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Summary of Contents for Blackrock Microsystems NeuroMotive
- Page 1 NeuroMotive™ Video Recording/Tracking System User’s Manual (Revision 1.00) 630 Komas Drive, Suite 200 Salt Lake City, UT 84108 801-582-5533 www.blackrockmicro.com support@blackrockmicro.com...
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Page 2: Table Of Contents
SETUP ..................................9 ................................... 9 ARDWARE Network Switch ..............................9 NeuroMotive™ PC ..............................9 Licensing Dongle ..............................9 NeuroMotive™ Camera Options ......................... 10 Cerebus™ Host PC ............................... 11 CerePlex™ Direct Host PC ............................ 11 .................................. 12 OFTWARE NEUROMOTIVE™ SOFTWARE ..........................13 ................................ - Page 3 NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual ................................29 TATUS ..............................30 DVANCED PTIONS Experiment Tab ..............................30 Video Display Tab ..............................31 Video Recording Tab ............................34 Video Tracking Tab.............................. 38 General Tab ................................. 39 Comment ................................41 MARKER DEFINITION EXAMPLE ........................... 42 ..............................
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Page 4: Table Of Figures
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Table of Figures 1 - S NSP O ..........................7 IGURE YSTEM WITH VERVIEW 2 - S ™ D ......................7 IGURE YSTEM WITH IRECT VERVIEW 3 - M PC C ........................9 IGURE OTION APTURE ONNECTIONS 4 –... - Page 5 NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual 43 - U ..............49 IGURE SING THE RACKING EGION OF NTEREST TO LIMINATE EFLECTION 44 - F ™ ..................... 50 IGURE PPLICATION ONNECTED TO EURO OTIVE 45 - S GUI ................51 IGURE ELECTING A EURAL...
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Page 6: Specifications
10˚C to 40˚C, 5 to 95% R.H.(non-condensing) Operating Environment -20˚C to 50˚C, 5 to 100% R.H.(non-condensing) Storage Environment Camera Specifications NeuroMotive™ currently supports the Firefly MV and OptiTrack V100:R2 Firefly MV (B&W or Color) 752x480 at 60 FPS • 320x240 at 112 FPS Resolution Frame Rate 60 FPS, 112 FPS 30 FPS. -
Page 7: Introduction
System Description The NeuroMotive™ System is designed to record and process video frames from a single camera. The system works standalone and in conjunction with the Cerebus™ or the CerePlex™ Direct (NeuroMotive™ must run on its own PC with the Central Software running on a separate PC). -
Page 8: System Schematic
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual System schematic Figure 1 - System with NSP Overview Figure 2 - System with CerePlex™ Direct Overview LB-0336 Rev. 1.00 Page 7... -
Page 9: Packaging Contents
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Packaging Contents NeuroMotive™ Camera NeuroMotive™ Motion Capture PC NeuroMotive™ Manual and Software Cables and Connectors USB Software Licensing Dongle USB synchronization hub (if using the IR Camera) Reflective Tracking Material (if using the IR Camera) LB-0336 Rev. -
Page 10: Setup
NeuroMotive™ PC Plug the NeuroMotive™ PC into an outlet and connect the display, keyboard and mouse to the back of the PC. Plug one end of an Ethernet cable into the Ethernet port in the back of the PC and plug in the other end into the Network Switch. -
Page 11: Neuromotive™ Camera Options
Figure 4 – The Firefly MV camera. Connect the camera via USB to the NeuroMotive™ PC and connect the camera to the NSP or CerePlex™ Direct using the supplied hardware synchronization cable (Refer to the CerePlex™ Direct User Manual for configuring the Direct to use hardware synchronization with NeuroMotive™). -
Page 12: Cerebus™ Host Pc
PC and via the included BNC Cable to either a Digital Output port on the NSP or the NeuroMotive™ camera port on the rear of the CerePlex™ Direct. Here is an example of the synchronization hub and its connections to the IR Camera, NeuroMotive™ PC and a Digital Output... -
Page 13: Software
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Software The software on the NeuroMotive™ Motion Capture PC is pre-configured. In the case that the system needs to be re-configured follow the steps below: Click on Start and search for “View Network Connections”. Right click on the correct... -
Page 14: Neuromotive™ Software
Video Display in the advanced options menu (Tools->Options) to the camera connected to the NeuroMotive™ PC the mode is also switched to Camera mode. When a file is opened or the NeuroMotive™ software is opened while nPlayServer is running, the mode is switched to the Playback mode. Playback mode is also accessible by setting the Video Source to File in the advanced options menu. -
Page 15: Neuromotive™ File Types
‘snapshot’ of the options.xml file because it saves the configuration of NeuroMotive™ as it is at the time it is created, for instance when a recording is started. This file can then be loaded using File->Open Experiment to reset NeuroMotive™ to how it was at the time of the recording. -
