Skip to content
/ Titta Public

Matlab and PsychToolbox interface to Tobii eye trackers using Tobii Pro SDK

License

Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

dcnieho/Titta

Repository files navigation

Downloads Citation Badge DOI

Titta is a toolbox for using eye trackers from Tobii Pro AB with MATLAB or GNU Octave, specifically offering integration with PsychToolbox. A Python version that integrates with PsychoPy is also available from https://github.com/marcus-nystrom/Titta. For a similar toolbox for SMI eye trackers, please see www.github.com/dcnieho/SMITE.

The current repository furthermore offers a C++ wrapper around the Tobii SDK, which is in turn used as a basis for the MEX file TittaMex providing MATLAB/Octave with connectivity to the Tobii eye trackers and TittaPy (pip install TittaPy) for providing Python 3 with the same. This C++ wrapper can be consumed by your own C++ projects as well, or be wrapped for other programming languages (pull requests welcome).

Please cite: Niehorster, D.C., Andersson, R. & Nyström, M. (2020). Titta: A toolbox for creating PsychToolbox and Psychopy experiments with Tobii eye trackers. Behavior Research Methods. doi: 10.3758/s13428-020-01358-8

For questions, bug reports or to check for updates, please visit www.github.com/dcnieho/Titta.

Titta is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. Note that the tobii_research*.h header files located in this repository at SDK_wrapper/deps/include/ carry a different license, please refer to the Tobii License Agreement for more information.

demos/readmeMinimal.m shows a minimal example of using the toolbox's functionality, and the demo_experiments folder contains various other examples. For documentation of the various data fields in the .mat file produced by the demos, see the Tobii SDK documentation. Example fixation detection and AOI analysis code is also included.

Ideally, make sure that the eye tracker is detected and works in the Tobii Eye Tracker Manager before trying to use it with Titta. Note also that some of the supported eye trackers require several setup steps before they are ready for use (e.g. do a display setup in Eye Tracker Manager). If these steps have not been performed, Titta will throw strange error messages.

To run the toolbox, the Tobii Pro SDK must be available. Titta for MATLAB and PsychToolbox includes the Tobii Pro SDK dynamic link libraries, so you do not have to install it separately. An up-to-date version of PsychToolbox is recommended.

Only the Titta.calibrate() and Titta.calibrateAdvanced() functions and optionally the TalkToProLab constructor use Psychtoolbox functionality, the rest of the toolbox can be used from MATLAB/Octave without having PsychToolbox installed.

Supported platforms

Currently the toolbox is only supported on Windows 10 (Windows 7 may continue to work but is not tested) and Linux. OSX support may appear if time and hardware availability permit. Given that OSX is not recommended for visual stimulus presentation, this however is low priority.

Only 64-bit MATLAB and GNU Octave are supported. 32-bit MATLAB support was previously available for Windows, but has been discontinued when the Tobii SDK dropped support for 32-bit platforms. The last version of Titta supporting 32-bit Matlab is available here.

Windows

Using the newest Psychtoolbox version is recommended for use with both Matlab and GNU Octave. For use with Matlab, at minimum PsychToolbox version 3.0.16 "Crowning achievement", released on 2020-05-10 is required. Titta has been tested on MATLAB version R2022b. To use Titta with GNU Octave at minimum Octave version 7.3 is required, which also entails at minimum PsychToolbox version 3.0.19, "Virtuality", released on 2023-02-17. The main Titta class, TittaMex and the readme demos have been tested to work on Octave. The breakOut demo does not work due to incomplete classdef support in Octave.

Linux

Using version Psychtoolbox 3.0.18.7 release "Experimental Taylor expansion" SP2, released on 2022-04-20 or later is recommended, but at minimum PsychToolbox version 3.0.16 "Crowning achievement", released on 2020-05-10 is required. Titta has been tested on MATLAB version R2022a. GNU Octave support has been tested with Octave versions 6.4 and 7.3. Titta for Linux is currently built on Ubuntu 22.04, which means it doesn not work out of the box on other Ubuntu releases. See the TittaMex readme for more information how to make it work on your platform.

Mac OSX

OSX is currently not supported, although the TittaMex file does build succesfully on OSX with the makeTittaMex.m script.

How to acquire

The recommended way to acquire Titta is to use the git tool to download it. Alternatively you can download the components separately and place them in the right locations. Here are instructions for these two routes:

  1. Using Git
    1. install git from https://git-scm.org if you don't already have it. If you do not like using the command line/terminal, consider using a graphical git tool such as SmartGit, which is available free for non-commercial use.
    2. Download Titta and its dependencies in one go using the following command: git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 git://github.com/dcnieho/Titta.git.
    3. Should this not work due to your git version being too old, try executing the following commands:
      git clone git://github.com/dcnieho/Titta.git`
      cd Titta
      git submodule update --init --recursive
      
      If you have already cloned Titta but do not have the MatlabWebSocket submodule populated yet, issuing the git submodule update --init --recursive command will take care of that.
  2. Manual download:
    1. First download Titta and place it, unzipped if necessary, in your preferred folder.
    2. Then download MatlabWebSocket (available from https://github.com/jebej/MatlabWebSocket). Download the currently tested version.
    3. Put the MatlabWebSocket directory inside Titta at the right location: <tittaRootDir>/talkToProLab/MatlabWebSocket).
  3. When running on Windows, ensure you have the latest version of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2022 installed. This is the most likely cause of errors like "The specified module could not be found" when loading the TittaMex file.

Contents

The toolbox consists of multiple parts:

The Titta class

The Titta class is the main workhorse of this toolbox, providing a wrapper around the Tobii Pro SDK as well as the TittaMex class described below, and a convenient graphical user interface (rendered through PsychToolbox) for participant setup, calibration and validation. Only the Titta.calibrate() and Titta.calibrateAdvanced() participant setup and calibration interfaces require PsychToolbox.

The Titta, TittaMex and TittaPy classes in the SDK_wrapper directory

The Titta C++ class, the TittaMex MATLAB/Octave wrapper and the TittaPy Python wrapper are alternatives to the Tobii Pro MATLAB and Python SDKs for handling data streams and calibration, and can be used without making use of the Titta interface. The C++ code can be compiled and used as a static library without Matlab/Octave or Python. It is used by both the MATLAB and Python versions of Titta under the hood (Titta users can access it directly through the Titta.buffer property).

