Useful hints on reading the Nexus 1.8.5 Product Guide ("Manual")

As the overall structure of the Manual might be a little confusing, here are a few introductory hints on forming a useful mental model of it.

The most important insight is that Chapter 3 "Motion Capture with Nexus" (pages 32-38) plays a key role for the whole Manual: It contains overviews of all so-called "Workflows" that are cross-referenced throughout the rest of the Manual.

The Workflows explained throughout the Manual (and introduced in Chapter 3) are:

• Vicon System Setup
• Plug-in Gait Preparation
• Vicon Skeleton Template Preparation
• Nexus Motion Capture Workflow

A Workflow consists of one or more "Stages" that have capital Roman numerals: I., II., III., IV., ... 
A Stage might consist of "Substages" that have Arabic numerals: 1., 2., 3., 4., ...
All Workflows are introduced in Chapter 3 via boxes like the one seen here (cf. page 37):

Later chapters use similarly looking boxes, but they are used to reference back to the Workflows' Stages of Chapter 3 like so (cf. page 125):

In the second image, as we are in a section of a later chapter, the boxes only contain the "breadcrumb paths" to the Stages/Substages covered by this section. In this example, there are even two separate boxes, because this section covers Stages/Substages of two different Workflows at the same time. In addition, you can see that the innermost list item in each box is not a hyperlink: That's because these list items refer to the current location in the Manual (i.e. if you clicked on the corresponding hyperlinks in the Workflow overviews in Chapter 3, you would end up here).

Note that in later chapters (pages >= 39), the headline directly above a box is a hyperlink. Use it to get back to the corresponding Workflow overview in Chapter 3.

For instance, clicking on "Nexus Motion Capture Workflow" in the second image would bring you back to the page of Chapter 3 shown in the first image. On the other hand, clicking on "Nexus Motion Capture Workflow Stages" in the first image has no effect at all, as we are already in Chapter 3.

In summary, to successfully navigate the Manual, it is generally useful to keep in mind whether you are in Chapter 3 (pages <= 38) or in a later chapter (pages >= 39)--especially for making sense of the Workflows, Stages, and corresponding boxes.

Overall, the Manual can be imagined as consisting of the following five parts A to E. Sadly, neither these parts nor the individual chapters are numbered in the Manual itself, which is why page numbers are provided here.

1. p.6-31: Chapters 0 to 2 (Front Matter)
   Short introductions into the manual, hardware system components, and software UI; I rarely had to look into these at all.
2. p.32-38: Chapter 3 "Motion Capture with Nexus"
   This is the key chapter of the whole Manual, containing overviews of the Workflows and their individual Stages and Substages.
3. p.39-279: Chapters 4 to 7 (UI Reference)
   These chapters explain different parts of the UI. They heavily reference back to the Workflows introduced in Chapter 3.
4. p.280-302: Chapter 8 "Data Management"
   This chapter explains how to do proper data management. It heavily references back to the Workflows introduced in Chapter 3.
5. p.303-362: Chapters 9 to 12 (Back Matter)
   Contacting Vicon, Regulatory Information, Glossary, Index.

Table of Contents

Below, you find a Table of Contents for the Guide, with the corresponding Workflow Stages in the Manual that served as information sources.

The steps in these sections have to be executed with different frequencies:

• Sections 1 and 2 have to be done once per intended use case / study (at the beginning).
• Sections 3 and 4 have to be done daily (before starting any trials that day).
• Section 5 has to be done repeatedly, as often as necessary or desired.