vet_cond Config

app:

inspect: False

Enables GUI inspection. If True, it is activated by hitting ctrl-e in the GUI.

barst_server:

server_path:

The full path to the Barst executable. Could be empty if the server is already started, on remote computer, or if it’s in the typical Program Files path or came installed with the wheel. If the server is not running, this executable is needed to launch the server.

Defaults to ‘’.

server_pipe:

The full path to the pipe name (to be) used by the server. Examples are \remote_name\pipe\pipe_name, where remote_name is the name of the remote computer, or a period (.) if the server is local, and pipe_name is the name of the pipe used to create the server.

Defaults to ‘’.

experiment:

log_name_pat: {animal}_%m-%d-%Y_%I-%M-%S_%p.csv

The pattern that will be used to generate the log filenames for each trial. It is generated as follows:

strftime(log_name_pat.format(**{'animal': animal_id}))

Which basically means that all instances of {animal} is replaced by the animal name given in the GUI. Then, it’s is passed to strftime that formats any time parameters to get the log name used for that animal.

If the filename matches an existing file, the new data will be appended to that file.

posthab: 60

The amount of time to wait before finishing for the animal after the end of trials.

postrecord: 5

The amount of time after each trial which video should continue to be recorded. It is in addition to any ITI.

prehab: 60

The amount of time to wait habituating the animal before the start of trials.

prerecord: 5

The amount of time before each trial when video should be started being recorded. It is in addition to any ITI.

record_video: True

Whether video should be recorded for this experiment.

trial_opts: {‘control’: {‘duration’: 15, ‘repeat’: 3, ‘tone’: (0, 0), ‘shock’: (0, 0), ‘iti’: (45, 60)}, ‘backward’: {‘duration’: 0, ‘repeat’: 3, ‘tone’: (5, 3), ‘shock’: (0, 3), ‘iti’: (45, 60)}, ‘condition’: {‘duration’: 0, ‘repeat’: 3, ‘tone’: (0, 3), ‘shock’: (2, 3), ‘iti’: (45, 60)}}

A dictionary that describes the available experiments, which will be available from the GUI to choose from.

The keys are name of the experiment types and its values are dictionaries describing the structure of each experiment type.

The structure dictionaries each has the following keys:

repeat: int

The number of trials for that experiment.

shock: 2-tuple of floats

The first element is the delay from the start of the trial until the shock start. The second element is the duration of the shock after that delay. A duration of zero will disable the shock.

tone: 2-tuple of floats

The first element is the delay from the start of the trial until the tone starts. The second element is the duration of the tone after that delay. A duration of zero will disable the tone.

iti: 2-tuple of floats

The minimum and maximum duration of the ITI. A value will be chosen uniformly at random from that range.

duration: float

The duration of the trial.

video_name_pat: {animal}_trial{trial}_%m-%d-%Y_%I-%M-%S_%p.avi

The pattern that will be used to generate the video filenames for each trial. It is generated as follows:

name = strftime(video_name_pat.format(**{'trial': trial_number,
                'animal': animal_id}))

Which basically means that all instances of {trial} is replaced by the current trial number and {animal} is replaced by the animal name given in the GUI. Then, it’s is passed to strftime that formats any time parameters to get the name used for that trial/animal.

If the filename already exists an error will be raised.

rtv:

output_img_fmt: gray

The desired output image format that the rtv device should send us. It can be one of ‘rgb16’, ‘gray’, ‘rgb15’, ‘rgb24’, ‘rgb32’.

Defaults to ‘gray’.

output_video_fmt: full_NTSC

The desired output image size that the rtv device should send us. It can be one of ‘full_NTSC’, ‘full_PAL’, ‘CIF_NTSC’, ‘CIF_PAL’, ‘QCIF_NTSC’, ‘QCIF_PAL’ and its corresponding size is listed in img_sizes.

port: 0

The port number on the RTV card of camera to use.

rtv_simulate:

filename: Wildlife.mp4

The full filename to the video file or video stream.

output_img_fmt:

The image pixel format from ffpyplayer.tools.pix_fmts that is to be used for the images output to us by the player. Defaults to ‘’ and must be set.

switch_and_sense_8-8:  

SAS_chan: 0

The channel number of the Switch & Sense 8/8 as configured in InstaCal.

Defaults to zero.

ir_leds_pin: 6

The pin number on the Switch and Sense 8/8 that is connected to and controls the IR LEDs.

shocker_pin: 4

The pin number on the Switch and Sense 8/8 that is connected to and controls the shocker.

tone_pin: 5

The pin number on the Switch and Sense 8/8 that is connected to and controls the tone.

video_record:

filename:

The filename of the video to create.

ofmt:

The pixel format from ffpyplayer.tools.pix_fmts in which the images will be written to disk. If not empty and different than ifmt, the input format, the images will be internally converted to this format before writing to disk.