Besides providing access to the same tracker functionality as the Tobii Pro MATLAB SDK, it has two main features: (1) more complete and granular access to the data streams: (a): support for both consuming (destructive) and peeking (non-destructive) data streams; (b): support for only accessing or clearing specific parts of the tracker's data streams; and (c) data provided as structs-of-arrays instead of arrays-of-structs which makes data access significantly simpler and is much more memory efficient. The second main feature is (2) asynchronous calibration methods, allowing to issue non-blocking method calls for all stages of the calibration process, such that the interface can remain responsive. It furthermore offers GNU Octave support, which the MATLAB SDK has dropped since version 1.10, and provides eye openness data alongside data in the gaze stream instead of in a separate stream that the user then has to link up later themselves. Finally, other functions implemented in TittaMex provide return values that are a bit friendlier to use in MATLAB/Octave, in the author's opinion (e.g. doubles which are MATLAB's native data type instead of singles) and no use of MATLAB classes to just hold plain data.

On the Python side, besides the above benefits, use of the Titta C++ wrapper in TittaPy prevents issues where data is lost with the Tobii Python SDK's callback-style interface if the user does not sleep or yield often enough in their code, and also provides data from the various streams as a dict-of-lists instead of a list-of-dicts, which in the author's opinion is easier to use, and is straightforwardly transformed to a pandas.DataFrame, or saved to an HDF5 file.

The TalkToProLab class

The TalkToProLab class provides an implementation of Tobii Pro Lab's External Presenter interface, allowing experiments to be created and run from MATLAB/Octave with PsychToolbox or other presentation methods, while recording, project management, recording playback/visualization and analysis can be performed in Tobii Pro Lab.

The TalkToProLab class must be able to communicate with the External Presenter interface of Pro Lab for it to operate. As such, to use the TalkToProLab class, do the following:

  1. Open an External Presenter project in Tobii Pro Lab, make sure its name matches what you provide to the TalkToProLab constructor.
  2. Navigate to the 'record'-tab in Pro Lab
  3. Make sure that the External presenter button is red and says 'not connected'
  4. Run this script

Usage

As demonstrated in the demo scripts, the toolbox is configured through the following interface:

  1. Retrieve (default) settings for eye tracker of interest: settings = Titta.getDefaults('tracker model name'); Supported eye trackers and their corresponding model names in the Tobii Pro SDK/Titta are:

    Eye tracker Model name
    Tobii Pro Spectrum Tobii Pro Spectrum
    Tobii Pro Fusion Tobii Pro Fusion
    Tobii Pro TX300 Tobii TX300
    Tobii Pro T60 XL Tobii T60 XL
    Tobii Pro Spark Tobii Pro Spark
    Tobii Pro Nano Tobii Pro Nano
    Tobii Pro X3-120 Tobii Pro X3-120 or Tobii Pro X3-120 EPU
    Tobii Pro X2-60 X2-60_Compact
    Tobii Pro X2-30 X2-30_Compact
    Tobii Pro X60 Tobii X60
    Tobii Pro X120 Tobii X120
    Tobii Pro T60 Tobii T60
    Tobii Pro T120 Tobii T120
    Tobii 4C* IS4_Large_Peripheral

    Note that the VR eye trackers are not supported by Titta.

    *Note that a Pro upgrade license key is required to be able to use the Tobii 4C for research purposes, and for it to function with Titta. Unfortunately, the Pro upgrade license key is no longer sold by Tobii Pro. If you try to use a 4C without upgrade key with Titta, you will not receive data streams, and some calls, such as calibrate(), will yield error 201: TOBII_RESEARCH_STATUS_SE_INSUFFICIENT_LICENSE.

  2. Change settings from their defaults if wanted (see supported options section below)

  3. Create a Titta instance using this settings struct: EThndl = Titta(settings);

  4. Interact with the eye tracker using the below API.

  5. When calling Titta.calibrate(), a participant setup and calibration and validation interface is shown. For each screen, several keyboard hotkeys are available to activate certain functionality. By default, the hotkey for each button is printed in the button's label. It can be configured to different keys with the settings.UI.button options listed below. In addition, a few global hotkeys are available. These are documented below in the API documentation of the Titta.calibrate() method. A more advanced participant setup, calibration and validation interface intended especially to enable work with participants who are unable to follow instructions such as infants and non-human primates is provided by the Titta.calibrateAdvanced() function. The validation screen of both interfaces lists the data quality of the gaze signal recorded during validation, see below for a description of the reported data quality metrics.

  6. Example analysis scripts for the recorded data (fixation classification and AOI analysis) are also provided.

Validation screen

The validation screens of both Titta.calibrate() and Titta.calibrateAdvanced() report several data quality metrics for the gaze data recorded during validation. These metrics are also converted to text by Titta.getValidationQualityMessage() and this text is stored as a timestamped message in the Titta message stream (see Titta.getMessages()) as part of the validation procedure. This message as well as the calibration data from which it is generated is stored to file by most of the data saving functions in Titta (see details in the documentation of each function, it depends on the format's capabilities). See this script for an example of extracting the data quality metrics of a validation from the .mat files stored by Titta.saveData().

For validation, by default, 0.5 s of gaze data is collected per validation point (see settings.val.collectDuration). The metrics calculated for the data of each validation point are decribed below. The metrics are calculated in the private function getDataQuality() inside Titta.m separately for the left and right eye (if both are recorded).

Metric data field description
Offset (accuracy) acc1D and acc2D The "accuracy is the closeness of the gaze position reported by the eye-tracking setup to the actual gaze position of the participant" (Niehorster, Santini et al., 2020), which in Titta is operationalized as the average offset of the recorded gaze positions from the validation target. acc1D is the average of the Euclidian distances of each sample from the target, whereas acc2D contains the average signed horizontal and vertical offsets from the target (these can be zero when acc1D is not, for instance when the gaze samples spread evenly around a validation target).
SD (precision) STD1D "Precision is defined as the closeness of a set of repeated gaze position measurements obtained under identical conditions (i.e., obtained from an eye that has not rotated)" (Niehorster, Zemblys et al., 2020). STD indicates the spatial spread of a sequence of gaze points (more precisely it is a measure of dispersion around the centroid of a sequence of gaze positions). As per equation 2 in Niehorster, Zemblys et al. (2020), it is computed as the square-root of the sum of the horizontal and vertical variance of the recorded gaze positions.
RMS (precision) RMS1D RMS in Titta refers to RMS-S2S precision, or "the root mean square of the displacement between successive gaze positions", which loosely speaking gives an indication of how spiky the gaze signal is (Niehorster, Zemblys et al., 2020).
Data loss dataLoss Data loss (for an extensive discussion, see Hooge et al., 2022) is calculated as the percentage of recorded gaze samples that is marked as invalid by the eye tracker.

