Template loading issue and extensions documentation.

[OlivierPeron]

Hi everyone,

I was recently experimenting with the analyzer extensions and found it challenging to locate the parameters for each extension. Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn't find any dedicated page or documentation listing this information. While the get_default_extension_params function from the SortingAnalyzer does provide default parameters, it doesn't offer the full range of available options.

I'm primarily raising this issue not because of that, but rather due to some problems I encountered while using templates. Similar issues might occur with other extensions, but I haven't tested those yet.

Specifically, I used 'median' as the operator to compute my templates from the waveforms, and I saved the template extension in my extension folder. The problem arises when the function get_dense_templates_array is called, as it assumes that templates were saved using the 'average' operator. Here's the relevant code:

if isinstance(one_object, Templates):
    templates_array = one_object.get_dense_templates()
elif isinstance(one_object, SortingAnalyzer):
    if return_scaled != one_object.return_scaled:
        raise ValueError(
            f"get_dense_templates_array: return_scaled={return_scaled} is not compatible; SortingAnalyzer has the opposite setting."
        )
    ext = one_object.get_extension("templates")
    if ext is not None:
        templates_array = ext.data["average"]
    else:
        raise ValueError("SortingAnalyzer requires the 'templates' extension to retrieve templates")
else:
    raise ValueError("Input must be either Templates or SortingAnalyzer")

A possible solution could be to check for the computed operator such as :

if ext is not None:
      operator = ext.params['operators'][0]
      templates_array = ext.data[operator]

Thanks again for all the work !

PERON Olivier

[alejoe91]

Hi @OlivierPeron

I think it woould be safest to do something like this:

    templates_array = ext.data.get("average") or ext.data.get("median")
    assert templates_array is not None, "Average or median templates have not been computed."

Do you feel like trying to make a pull request?