Page 16: Neuromotive™ Menus
File Menu Open Video: This allows loading of a previously recorded video file. Close Video: Close the opened video file. Also sets NeuroMotive™ to Camera Mode if it is in Playback Mode. Open Experiment: This loads the file type .ncf which contains saved experiment settings such as tracking regions of interest, event regions of interest, marker definitions, filenames, etc. - Page 17 Stop: Stop playing the open file. Note that upon pressing play the video file will restart from the beginning. Replay: Set NeuroMotive™ to restart the video file from the beginning when it reaches the end of the playback in a repeated loop.
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Page 18: Video Display
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Video Display The video display shows the rendered image from the camera in Camera mode, and the file in Playback mode. With the optional tracking feature, the video display also shows the tracking and event regions of interest, the tracking markers, the direction and recent path of the object, and, optionally, the elapsed time and frame number. -
Page 19: Toolbar
Toolbar The toolbar visibility is controlled by the Toolbar option in the view menu. The buttons displayed on the toolbar are dependent on the mode NeuroMotive™ is in. For Camera mode, the buttons signify the menu options: Open Video for Playback... -
Page 20: Camera Control Dock Bar
Gamma Correction - This automatically tries to adjust for low-light conditions with the Color camera, but brightening the whole image. Note: The Auto checkbox is meant to have the NeuroMotive™ software determine the optimal values. Figure 11 - NeuroMotive™ Camera Control Dock Bar for Color (left) and IR (right) Cameras Playback Control Dock Bar The Playback Control Dock Bar is displayed in Playback mode. -
Page 21: Capture Status Dock Bar
Playback mode. There are 5 status groups. Clicking on the left arrow to expands/collapses each group. Please note that when NeuroMotive™ is initially installed only a limited number of statistics are displayed. To display the other statistics toggle the checkboxes under Display Statistics in Tools->Options->General. -
Page 22: Regions Of Interest Dock Bar
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Regions of Interest Dock Bar The Regions of Interest Dock Bar is available with the optional tracking feature. Up to four tracking Regions of Interest can be defined. Tracking Regions of Interest define the area where tracking occurs. Any movement outside the union of the Tracking Regions of Interest is ignored. -
Page 23: Markers Definition Dock Bar
The controls on the Markers Definition Dock Bar define the markers and how the NeuroMotive™ software needs to process the frames in order to see the markers. This enables the tracking software to find the markers and thus optimize tracking. -
Page 24: Marker Preparation
Color Threshold - For each marker defined the range in hue from the indicated color over which NeuroMotive™ will detect (see Figure 16). This can also be used for non-color images; the range is just on a grey scale. -
Page 25: Marker Threshold
When adjusting the sliders it is suggested to use the Threshold view of NeuroMotive™ (View->Processed Image->Threshold Markers) to pinpoint when the Tracking Markers appear. Using threshold view shows blobs that have been identified as potential markers. They should be varying shades of grey and white against a black backdrop as shown in Figure 17. -
Page 26: Figure 17 - Threshold View Of Three
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Figure 17 - Threshold View of Three Tracking Markers and Noise Within Threshold Range The sliders under camera control provide an additional way to change the amount of light reaching the camera. The exposure slider determines the amount of light reaching the camera, note that the exposure function is less responsive in low light conditions. -
Page 27: Marker Size
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Marker Size Size is another attribute that helps the software locate markers. Objects and their tracking markers may change in apparent size as they move around in the camera’s field of vision. To minimize apparent changes in size, center the camera directly above the tracking area (Figure 18). -
Page 28: Technical Note On Frame Processing
The radii, measured in pixels, of the remaining possible markers are evaluated. If the radius is not within the range specified by the Radius slider, the possible marker is discarded. Having View->View Markers toggled will display the possible markers that NeuroMotive™ is seeing (indicated by red ‘+’ symbols). LB-0336 Rev. 1.00... - Page 29 NeuroMotive™ tries to predict the position of the occluded marker. At this point it is also important to note how NeuroMotive™ determines an object’s position in relation to the markers being used for tracking. First, an object’s position is determined by the number of defined markers. For a single marker the object position is the position of that marker.