API

Titta class

Help on each of the below listed static methods, methods and properties can be had inside MATLAB by typing on the commands line help Titta.<function name>, e.g. help Titta.calibrate. Help on the constructor is had with help Titta.Titta.

Static methods

The below method can be called on a Titta instance or on the Titta class directly.

Call Inputs Outputs Description
getDefaults()
  1. tracker: one of the supported eye tracker model names, see above.
  1. settings: struct with all supported settings for a specific model of eyeTracker
Gets all supported settings with defaulted values for the indicated eyeTracker, can be modified and used for constructing an instance of Titta. See the supported options section below.
getFileName()
  1. filename: filename (including path) where mat file will be stored
  2. doAppendVersion: optional. Boolean indicating whether version numbers (_1, _2, etc) will automatically get appended to the filename if the destination file already exists. Default: false.
  3. ext: optional. Extension to use when checking if file exists. Default: 'mat'.
  4. ignoreSuffix: optional. Ignore suffixes when checking if files with the provided filename exist. E.g. if test is provided as filename, and test_gaze.parq exists at the provided path, this will be considered a hit when the _gaze suffix is ignored. Default: false.
  5. addExt: optional. Add the extension ext to the end of the output filename. May be unwanted when generating a base filename, such as when storing data to a series of Parquet files. Default: true.
  1. filename: filename with versioning added where data file could be saved.
Get filename for saving data, with optional versioning.
getTimeAsSystemTime()
  1. time: A PsychtoolBox timestamp that is to be converted to Tobii system time. Optional, if not provided, current GetSecs time is used.
  1. time: An int64 scalar denoting Tobii system time in microseconds.
Maps the provided PsychtoolBox timestamp (or the current PsychtoolBox time provided by the GetSecs() function) to the Tobii system time provided in microseconds by the Tobii Pro SDK. On Windows, PsychtoolBox time and Tobii system time use the same clock, and this operation thus only entails a conversion from seconds to microseconds. On Linux, the clocks are different, and remapping is performed using the PTB function GetSecs('AllClocks') with an accuracy of 20 microseconds or better.
getValidationQualityMessage()
  1. cal: a list of calibration attempts, a specific calibration attempt, or a specific validation data quality struct
  2. kCal: an (optional) index into the list of calibration attempts to indicate which to process
  1. message: A tab-separated text rendering of the per-point and average validation data quality for each eye that was calibrated
Provides a textual rendering of data quality as assessed through a validation procedure.
saveData()
  1. data: data (struct) to be saved to a .mat file. Data would usually be what is returned by Titta.collectSessionData() but can be anything, and can optionally include extra metadata added by the user.
  2. filename: filename (including path) where mat file will be stored
  3. doAppendVersion: optional. Boolean indicating whether version numbers (_1, _2, etc) will automatically get appended to the filename if the destination file already exists. Default: false.
  1. filename: filename at which the data was saved.
Save data returned by Titta.collectSessionData() directly to mat file at the specified location.
saveDataToParquet()
  1. data: data (struct) to be saved to a series of Apache Parquet and JSON files. data is expected to contain the fields from Titta.CollectSessionData(). Extra user-added metadata is ignored, expect information about screen resolution if it is provided in either data.resolution or data.expt.resolution.
  2. filenameBase: filename (including path) where the files will be stored.
  3. doAppendVersion: optional. Boolean indicating whether version numbers (_1, _2, etc) will automatically get appended to the filenameBase if the destination files already exist. Default: false.
  1. filenameBase: filename base at which the files were saved.
Save data returned by Titta.collectSessionData() to a series of Apache Parquet and JSON files at the specified location. Data from the various streams is written as tables into Parquet files, metadata and calibration info as JSON files.
saveGazeDataToTSV()
  1. data: data (struct) from which gaze and messages are to be saved to .tsv files. data is expected to contain the fields from Titta.CollectSessionData(), and as such messages are expected at data.messages, and gaze data at data.data.gaze. Tab characters in the messages are replaced with \t.
  2. filenameBase: filename (including path) where the files will be stored.
  3. doAppendVersion: optional. Boolean indicating whether version numbers (_1, _2, etc) will automatically get appended to the filenameBase if the destination files already exist. Default: false.
  4. messageTruncateMode: optional. Specify what happens with messages that consist of more than one line. By default (mode: truncate) only the first line of such messages is stored. Mode replace replaces newline characters with \n.
  1. filenameBase: filename base at which the files were saved.
Save gaze data and messages returned by Titta.collectSessionData() to tsv files at the specified location.

Construction

An instance of Titta is constructed by calling Titta() with either the name of a specific supported eye tracker model (in which case default settings for this model will be used) or with a settings struct retrieved from Titta.getDefaults(), possibly with changed settings (passing the settings struct unchanged is equivalent to using the eye tracker model name as input argument).

Methods

The following method calls are available on a Titta instance:

