diagrams, and to include sample data sets. It now allows a Simulink® block version of the trained network to be generated from the final results panel.

Compatibility Considerations

The code generated by nftool is different the code generated in previous versions. However, the code generated by earlier versions still operates correctly.


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