HQ panel

Modified on 2012/05/14 23:16 by Administrator — Categorized as: Uncategorized

Element Icon HQ Panel
Info
Category: User Interface
Role:

HQ, or headquarter, panel collects and shows the summary information about all content across the experiment, including elements and snippets. HQ also provides an access to the design settings of the current experiment. HQ can be opened through the layers panel and the navigation bar.


Things To Know


GUI

Snapshot 1

Snapshot 1

Snapshot 2

Snapshot 2


Practical Use

Technique 1

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  2. Step 2

Technique 2

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 // Check the trial outcome. Result and RT just other user variables
// insert code snippet here..

Notes

Insert Notes here..



Practical Use

When a new experiment is opened there are two main buttons in the top right corner: HQ and Experiment. If HQ is clicked, all experiment layers and experiment properties are displayed. When the Experiment button is clicked the main Events screen is opened (Figure 1) and this is in fact the default view upon creating a new experiment. If one particular event is selected (by clicking on the Event image box in the center of the top panel), the Event's elements window will open on the left, any images connected to this event will display in the center, and the property list will display on the right (Figure 1).

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Figure 1: First screen presented to the user upon opening a new experiment in EventIDE.

HQ level is the uppermost level outlining the structure of the experiment. Figure 2 shows the HQ window display.

A representation of all the layers of the experiment (squares in the top part Figure 2) A list of all the elements used in the particular experiment (left side Figure 2) A sheet for experiment notes (in the central part Figure 2) Researchers can use this sheet as a lab book, is a good tool to order lab notes. Code Snippets for the experiment (lower part Figure 2). At this Experiment level the snippets are going to get activated whenever the experiment is run. Specific properties of the experiment (Right panel Figure 2)

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Figure 2: Elements displayed when ROOT option is selected.

We will focus on these experiment properties that can be modified at HQ level. They are grouped in six categories as can be seen in Figure 3: Display Settings, Runtime, Control, Timing Control and Statistics.

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Figure 3: Categories of the properties which can be modified at ROOT level.

When Display Settings is expanded (by clicking the arrow - Figure 4) it is possible to modify various settings:

  1. Grid step changes the size of the visual editing grid.
  2. Display resolution contains information about the size of the display (in pixels), the physical diaganal size of the monitor (in cms) and the distance from the display of the participant. This information allows EventIDE to accurately calculate visual degrees.
  3. Frame Rate: Can be adjusted to mach the frame rate of experimental screen in order to synchronize presentation of visual information and eye tracker register.
  4. Color depth: This refers to the number of bits per pixel. The most typical mode is 32bits per pixel which allows 8bits per RGB value plus 8bits for the alpha channel that controls transparency. Rembember that 8bits allow 2^8=256 RGB values (from 0-255) in standard 24bits bitmaps.
  5. 10bit Color: If you require more RGB values for better graphics (color and luminance) resolution you can use a 10bit graphic card (e.g. ATI FirePro) which will allow 2^10=1024 RGB values per pixel.

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Figure 4: Expanded display settings.

The options relating to Runtime, Control and Timing Control are for adjusting the priorities of different functionalities within an experiment. Definitions of this properties are given online in the software, also in banquets can be seen when can they be used on RUNTIME (that is when the experiment is running, so only can be accessed trough the snippets code) DESIGNTIME (when the particular trial is finished).

Defined in Runtime section (Figure 5) there are: Stop Running, Snapshot (Bitmap containing a copy of the experimental screen at each moment of time), Radar (Coordinates of the current positional input on the screen), Radar Tail (Array of coordinates of the recent current positional input on the screen), Radar OK (True if radar coordinates on screen are valid) and Child Index (Activates Child event with a given index).

In Control section (Figure 5) options available are: Preload for resources (Make running faster but consumes more memory), Interrupt key code (in which could be defined the key that will control the interruption of the running experiment at any moment), Default background (which will be the colour adopted by every event in the experimental sequence), Experiment priority, Operator priority and Title (where experiment's name could be defined).

For Timing control is related with the synchronization between the experimental sequence and the monitor refresh rate. Three values can be set here: Ahead Lock (ms) (Time interval that automatically shortens the requested durations of every event in order to get best alignment with the refresh rate of the monitor. Recommended value is such of one frame.), VSynchforevents (True if it is wanted activation for all visual events synchronized with the monitor refresh rate), System real time priority (If this is set to true, the EventIDE process will have real time priority in windows while running the experiment).

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Figure 5: Extended runtime, control and timing control.

Last settings option in ROOT level is Statistics (Figure 6). Here we can define Actual duration (ms) (It reports the duration of the last run), Experiment Report String variable is proposed to be used in the code snippets for data logging in the experiment. We have to parameterize it before using in the code, it has to be selected and add a parameter in this property: Report in this example. Might be exported to a text or excel table from main menu), Elapsed time (In ms, is the time passed from the activation of event to), Preparation time (It is the time needed to redraw events and their children), Drawing Time, Running interval (Last interval between two on running calls), Snippets execution times.

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Figure 6: Extended statistics.

Properties

Experiment properties define global aspects of experimental design and runs, like the display settings and performance optimization. Their values are specific for each experiment and stored in the experiment file. In this way they are different from the EventIDE settings which are specific for each computer and can be shared among different experiments.