Call Inputs Outputs Description
setDummyMode()
  1. obj: TittaDummyMode instance (output cannot be ignored)
Turn the current Titta instance into a dummy mode class.
getOptions()
  1. settings: struct with current settings
Get active settings, returns only those that can be changed in the current state (which is a subset of all settings once init() has been called)
setOptions()
  1. settings: struct with updated settings
Change active settings. First use getOptions() to get an up-to-date settings struct, then edit the wanted settings and use this function to set them
init()
  1. address: optional. A specific eyetracker address
Connect to the Tobii eye tracker and initialize it according to the requested settings. If a specific eye tracker address is provided, this eye tracker is directly connected to.
calibrate()
  1. wpnt: window pointer to PsychToolbox screen where the calibration stimulus should be shown. See PsychImaging('OpenWindow') or Screen('OpenWindow'). Can be an array of two window pointers. In this case, the first window pointer is taken to refer to the participant screen, and the second to an operator screen. In this case, a minimal interface is presented on the participant screen, while full information is shown on the operator screen, including a live view of gaze data and eye images (if available) during calibration and validation.
  2. flag: optional. Flag indicating whether this call to calibrate should cause the eye-tracker to enter before start calibration, or exit calibration mode when finished. The flag is a bitfield whose values can be bitand()ed together. Understood values: 1: enter calibration mode when starting calibration; 2: exit calibration mode when calibration finished. Default: 3: both enter and exit calibration mode during this function call. Used for bimonocular calibrations, when the calibrate() function is called twice in a row, first to calibrate the first eye (use flag=1 to enter calibration mode here but not exit), and then a second time to calibrate the other eye (use flag=2 to exit calibration mode when done).
  3. previousCalibs: calibrationAttempt struct returned by a previous run of Titta.calibrate(). Allows to prepopulate the interface with previous calibration(s). The previously selected calibration is made active and it can then be revalidated and used, or replaced. Note that the previousCalibs functionality should be used together with bimonocular calibration only when the calibration of the first eye is not replaced (validating it is ok, and recommended). This because prepopulating calibrations for the second eye will load this previous calibration, and thus undo any new calibration for the first eye.
  1. calibrationAttempt: struct containing information about the calibration/validation run
Do participant setup, calibration and validation. Issue help Titta.calibrate on the matlab command prompt for further documentation.
calibrateAdvanced()
  1. wpnt: an array of two window pointers to PsychToolbox screens where the calibration stimulus and operator interfaces should be shown. See PsychImaging('OpenWindow') or Screen('OpenWindow'). The first window pointer is taken to refer to the participant screen, and the second to an operator screen.
  2. previousCalibs: calibration struct returned by a previous run of Titta.calibrateAdvanced(). Allows to prepopulate the interface with previous calibration(s). The previously selected calibration is made active and it can then be revalidated and used, or replaced.
  1. calibration: struct containing information about the calibration/validation run
Do participant setup, calibration and validation using an advanced procedure suitable for non-compliant subjects. Issue help Titta.calibrateAdvanced on the matlab command prompt for further documentation.
sendMessage()
  1. message: Message to be written into idf file
  2. time: (optional) timestamp of the message (in seconds, will be stored as microseconds). Candidate times are the timestamps provided by PsychToolbox, such as the timestamp returned by Screen('Flip') or keyboard functions such as KbEventGet.
  1. time: timestamp (microseconds) stored with the message
Store timestamped message
getMessages()
  1. messages: returns Nx2 cell array containing N timestamps (microseconds, first column) and the associated N messages (second column)
Get all the timestamped messages stored during the current session.
collectSessionData()
  1. data: struct with all information and data collected during the current session. Contains information about all calibration attemps; all timestamped messages; eye-tracker system information; setup geometry and settings that are in effect; and log messages generated by the eye tracker; and any data in the buffers of any of the eye-tracker's data streams
Collects all data one may want to store to file, neatly organized.
deInit()
  1. log: struct of log messages generated by the eye tracker during the current session, if any.
Close connection to the eye tracker and clean up

Properties

The following read-only properties are available for a Titta instance:

Property Description
geom Filled by init(). Struct with information about the setup geometry known to the eye tracker, such as screen width and height, and the screen's location in the eye tracker's user coordinate system.
calibrateHistory Returns cell array with information about all calibration attempts during the current session
buffer Initialized by call to init(). Returns handle to TittaMex instance for interaction with the eye tracker's data streams. This handle can furthermore be used for directly interacting with the eye tracker through the Tobii Pro SDK, but note that this is at your own risk. Titta should have minimal assumptions about eye-tracker state, but I cannot guarantee that direct interaction with the eye tracker does not interfere with later use of Titta in the same session.
deviceName Get connected eye tracker's device name.
serialNumber Get connected eye tracker's serial number.
model Get connected eye tracker's model name.
firmwareVersion Get connected eye tracker's firmware version.
runtimeVersion Get connected eye tracker's runtime version.
address Get connected eye tracker's address.
capabilities Get connected eye tracker's exposed capabilities.
supportedFrequencies Get connected eye tracker's supported sampling frequencies.
supportedModes Get connected eye tracker's supported tracking modes.
systemInfo Filled by init(). Struct with information about the eye tracker connected to: the device name, serial number, model name, firmware version, runtime version, address, sampling frequency, tracking mode, capabilities, supported sampling frequencies, and supported tracking modes of the connected eye tracker.

The following settable properties are available for a Titta instance:

Property Description
frequency Get or set connected eye tracker's sampling frequency.
trackingMode Get or set connected eye tracker's tracking mode.

Supported options

Which of the below options are available depends on the eye tracker model. The getDefaults() and getOptions() method calls return the appropriate set of options for the indicated eye tracker.

