README.md

open_ephys.streaming

This module makes it possible to listen to events from the Open Ephys GUI via a Python process, either running locally or via a network connection.

The GUI's signal chain must include an Event Broadcaster plugin in order for this module to work. The Event Broadcaster must be configured to send events in JSON format.

Usage

Initialization

First, load the module:

from open_ephys.streaming import EventListener

To listen for events coming from an Open Ephys GUI instance running on the same machine, create an EventListener with no input arguments:

stream = EventListener()

To specify a custom IP address or port number, use:

stream = EventListener(ip_address = '10.127.50.1',
                     port = 5558)

Defining callbacks

Whenever the EventListener receives an event, it checks if it's a TTL event or a spike, and then sends a dictionary containing event info to the specified callback function, e.g.:

def ttl_callback(info):
    if info['line'] == 2 and info['state']:
        print('Rising event on line 2')

The ttl_callback should be designed to handle a Python dictionary with the following contents:

{
   "event_type" : "ttl",
   "stream" : str,
   "source_node" : int,
   "sample_rate" : float,
   "channel_name" : str,
   "sample_number" : int,
   "line" : int,
   "state" : int
}

The spike_callback should be designed to handle a Python dictionary with the following contents:

{
   "event_type" : "spike",
   "stream" : str,
   "source_node" : int,
   "electrode" : str,
   "num_channels" : int,
   "sample_rate" : float,
   "sample_number" : int,
   "sorted_id" : int,
   "amp1" : float,
   "amp2" : float,
   "amp3" : float,
   "amp4" : float
}

Starting and stopping event listening

To start listening, enter:

stream.start(ttl_callback=ttl_callback,
             spike_callback=spike_callback)

To stop listening, press ctrl-C.