A novel visualization method of chromatographic data is proposed and applied to discover the chemical fingerprint features of herbal medicines. As an example, Chuan-Xiong was selected for research in this paper. Using Kemel Principal Component Analysis and spatial projection transformation, the chromatographic analysis data were processed and the hidden fingerprint features of the herbal medicine cna be effectively discovered and extracted. Then the transformed data were visualized with two-dimensional grayscale images, which can visually reflect the discrepancy of chemical pattern between different quality classifications of the herbal medicine. This method was used to identify 34 Chuan-Xiong samples from different areas and quality grades, and the results showed that different patterns can be satisfactorily classified with visual sense. It was proved that the method is a powerful tool for discovering and representing the hidden fingerprint features in complicated chemical substance system.

Key words: PROFILE ANALYSIS, SPECTRA, LIGUSTICUM WALLICHII, MEDICINAL PLANT, PATTERN RECOGNITION