Option name Explanation
settings.trackingMode Some trackers, like the Spectrum with firmware version>=1.7.6, have multiple tracking modes, select tracking mode by providing its name.
settings.freq Sampling frequency
settings.calibrateEye Which eye to calibrate: 'both', also possible if supported by eye tracker: 'left' and 'right'.
settings.serialNumber If looking to connect to a specific eye tracker when multiple are available on the network, provide its serial number here.
settings.licenseFile If you tracker needs a license file applied (e.g. Tobii 4C), provide the full path to the license file here, or a cell array of full paths if there are multiple licenses to apply.
settings.nTryReConnect How many times to retry connecting before giving up? Something larger than zero is good as it may take more time than the first call to TittaMex.findAllEyeTrackers() for network eye trackers to be found.
settings.connectRetryWait Seconds: time to wait between connection retries.
settings.debugMode Only for Titta developer use. Prints some debug output to command window.
settings.cal.pointPos Nx2 matrix of screen positions ([0,1] range) of calibration points, leave empty to do a zero-point calibration, i.e., use the tracker's default calibration.
settings.cal.pointPosTrackerSpace Nx2 matrix of screen positions ([0,1] range) of calibration points to be sent to the Tobii SDK during calibration. Use when the screen shown to the participant does not match the plane to which the eye tracker is calibrated (e.g. because it is flipped because it is viewed through a mirror). Should be the same size as settings.cal.pointPos. See also settings.val.pointPosTrackerSpace.
settings.cal.autoPace 0: manually confirm each calibration point. 1: only manually confirm the first point, the rest will be autoaccepted. 2: all calibration points will be auto-accepted. Applies also to validation points since calibration and validation points are shown as one continuous stream.
settings.cal.paceDuration Minimum duration (s) that each calibration point is shown.
settings.cal.doRandomPointOrder If true, the calibration points are shown in random order. If false, each row in settings.cal.pointPos is worked through in order.
settings.cal.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for calibration/validation screen.
settings.cal.fixBackSize Size (pixels) of large circle in fixation cross.
settings.cal.fixFrontSize Size (pixels) of small circle in fixation cross.
settings.cal.fixBackColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of large circle in fixation cross.
settings.cal.fixFrontColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of small circle in fixation cross.
settings.cal.drawFunction Function to be called to draw calibration screen. See the AnimatedCalibrationDisplay class packaged with Titta for an example.
settings.cal.doRecordEyeImages If true, eye images are recorded during calibration and validation, if supported by the eye tracker.
settings.cal.doRecordExtSignal If true, external signals are recorded during calibration and validation, if supported by the eye tracker.
settings.cal.pointNotifyFunction If provided, this callback is called for each calibration point when collecting data for the point completes (either successfully or failed).
settings.val.pointPos Nx2 matrix of screen positions ([0,1] range) of validation points.
settings.val.pointPosTrackerSpace Nx2 matrix of screen positions ([0,1] range) of validation points in tracker space. Only needed when settings.cal.pointPosTrackerSpace is specified.
settings.val.paceDuration Minimum duration (s) that each validation point is shown.
settings.val.collectDuration Amount of validation data (seconds) to collect for each validation point.
settings.val.doRandomPointOrder If true, the calibration points are shown in random order. If false, each row in settings.val.pointPos is worked through in order.
settings.val.pointNotifyFunction If provided, this callback is called for each validation point when collecting gaze data for the point completes.
settings.UI.startScreen 0: skip head positioning, go straight to calibration; 1: start with head positioning interface.
settings.UI.hardExitClosesPTB If true (default), pressing shift-escape in the calibration interface causes the PTB window to close.
settings.UI.setup.showEyes Show eyes on disk representing head used for head position visualization?
settings.UI.setup.showPupils Show pupils in the eyes?
settings.UI.setup.referencePos Location of head in trackbox for which head circle exactly overlaps reference circle in the head positioning visualization. [x y z] in cm. If empty, default: middle of trackbox
settings.UI.setup.doCenterRefPos if true, reference circle is always at center of screen, regardless of x- and y-components of settings.UI.setup.referencePos. If false, circle is positioned settings.UI.setup.referencePos(1) cm horizontally and settings.UI.setup.referencePos(2) cm vertically from the center of the screen (assuming screen dimensions were correctly set in Tobii Eye Tracker Manager).
settings.UI.setup.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for setup screen.
settings.UI.setup.refCircleClr Color of reference circle for head position visualization.
settings.UI.setup.headCircleEdgeClr Color of egde of disk representing head used for head position visualization.
settings.UI.setup.headCircleFillClr Color of fill of disk representing head used for head position visualization.
settings.UI.setup.eyeClr Color of eyes in head.
settings.UI.setup.pupilClr Color of pupils in eyes.
settings.UI.setup.crossClr Color of cross taking position of ignored eye when doing monocular calibration.
settings.UI.setup.fixBackSize Size (pixels) of large circle in fixation cross.
settings.UI.setup.fixFrontSize Size (pixels) of small circle in fixation cross.
settings.UI.setup.fixBackColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of large circle in fixation cross.
settings.UI.setup.fixFrontColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of small circle in fixation cross.
settings.UI.setup.showHeadToSubject If true (default), the reference circle and head display are shown on the participant monitor when showing setup display.
settings.UI.setup.showInstructionToSubject If true (default), the instruction text is shown on the participant monitor when showing setup display.
settings.UI.setup.showFixPointsToSubject If true (default), the fixation points in the corners of the screen are shown on the participant monitor when showing setup display.
settings.UI.setup.instruct.strFun Function handle to function producing positioning instruction string. This function should take six inputs: current head position x, y, and z as well as reference position x, y and z.
settings.UI.setup.instruct.font See Text options.
settings.UI.setup.instruct.size See Text options.
settings.UI.setup.instruct.color See Text options.
settings.UI.setup.instruct.style See Text options.
settings.UI.setup.instruct.vSpacing See Text options.
settings.UI.button.margins For all interface buttons, internal margins around their text content.
settings.UI.button.setup.text.font Setting for all buttons on the setup screen. See Text options.
settings.UI.button.setup.text.size Setting for all buttons on the setup screen. See Text options.
settings.UI.button.setup.text.style Setting for all buttons on the setup screen. See Text options.
settings.UI.button.setup.eyeIm Toggle button for showing or hiding eye image (if eye tracker provides them). See Button options. Default hotkey: e.
settings.UI.button.setup.cal Button for starting a calibration. See Button options. Default hotkey: spacebar.
settings.UI.button.setup.prevcal Button for going to the validation result screen, only available if there are previous successful calibrations. See Button options. Default hotkey: p.
settings.UI.button.val.text.font Setting for all buttons on the validation result screen. See Text options.
settings.UI.button.val.text.size Setting for all buttons on the validation result screen. See Text options.
settings.UI.button.val.text.style Setting for all buttons on the validation result screen. See Text options.
settings.UI.button.val.recal Button for starting a new calibration. See Button options. Default hotkey: escape.
settings.UI.button.val.reval Button for revalidating the currently selected calibration. See Button options. Default hotkey: v.
settings.UI.button.val.continue Button for confirming selection of calibration and returning from the calibration interface to user code. See Button options. Default hotkey: spacebar.
settings.UI.button.val.selcal Toggle button to bring up or close a calibration selection menu. Only available if there multiple successful calibration are available. See Button options. Default hotkey: c.
settings.UI.button.val.setup Button for returning to the setup screen. See Button options. Default hotkey: s.
settings.UI.button.val.toggGaze Toggle button switching on/off an online visualization of current gaze location. See Button options. Default hotkey: g. When in dual screen mode, by default the online gaze visualization is only shown on the operator screen. To also show it on the participant screen, hold down the shift key while pressing this hotkey.
settings.UI.button.val.toggCal Toggle button for switching between showing the validation output and the calibration output on the validation result screen. See Button options. Default hotkey: t.
settings.UI.button.val.toggSpace Toggle button for switching between showing the validation output and the calibration output on the validation result screen in screen space or in tracker space. Only available if a different tracker space was set up using the settings.cal.pointPosTrackSpace option. See Button options. Default hotkey: x.
settings.UI.button.val.toggPlot Toggle button for switching between showing the validation result screen and a screen showing timeseries plots of the data collected during validation. See Button options. Default hotkey: p.
settings.UI.plot.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for calibration/validation screen.
settings.UI.plot.eyeColors Colors to use for plotting the collected validation data for the left and right eye on the validation result screen. Provide as a two-element cell array, {leftEyeColor,rightEyeColor}, where each color is RGB (0-255).
settings.UI.plot.lineWidth Linewidth (pixels) used for plotting the data.
settings.UI.plot.scrMargins Fraction of screen used as blank margin ([left right top bottom]) around the plot screen.
settings.UI.plot.panelPad Vertical padding between the plot panels, expressed as fraction of screen.
settings.UI.plot.dotPosLine.color RGB (0-255) color of lines showing fixation point position on the time series plots.
settings.UI.plot.dotPosLine.width Linewidth (pixels) of lines showing fixation point position on the time series plots.
settings.UI.plot.ax.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for plot panels.
settings.UI.plot.ax.lineColor RGB (0-255) background color for plot panel axis lines.
settings.UI.plot.ax.lineWidth Linewidth (pixels) of plot panel axis lines.
settings.UI.plot.ax.tickLength Length of plot ticks, expressed as fraction of screen.
settings.UI.plot.ax.highlightColor RGB (0-255) or RGBA (including opacity) color for highlight on plot with context indicating which data recorded during validation was used for data quality calculations.
settings.UI.plot.ax.axisLbls.x X-axis label.
settings.UI.plot.ax.axisLbls.offset Y-axis labels for plots without context.
settings.UI.plot.ax.axisLbl Text formatting options for axis labels, see Text options.
settings.UI.plot.ax.tickLbl Text formatting options for tick label values, see Text options.
settings.UI.plot.ax.valLbl Text formatting options for validation instance labels atop the plots, see Text options.
settings.UI.plot.but.exit Button to exit the plot view and return to the validation result screen. See Button options. Default hotkey: escape.
settings.UI.plot.but.valSel Toggle button for switching between showing just the data used for data quality calculations or all the data recorded during validation. See Button options. Default hotkey: c.
settings.UI.cal.errMsg.string String to display when the Tobii calibration functions inform that calibration was unsuccessful.
settings.UI.cal.errMsg.font See Text options.
settings.UI.cal.errMsg.size See Text options.
settings.UI.cal.errMsg.color See Text options.
settings.UI.cal.errMsg.style See Text options.
settings.UI.cal.errMsg.wrapAt See Text options.
settings.UI.val.eyeColors Colors to use for plotting the collected validation data for the left and right eye on the validation result screen. Provide as a two-element cell array, {leftEyeColor,rightEyeColor}, where each color is RGB (0-255).
settings.UI.val.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for validation result screen.
settings.UI.val.fixBackSize Size (pixels) of large circle in fixation crosses denoting the validation point positions.
settings.UI.val.fixFrontSize Size (pixels) of small circle in fixation cross denoting the validation point positions.
settings.UI.val.fixBackColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of large circle in fixation cross denoting the validation point positions.
settings.UI.val.fixFrontColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of small circle in fixation cross denoting the validation point positions.
settings.UI.val.onlineGaze.eyeColors Colors to use for displaying online gaze location of the left and right eye. For format, see settings.UI.val.eyeColors.
settings.UI.val.onlineGaze.fixBackSize Size (pixels) of large circle in fixation crosses shown when online gaze display is active.
settings.UI.val.onlineGaze.fixFrontSize Size (pixels) of small circle in fixation cross shown when online gaze display is active.
settings.UI.val.onlineGaze.fixBackColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of large circle in fixation cross shown when online gaze display is active.
settings.UI.val.onlineGaze.fixFrontColor Color (RGB, 0-255) of small circle in fixation cross shown when online gaze display is active.
settings.UI.val.avg.text.font Font for rendering information about validation data quality averaged over the validation points. Should be a monospaced font.
settings.UI.val.avg.text.size See Text options.
settings.UI.val.avg.text.color See Text options.
settings.UI.val.avg.text.eyeColors Colors to use for labeling data quality for the left and right eye. For format, see settings.UI.val.eyeColors.
settings.UI.val.avg.text.style See Text options.
settings.UI.val.avg.text.vSpacing See Text options.
settings.UI.val.hover.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for popup that appears when hovering over a validation point.
settings.UI.val.hover.text.font Font for rendering information about validation data for a specific validation point in the hover popup. Should be a monospaced font.
settings.UI.val.hover.text.size See Text options.
settings.UI.val.hover.text.color See Text options.
settings.UI.val.hover.text.eyeColors Colors to use for labeling data quality for the left and right eye. For format, see settings.UI.val.eyeColors.
settings.UI.val.hover.text.style See Text options.
settings.UI.val.menu.bgColor RGB (0-255) background color for calibration selection menu.
settings.UI.val.menu.itemColor RGB (0-255) background color for non-selected items in the calibration menu.
settings.UI.val.menu.itemColorActive RGB (0-255) background color for selected item in the calibration menu.
settings.UI.val.menu.text.font Font for rendering information about a calibration in the calibration selection menu. Should be a monospaced font.
settings.UI.val.menu.text.eyeColors Colors to use for labeling data quality for the left and right eye. For format, see settings.UI.val.eyeColors.
settings.UI.val.menu.text.size See Text options.
settings.UI.val.menu.text.color See Text options.
settings.UI.val.menu.text.style See Text options.
settings.UI.operator.setup A subset of the options in settings.UI.setup that controls the look of the operator screen when running in a two-screen setup.
settings.UI.operator.cal A subset of the options in settings.cal that controls the look of the operator screen when running in a two-screen setup.
settings.UI.operator.val A subset of the options in settings.UI.val that controls the look of the operator screen when running in a two-screen setup.
Text options

