Changelog

Note only changes which may affect your use of Opticka will be detailed here, starting with V2.16.x

V2.16.1 – 106 files changed

‍[!TIP] Please double-check changes in DefaultStateInfo.m to see the changes for state machine files, this may inform changes you could add to your own state machine files...

• BREAKING CHANGE: we want to support the International Brain Lab ONE Protocol (see "A modular architecture for organizing, processing and sharing neurophysiology data," The International Brain Laboratory et al., 2023 Nat. Methods, DOI), and we are now follwoing ALF filenaming for saved files. the root folder is still OptickaFiles/savedData/ but now we use a folder hierarchy: subjectName / YYYY-MM-DD / SessionID / – the opticka MAT file will not change structure or content, but we will add extra metadata files to help data sharing in future releases.
• BREAKING CHANGE: LabJack T4 – we increased the strobe word from 8 to 11 bits, now on EIO1:8 CIO1:3, this should in theory be backwards compatible as 8bits is still the same lines. Upgrade the LabJack T4 (connected over USB) like this:

  t = labJackT();
  open(t);
  initialiseServer(t);
  close(t);

• Add improved Rigid Body physics engine. We now use dyn4j, an open-source Java 2D physics engine. animationManager is upgraded (previously it used my own simple physics engine, which couldn't scale to many collisions). Opticka uses degrees, and we do a simple mapping of degrees > meters, so 1deg stimulus is a 1m object.Test it with: \

  sM = screenManager();
  b = imageStimulus('size',4,'filePath','moon.png',...
      'name','moon');
  b.speed = 25; % will define velocity
  b.angle = -45; % will define velocity
  aM = animationManager(); % our new animation manager
  sv = open(sM); % open PTB screen, sv is screen info
  setup(b, sM); % initialise stimulus with PTB screen
  addScreenBoundaries(aM, sv); % add floor, ceiling and
  % walls to rigidbody world based on the screen dimensions sv
  addBody(aM, b); % add stimulus as a rigidbody
  setup(aM); % initialise the simulation.
  for i = 1:60
      draw(b); % draw the stimulus
      flip(sM); % flip the screen
      step(aM); % step the simulation
  end

• Improve touchManager to better use the rigid body animations with touch events. You can now finger-drag and "fling" physical objects around the screen.
• add Procedurally generated polar checkerboards: polarBoardStimulus, and improved polar gratings to mask with arc segments: polarGratingStimulus.
• added new stimulus: dotlineStimulus - a line made of dots.
• pupilCoreStimulus – a calibration stimulus for pupil core eyetrackers.
• all stimuli: updateXY() method quickly updates the X and Y position without a full stimulus update(), used by the update animationManager.
• all stimuli: added szPx szD xfinalD and yFinalD properties so we have both pixels and degrees values available.
• all stimuli: szIsPx property tells us whether the dynamically generated size at each trial is in pixels or degrees.
• add nirSmartManager to support nirSmart FNIRS recording system.
• improved the mouse dummy mode for the touchscreen touchManager.
• arduinoManager can now use a raspberry pi GPIO if no arduino is present.
• Update image and movie stimuli to better handle mutliple images.
• Add a Test Hardware menu to opticka GUI. You can use this to test that the reward system / eyetracker / recording markers are working before you do any data collection each day.
• Updates to support the latest Titta toolbox for Tobii eyetrackers.
• optickaCore.geyKeys() – support shift key.
• runExperiment – better handling when no eyetracker is selected for a task that may have eyetracker functions.
• screenManager – update movieRecording settings. You pass screenManager.movieSettings.record = true to enable screen recording. Note that the movie is handled automatically, so:

  s = screenManager();
  s.movieSettings.record = true;
  s.open(); % this also initialises the video file
  for i = 1:3
      s.drawText('Hello World);
      s.flip(); % this also adds the frame to the movie
  end
  s.close(); % this also closes the video file.

• lots of improvements for analysing Tobii and iRec data (see tobiiAnalysis and iRecAnalysis), in particular we integrate Nyström, M. & Holmqvist, K. 2010 toolbox to improve data cleaning.
• switch to using string arrays for comment property fields.

State Machine Changes:

• @()needFlip(me, false, 0); – add a 3rd parameter to control the flip of the eyetracker window. NOTE: the number 0=no-flip, 1=dontclear+dontforce, 2=clear+dontforce, 3=clear+force, 4=clear+force first frame then switch to 1 – dontclear=leave previous frame onscreen, useful to show eyetrack, dontforce=don't force flip, faster as flip for the tracker is throttled
• @()trackerTrialStart(eT, getTaskIndex(me)); & @()trackerTrialEnd(eT, tS.CORRECT) – this is a new function that handles the several commands that were used previously to send the trial start/end info to the eyetracker. As we increase the number of supported eyetrackers, it is better to wrap this in a single function. NOTE: we mostly use the Eyelink message structure to define trials, even for other trackers, which simplifies analysis later on.