BrainStreamingLayer (Documentation website) provides a real-time brain signal streaming framework. BSL is a wrapper around the python interface to the Lab Streaming Layer (LSL). BSL goal is to simplify the design of a study using the Lab Streaming Layer which provides sub-millisecond time synchroniz^ation accuracy.
Any signal acquisition system supported by native LSL or OpenVibe is also supported by BSL. Since the data communication is based on TCP, signals can be transmitted wirelessly. For more information about LSL, please visit the LSL github.
BSL is based on NeuroDecode. The original version developed by Kyuhwa Lee was recognised at Microsoft Brain Signal Decoding competition with the First Prize Award (2016) after achieving high decoding accuracy. BSL is based on the refactor version by Arnaud Desvachez for the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva (FCBG). The low-level functionalities have been reworked and improved, while the decoding functionalities have been dropped.
BSL supports python >= 3.8
and requires:
- numpy
- scipy
- mne
- pyqt5
- pyqtgraph
Optional dependencies for trigger via a parallel port (LPT):
- pyserial, if the Arduino to LPT converter is used.
- pyparallel, on Linux systems.
BSL can be installed via pip
with pip install bsl
.
BSL can be installed from a cloned repository in normal mode with
pip install .
or in development mode with pip install -e .
.
Optional dependencies can be installed using the keywords:
- build
- doc
- triggers
- style
- test
- all
For instance, pip install bsl[triggers]
will install BSL
with the
dependencies for parallel port triggers.
BSL is centered around 4 main modules: stream_receiver
, stream_recorder
,
stream_player
and stream_viewer
.
The stream receiver connects to one or more LSL streams and acquires data from those. Supported streams are:
- EEG
- Markers
Example:
from bsl import StreamReceiver
# Connects to all available streams
sr = StreamReceiver(bufsize=1, winsize=1, stream_name=None)
# Update each stream buffer with new data
sr.acquire()
# Retrieve buffer/window for the stream named 'StreamPlayer'
data, timestamps = sr.get_window(stream_name='StreamPlayer')
The data and its timestamps are returned as numpy array:
data.shape = (samples, channels)
timestamps.shape = (samples, )
The data can be returned as an MNE raw instance if return_raw
is set to
True
.
The stream recorder connects to one or more LSL streams and periodically
acquires data from those until stopped, and then saves the acquired data to
disk in pickle .pcl
and in FIF .fif
format.
Example:
import time
from bsl import StreamRecorder
# Connects to all available streams
recorder = StreamRecorder(record_dir=None, fname=None, stream_name=None,
verbose=True)
recorder.start()
time.sleep(10)
recorder.stop()
When the argument record_dir
is set to None, the current folder obtained with
pathlib.Path.cwd()
is used. When the argument fname
is set to None, the
created files' stem use the start datetime.
CLI: The stream recorder can be called by command-line in a terminal by
using either bsl stream_recorder
or bsl_stream_recorder
followed by the
optional arguments -d
, -f
, -s
respectively for record_dir
, fname
,
and stream_name
, and the optional flags --fif_subdir
and --verbose
.
bsl_stream_recorder -d "D:/Data"
bsl_stream_recorder -d "D:/Data" -f test
bsl_stream_recorder -d "D:/Data" -f test -s openvibeSignals
The stream player loads a previously recorded .fif
file and creates a LSL
server streaming data from this file. The stream player can be used to test
code with a fake LSL data stream.
Example:
import time
from bsl import StreamPlayer
sp = StreamPlayer(stream_name='StreamPlayer', fif_file=r'path to .fif')
sp.start()
time.sleep(10)
sp.stop()
CLI: The stream player can be called by command-line in a terminal by
using either bsl stream_player
or bsl_stream_player
followed by positional
arguments stream_name
and fif_file
and the optional arguments -r
, -c
,
-t
respectively for repeat
, chunk_size
and trigger_def
, and the
optional flag --high_resolution
.
bsl_stream_player StreamPlayer data-raw.fif
bsl_stream_player StreamPlayer data-raw.fif -c 16
bsl_stream_player StreamPlayer data-raw.fif -c 16 -t triggerdef.ini
The stream viewer creates a 2-window GUI composed of a control GUI and a plotter GUI to display the data acquired from an LSL server in real-time.
CLI: The stream viewer can be called by command-line in a terminal by using
either bsl stream_viewer
or bsl_stream_viewer
followed by the optional
argument -s
for the stream_name
. If no stream name is provided, a prompt
will ask the user to select the desired non-marker stream to display.
bsl_stream_viewer
bsl_stream_viewer -s StreamPlayer
Triggers includes functions to mark time event by sending a trigger which will be saved on the TRIGGER channel of the on-going recording. Triggers can be achieved either through hardware or through software.
Currently, the supported hardware triggers use an LPT port.
Example:
import time
from bsl import StreamRecorder
from bsl.triggers import ParallelPortTrigger
# Hardware trigger through Arduino LPT converter
recorder = StreamRecorder()
recorder.start()
trigger = ParallelPortTrigger(address='arduino')
for k in range(1, 5):
trigger.signal(k)
time.sleep(1)
trigger.close()
recorder.stop()
Note that closing the trigger before stopping the recording may not be required for all kind of triggers.
The codes are released under GNU Lesser General Public License.