Texts take all or some of the below options:

Option name Explanation
font Font in which to render the string.
size Text size at which to render the string.
color Color in which to render the string.
style Style with which to render the string. The following can ORed together: 0=normal, 1=bold, 2=italic, 4=underline, 8=outline, 32=condense, 64=extend.
vSpacing Long strings will be wrapped such that each line is no longer than this many characters.
wrapAt Vertical space between lines. 1 is normal spacing.
Button options

Each button takes the below options:

Option name Explanation
accelerator Keyboard key to activate this buttton.
visible If false, button will not be shown in the interface. The functionality remains accessible through the accelerator key (see accelerator).
string Text to be show on the button.
fillColor Fill color of the button: RGB (0-255).
edgeColor Edge color of the button: RGB (0-255).
textColor Color of the text on the button: RGB (0-255).

The fields string, fillColor, edgeColor and textColor can be single entries, 2-element cell array or 3-element cell arrays. This is used to specify different looks for the button when in inactive state, hovered state, and activated state. If a single text or color is provided, this text/look applies to all three button states. If two are provided, the first text/color applies to both the inactive and hovered button states and the second to the activated state. If three are provided, they apply to the inactive, hovered and activated states, respectively. The string, fillColor, edgeColor and textColor can have these properties set independently from each other (you could thus provide different strings for the three states, while keeping colors constant over them).

Titta, TittaMex, TittaPy classes

The below documents the available functions and properties on a Titta SDK wrapper class. The functionality below is exposed under the same names in TittaMex. The same functionality is also available from a TittaPy instance, but in that case all function and property names as well as stream names use snake_case names instead of camelCase. Furthermore, static functions in the Titta class are found at the module level in TittaPy.

