Flock of Birds

[aforren1]

I think we're almost there, but here's the list (as I understand it):

• [x] Get read() to return a list of arrays Append headers in fob.py and flockofbirds.py suitably
• [x] Scaling/mapping to given zone (see Jing's version as ref)
• [x] Enable timestamp (use time by default, but allow for psychopy.core.getTime()) Enable/disable filtering (may need to modify fob.py)
• [ ] More generically, work out how to apply settings (CHANGE_VALUE)
• [x] Stream mode (point mode only so far)
• [x] Avoid port-skipping weirdness; talk to ALL birds, but then only ask for data from a subset.

[aforren1]

In the multiprocessing case, do we want to return a list of 2d arrays? I.e. each element of the list contains all of the readings for a single bird.

[aforren1]

See https://github.com/BLAM-Lab-Projects/experiment-code-sdl2/blob/master/TrackBird.cpp for current settings, e.g. that we use POSITION_MATRIX.

[aforren1]

See https://github.com/paulgribble/FlockOfBirds/blob/master/FOB4.py for another example of applying settings to Flock.

[aforren1]

See pg. 158 of the manual for latency hints (probably implemented in TrackBird.cpp)

[aforren1]

Figure out the difference between:

• measurement rate: Up to 144hz.
• report rate: In stream mode, reduces the number of samples reported to the computer. Default is 1 (don't need to change). If set, number of samples reported is samples/report rate
• RS232 data rate: if greater than the measurement rate, we get duplicate records. If less, records are dropped (pg. 26)

[aforren1]

See the DLL API for hints wrt. streaming mode (~pg 40).

[aforren1]

Notes on characters, bytes & such:

(python 3)

b'\x50' == 'P'.encode('UTF-8')
b'\x50' + b'\x32' == 'P2'.encode('UTF-8')
bytearray([2,3,4]) + b'\x10' # bytes is different in 2 and 3
# bytearray(b'\x02\x03\x04\x10')

[aforren1]

As of 0.1.0, we have a stripped-down version of the Flock of Birds (usable for most experiments). Testing & examples still need to be done.