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Page 30: Status Bar
The first button handles NeuroMotive™’s connection status. When the button is clicked, NeuroMotive™ will attempt to connect to a device including nPlayServer, an NSP, or a CerePlex™ Direct Host PC. If NeuroMotive™ is connected to a device then information about the device and NeuroMotive™’s connection will display: Figure 20 - NeuroMotive™... -
Page 31: Advanced Options
.ncf file. Note that the .ncf file contains all the settings of NeuroMotive™ at the time of a recording; it is akin to a snapshot of the options file that can be loaded to return NeuroMotive™ to a previous state. -
Page 32: Video Display Tab
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Video Display Tab Figure 24 - Video Display Tab The Video Display tab configures the video source NeuroMotive™ uses for retrieving visual data and how it is displayed. Video Source This section specifies the source of video data and options available for that source. There are currently six sources for video data. - Page 33 Camera: OptiTrack - This selects the OptiTrack V100:R2 infrared camera that can be supplied with NeuroMotive™. The following options can be set for it: Embedded statistics - This shows or hides various statistics in the video frame itself. Currently only two statistics display: Time Elapsed and Frame Number.
- Page 34 Currently only OSG OpenGL is available for rendering and it has the additional option for setting the maximum target displayed frame rate. Choose Auto to have NeuroMotive™ select the appropriate rate to display at or set it to 30fps.
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Page 35: Video Recording Tab
CPU usage to ensure the higher bit rate is all encoded. It is recommended to leave the encoder set to Auto in NeuroMotive™ as the software works very well at determining a suitable video file encoder. But the following other options do exist: ... - Page 36 It is the most computationally intensive portion of encoding and thus has many algorithms that attempt to reduce this cost while maintaining quality. NeuroMotive™ currently supports 6 different algorithms with the H.264 encoding format that vary in quality vs. computational time required to perform.
- Page 37 Smaller blocks allow for greater detail to be retained and often better file compression sizes, but compression/decompression will take longer as the encoding is much more complex. NeuroMotive™ supports three different split modes: (0) 16x16 Only - Frames are divided into blocks that are 16x16 pixels. This allows for the fastest encoding/decoding, but image quality may not be the best and file sizes may not be as efficient they could be.
- Page 38 Again, it is recommended to leave the container set to Auto in NeuroMotive™ as the software works very well at determining a suitable video file format. But the following other options do exist: ...
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Page 39: Video Tracking Tab
This works best with three markers as their positions relative to one another are used by NeuroMotive™ to help keep track of them and the object. If only one marker is being tracked then this option behaves like the previous one. -
Page 40: General Tab
The General tab allows setting various behaviors of NeuroMotive™: what warnings it gives, processing statistics, when it can record, etc. Warnings These are notices that NeuroMotive™ can relay about its state to help ensure recording, especially in sync with an NSP or CerePlex™ Direct, operates smoothly. The following warnings can be toggled: ... - Page 41 File Size - Displays how large the file being recorded is currently in bytes. Avg. C. Conv Time - Displays the average time is takes NeuroMotive™ to convert the color values of a frame from whatever the source format is to the format required by the renderer. This will be different for different files, cameras and renderers used with NeuroMotive™.