Static methods

Call Inputs Outputs Description
findAllEyeTrackers()
  1. eyeTrackerList: An array of structs with information about the connected eye trackers.
Gets the eye trackers that are connected to the system, as listed by the Tobii Pro SDK.
getSDKVersion()
  1. SDKVersion: A string containing the version of the Tobii SDK.
Get the version of the Tobii Pro SDK dynamic library that is used by Titta.
getSystemTimestamp()
  1. timestamp: An int64 scalar denoting Tobii system time in microseconds.
Get the current system time through the Tobii Pro SDK.
startLogging()
  1. initialBufferSize: (optional) value indicating for how many event memory should be allocated
  1. success: a boolean indicating whether logging was started successfully
Start listening to the eye tracker's log stream, store any events to buffer.
getLog()
  1. clearLogBuffer: (optional) boolean indicating whether the log buffer should be cleared
  1. data: struct containing all events in the log buffer, if available. If not available, an empty struct is returned.
Return and (optionally) remove log events from the buffer.
stopLogging() Stop listening to the eye tracker's log stream.

Construction and initialization

An instance of Titta/TittaMex/TittaPy is constructed by calling Titta(), TittaMex() or TittaPy(). Before it becomes fully functional, its init() method should be called to provide it with the address of an eye tracker to connect to. A list of connected eye trackers is provided by calling the static function Titta.findAllEyeTrackers().

Methods

The following method calls are available on a Titta instance:

Call Inputs Outputs Description
init()
  1. address: address of the eye tracker to connect to
Connect the Titta class instance to the Tobii eye tracker and prepare it for use.
getEyeTrackerInfo()
  1. eyeTracker: information about the eyeTracker that Titta is connected to.
Get information about the eye tracker that the Titta instance is connected to.
getTrackBox()
  1. trackBox: track box of the connected eye tracker.
Get the track box of the connected eye tracker.
getDisplayArea()
  1. displayArea: display area of the connected eye tracker.
Get the display area of the connected eye tracker.
applyLicenses()
  1. licenses: a cell array of licenses (char of uint8 representations of the license file read in binary mode).
  1. applyResults: a cell array of strings indicating whether license(s) were successfully applied.
Apply license(s) to the connected eye tracker.
clearLicenses() Clear all licenses that may have been applied to the connected eye tracker. Refreshes the eye tracker's info, so use getConnectedEyeTracker() to check for any updated capabilities.
hasStream()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
  1. supported: a boolean indicating whether the connected eye tracker supports providing data of the requested stream type.
Check whether the connected eye tracker supports providing a data stream of a specified type.
setIncludeEyeOpennessInGaze()
  1. include: a boolean, indicating whether eye openness samples should be provided in the recorded gaze stream or not. Default false.
  1. previousState: a boolean indicating the previous state of the include setting.
Set whether calls to start or stop the gaze stream should also start or stop the eye openness stream. An error will be raised if set to true, but the connected eye tracker does not provide an eye openness stream. If set to true, calls to start or stop the eyeOpenness stream will also start or stop the gaze stream.
start()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
  2. initialBufferSize: (optional) value indicating for how many samples memory should be allocated
  3. asGif: an (optional) boolean that is ignored unless the stream type is eyeImage. It indicates whether eye images should be provided gif-encoded (true) or a raw grayscale pixel data (false).
  1. success: a boolean indicating whether streaming to buffer was started for the requested stream type
Start streaming data of a specified type to buffer. The default initial buffer size should cover about 30 minutes of recording gaze data at 600Hz, and longer for the other streams. Growth of the buffer should cause no performance impact at all as it happens on a separate thread. To be certain, you can indicate a buffer size that is sufficient for the number of samples that you expect to record. Note that all buffers are fully in-memory. As such, ensure that the computer has enough memory to satify your needs, or you risk a recording-destroying crash.
isRecording()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
  1. status: a boolean indicating whether data of the indicated type is currently being streamed to buffer
Check if data of a specified type is being streamed to buffer.
consumeN()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
  2. N: (optional) number of samples to consume from the start of the buffer. Defaults to all.
  3. side: a string, possible values: first and last. Indicates from which side of the buffer to consume N samples. Default: first.
  1. data: struct containing data from the requested buffer, if available. If not available, an empty struct is returned.
Return and remove data of the specified type from the buffer. See the Tobii SDK documentation for a description of the fields.
consumeTimeRange()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync and notification.
  2. startT: (optional) timestamp indicating start of interval for which to return data. Defaults to start of buffer.
  3. endT: (optional) timestamp indicating end of interval for which to return data. Defaults to end of buffer.
  1. data: struct containing data from the requested buffer in the indicated time range, if available. If not available, an empty struct is returned.
Return and remove data of the specified type from the buffer. See the Tobii SDK documentation for a description of the fields.
peekN()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
  2. N: (optional) number of samples to peek from the end of the buffer. Defaults to 1.
  3. side: a string, possible values: first and last. Indicates from which side of the buffer to peek N samples. Default: last.
  1. data: struct containing data from the requested buffer, if available. If not available, an empty struct is returned.
Return but do not remove data of the specified type from the buffer. See the Tobii SDK documentation for a description of the fields.
peekTimeRange()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync and notification.
  2. startT: (optional) timestamp indicating start of interval for which to return data. Defaults to start of buffer.
  3. endT: (optional) timestamp indicating end of interval for which to return data. Defaults to end of buffer.
  1. data: struct containing data from the requested buffer in the indicated time range, if available. If not available, an empty struct is returned.
Return but do not remove data of the specified type from the buffer. See the Tobii SDK documentation for a description of the fields.
clear()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
Clear the buffer for data of the specified type.
clearTimeRange()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync and notification.
  2. startT: (optional) timestamp indicating start of interval for which to clear data. Defaults to start of buffer.
  3. endT: (optional) timestamp indicating end of interval for which to clear data. Defaults to end of buffer.
Clear data of the specified type within specified time range from the buffer.
stop()
  1. stream: a string, possible values: gaze, eyeOpenness, eyeImage, externalSignal, timeSync, positioning and notification.
  2. doClearBuffer: (optional) boolean indicating whether the buffer of the indicated stream type should be cleared
  1. success: a boolean indicating whether streaming to buffer was stopped for the requested stream type
Stop streaming data of a specified type to buffer.
enterCalibrationMode()
  1. doMonocular: boolean indicating whether the calibration is monocular or binocular
  1. hasEnqueuedEnter: boolean indicating whether a request to enter calibration mode has been sent to worker thread. Will return false if already in calibration mode through a previous call to this interface (it does not detect if other programs/code have put the eye tracker in calibration mode).
Queue request for the tracker to enter into calibration mode.
isInCalibrationMode()
  1. throwErrorIfNot: Optionally throws error if not in calibration mode. Default false.
  1. isInCalibrationMode: Boolean indicating whether eye tracker is in calibration mode.
Check whether eye tracker is in calibration mode.
leaveCalibrationMode()
  1. force: set to true if you want to be completely sure that the tracker is not in calibration mode after this call: this also ensures calibration mode is left if code other than this interface put the eye tracker into calibration mode
  1. hasEnqueuedLeave: boolean indicating whether a request to leave calibration mode has been sent to worker thread. Will return false if force leaving or if not in calibration mode through a previous call to this interface.
Queue request for the tracker to leave the calibration mode.
calibrationCollectData()
  1. coordinates: the coordinates of the point that the participant is asked to fixate, 2-element array with values in the range [0,1]
  2. eye: (optional) the eye for which to collect calibration data. Possible values: left and right
Queue request for the tracker to collect gaze data for a single calibration point.
calibrationDiscardData()
  1. coordinates: the coordinates of the point for which calibration data should be discarded, 2-element array with values in the range [0,1]
  2. eye: (optional) the eye for which collected calibration data should be discarded. Possible values: left and right
Queue request for the tracker to discard any already collected gaze data for a single calibration point.
calibrationComputeAndApply() Queue request for the tracker to compute the calibration function and start using it.
calibrationGetData() Request retrieval of the computed calibration as an (uninterpretable) binary stream.
calibrationApplyData()
  1. cal: a binary stream as gotten through calibrationGetData()
Apply the provided calibration data.
calibrationGetStatus()
  1. status: a string, possible values: NotYetEntered, AwaitingCalPoint, CollectingData, DiscardingData, Computing, GettingCalibrationData, ApplyingCalibrationData and Left
Get the current state of Titta's calibration mechanism.
calibrationRetrieveResult()
  1. result: a struct containing a submitted work item and the associated result, if any compelted work items are available
Get information about tasks completed by Titta's calibration mechanism.

