Panels
Overview
Panels are the primary way you view data in Nexus. Each panel hosts a visualization - an image viewer, graph, or text editor. You can arrange multiple panels on the canvas to compare signals side by side.
Panel Types
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Image Viewer | Displays 2D images and video frame series with pan, zoom, scalebar, and annotation overlays |
| Time Series Chart | Line graphs plotting one or more scalar signals over time |
| Spectrogram | Heatmap visualization for spectral time series (1Dts) |
| Scatter | Scatter and correlation plots for two scalar (0Dts) signals |
| Text Editor | Formatted text with headers, bold, italic, lists, and timestamp insertion |
Creating Panels
There are two ways to create a panel.
Drag a signal onto the canvas
Drag any signal from the Data tab on the left and drop it onto the canvas. Nexus automatically selects the right panel type based on the signal:
| Signal type | Panel created |
|---|---|
| 2Dts / 2D | Image Viewer |
| 0Dts | Time Series Chart |
| 1Dts | Spectrogram |
| Notes / Text | Text Editor |
Use the Add Panel menu
Open the Add Panel tab in the right sidebar and drag one of the panel type buttons onto the canvas. The panel is created empty - drop a signal into it afterwards to load data.
Adding signals to an existing panel
You can also drop a signal onto a panel that is already on the canvas:
- Time Series Chart - accepts additional 0Dts signals as extra traces on the same axes.
- Image Viewer - dropping a 0Dts signal adds it as an annotation overlay. Dropping a 2D signal replaces the current image.
Panel Layout
The canvas uses a flexible grid. Panels split horizontally or vertically depending on where you drop the signal or panel type.
Drop zones
When dragging, coloured drop zones appear on the canvas edges and between existing panels:
- Left / Right edge - creates a horizontal split
- Top / Bottom edge - creates a vertical split
- Centre of a panel - adds the signal to that panel if the panel supports that signal type. For Image Viewer panels, centre-drop is available for compatible actions such as adding a 0Dts annotation overlay or replacing the current image with a 2D / 2Dts signal, but Image Viewers do not merge multiple images into one panel in the same way charts can combine traces.
Drop zones scale down automatically on small panels so they are always visible, regardless of panel size.
Layout constraints
- Maximum 3 panels per row or column.
- Maximum 3 levels of nesting.
- When the nesting limit is reached, Nexus automatically optimises the layout by flattening same-direction containers and transposing the row/column hierarchy where possible, freeing up space for additional splits.
- Dropping a panel next to a sibling that already shares the same split direction adds it alongside instead of nesting deeper.
- When an Image Viewer is paired with a chart, the layout auto-sizes based on the image aspect ratio, capped at 70 % width for the image.
Resizing
Drag the divider between adjacent panels to adjust their proportions. Each panel has a minimum size of 10 %.
Panel Controls
Every panel has a header bar with the following controls:
| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | Shows the panel name. For Image Viewers this defaults to the signal name; for other panel types it shows a friendly type name (e.g. “Time Series”, “Scatter Plot”). Click to select the panel. |
| Settings (cog icon) | Opens the Selection tab in the right sidebar with settings for this panel. |
| Maximize (expand icon) | Expands the panel to fill the entire canvas. Click again to restore the original layout. Only visible when two or more panels are present. |
| Close (× icon) | Removes the panel from the canvas. |
Rearranging panels
Drag a panel by its header to move it to a different position on the canvas. Drop zones appear to indicate where the panel will land.
Selecting a panel
Click the panel title or icon to select it. The selected panel is highlighted in green and the right sidebar automatically switches to the Selection tab, showing settings for that panel. If the right menu is closed, it opens automatically.
Similarly, selecting a signal or dataset in the left menu switches the right sidebar to Selection with the corresponding details.
If you close a selected panel or delete the currently selected item, the current selection is cleared. Select another panel, signal, or dataset to repopulate the Selection tab.
Renaming a panel
Select a panel, then change the Name field in the Panel section of the Selection tab. The new name appears in the panel header. Clear the field to revert to the default name.
The right sidebar starts on the Add Panel tab when nothing is selected. As soon as you select a panel, signal, or dataset, it navigates to Selection. Each new selection updates the Selection tab with the relevant information.