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Page 42: Comment
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Comment This option allows determination of whether comments can be more than one line before being sent to the NSP and Central. If it’s not toggled then comments are sent as soon as ‘enter’ is pressed, otherwise ‘enter’... -
Page 43: Marker Definition Example
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Marker Definition Example The following example shows how to use the Marker Definition Dock Bar to optimize tracking. This is also a good example of the type of controlled environment that facilitates optimal tracking. Color vs. Luminance Figure 29 shows a frame with three bright markers in a low light scene. -
Page 44: Figure 31 - Single Channel Or Hue
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Selecting View->Processed Image->Preprocessed, Figure 31 shows on the Video Display the captured frame after it has been converted to Single Channel (Hue in this case because Color is selected). All the pixels are represented by an angle on the color wheel (Figure 16), and the picture appears in greyscale. Because the light is low, the human eye cannot detect the sporadic occurrences of yellow in the frame. -
Page 45: Led
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Figure 33 - Incorrectly Chosen Markers Reconsidering the original image again, we notice the yellow markers are brighter than the background (a second discriminatory factor other than color), so LED tracking should produce the best results. Figure 34 shows the original image with LED selected (luminance = 63), both color thresholds set to 16, and a marker radius of 4-15. -
Page 46: Morphological Filtering
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual From the threshold image in Figure 35, it is clear why a yellow marker was found. There are no other areas with a comparable luminance in the frame. Figure 35 - Threshold Image – LED selected Morphological Filtering Figure 36 zooms in on the markers from Figure 35. - Page 47 NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Figure 36 was created using a 5x5 Low Pass filter, 3x3 Morphological Opening filter, and a 5x5 Morphological Dilation filter. Compared to Figure 37 where the dilation is removed, we see the marker sizes in Figure 37 are smaller because morphological dilation increases the size of the markers.
- Page 48 NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Figure 39 - 5x5 Low Pass filter, no Opening filter and no Dilation filter Figure 40 shows the markers with no low pass filter, no morphological opening filter, and no morphological dilation filter. As can be seen, this makes the marker shape appear jagged. There is a hole in one of the markers. And a minimum radius of 4 is no longer small enough to identify one of the markers resulting in the wrong direction being calculated.
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Page 49: Luminance
NeuroMotive™ User’s Manual Figure 41 shows the markers with a 5x5 Low Pass filter, 3x3 Morphological Opening filter, and 3x3 Morphological Dilation filter. With a smaller dilation filter (3x3), the markers do not merge and both separate yellow markers are found. -
Page 50: How To
Click OK Record a Standalone Video Start NeuroMotive™ and make sure the video camera is connected properly and selected (See above). The video display area should show images from the camera. The Camera Control Dock Bar contains an edit box where the name of the file to record and the record and stop buttons for recording. -
Page 51: Playback A Standalone Video
On the Host PC, open the File application in Central (Refer to the Cerebus™ manual). Make sure File Specification is 2.3 or higher and the File application is synchronized with NeuroMotive™ (in the File application go to View->Options->Sync with NeuroMotive™ (if present), for further details refer to the Cerebus™... -
Page 52: Playback A Video With A Neural Recording
Type in the file name in the field or navigate to it and then click Open. Use the playback controls (pause, stop, step, etc.) in NeuroMotive™, nPlay will synchronize playback accordingly. Using the controls in nPlay causes uncertain behavior. NeuroMotive™ provides accurate controls and the nPlay controls do not reflect the state of the system. -
Page 53: Known Issues
SHALL BE LIMITED TO PROVIDING THE REMEDY SET FORTH IN THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH. Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) In the unlikely event that the NeuroMotive™ system needs to be returned to Blackrock for repair or maintenance, do not send any equipment back without a Return Merchandise Authorization Number. An RMA number will be issued to you by a Blackrock representative.
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