Properties

The following read-only properties are available for a Titta instance:

Property Description
serialNumber Get connected eye tracker's serial number.
model Get connected eye tracker's model name.
firmwareVersion Get connected eye tracker's firmware version.
runtimeVersion Get connected eye tracker's runtime version.
address Get connected eye tracker's address.
capabilities Get connected eye tracker's exposed capabilities.
supportedFrequencies Get connected eye tracker's supported sampling frequencies.
supportedModes Get connected eye tracker's supported tracking modes.

The following settable properties are available for a Titta instance:

Property Description
deviceName Get or set connected eye tracker's device name.
frequency Get or set connected eye tracker's sampling frequency.
trackingMode Get or set connected eye tracker's tracking mode.

TalkToProLab class

Static methods

The below method can be called on a TalkToProLab instance or on the TalkToProLab class directly.

Call Inputs Outputs Description
makeAOITag
  1. tagName: The name of the tag
  2. groupName: (optional) the name of the tag group the tag belongs to.
  1. tag: The AOI tag.
Generates an AOI tag in the format expected by TalkToProLab.attachAOIToImage().

Construction

An instance of TalkToProLab is constructed by calling TalkToProLab() and providing the constructor with the name of the External Presenter project that should be opened in Pro Lab. One optional additional constructor arguments can be provided:

  • IPorFQDN: this is to indicate the IP or FQDN where the Pro Lab instance can be contacted. Defaults to 'localhost' for a one-computer setup. If you want to connect to Pro Lab on another computer, specify that computer's IP as this parameter.

When connected to Pro Lab on a remote computer, timestamps provided to sendStimulusEvent and sendCustomEvent will be automatically converted from the local computer's clock to the Pro Lab computer's clock. This conversation requires the clocks of the two computers to be synced, which will be done automatically whenever needed (automatically determined by the sync code). Depending on network performance, such a sync will take about 60 ms or more. Be aware of these possible slowdowns when calling sendStimulusEvent and sendCustomEvent.

Methods

The following method calls are available on a TalkToProLab instance

Call Inputs Outputs Description
disconnect() Disconnect from Tobii Pro Lab.
createParticipant()
  1. name: name of the media to find
  2. allowExisting: (optional) boolean indicating what to do if a participant with the provided name already exists in the Tobii Pro Lab project. If false, as error is generated, if true, the already existing participant. This toolbox will not create multiple participants with the same name (case sensitive).
  1. participantID: string: a unique ID for identifying the participant in the Pro Lab project
Create a new participant in the Tobii Pro Lab project.
findMedia()
  1. name: name of the media to find (case sensitive)
  2. throwWhenNotFound: (optional) boolean indicating whether an error should be thrown when the requested media is not found. Default: false
  1. mediaID: string: a unique ID for identifying the media in the Pro Lab project, or empty if not found
  2. mediaInfo: a struct containing other info about the media
Find media by name in the Tobii Pro Lab project.
uploadMedia()
  1. fileNameOrArray: either full path to a file to upload, or an array of pixel data (NxMx1 or NxMx3). Understood media types when a filename is provided are bmp, jpg, jpeg, png, gif, mp4 and avi
  2. name: name to store the media under
  1. mediaID: string: a unique ID for identifying the media in the Pro Lab project
  2. wasUploaded: a boolean indicated whether the media was uploaded (true) or whether media with the same name already existed in the Pro Lab project (false, not overwritten)
Upload media to the Tobii Pro Lab project.
attachAOIToImage
  1. mediaName: name of the media to define an AOI for
  2. aoiName: name of the AOI
  3. aoiColor: color in which to show the AOI in Pro Lab (RGB, 0-255)
  4. vertices: 2xN matrix of vertices of the AOI
  5. tags: array-of-structs defining tags to attach to the AOI. Use the static function TalkToProLab.makeAOITag to create the structs
Define an AOI for a specific image media in the Pro Lab project.
attachAOIToVideo
  1. mediaName: name of the media to define an AOI for
  2. aoiName: name of the AOI
  3. aoiColor: color in which to show the AOI in Pro Lab (RGB, 0-255)
  4. key_frame_vertices: a struct-array, with each element containing the following three fields: is_active: boolean (true/false) indicating whether the AOI is active from this frame onward (until the next key frame). time: integer (microseconds) locating the keyframe in time. vertices: vertices describing the AOI (should be a 2xN matrix)
  5. tags: array-of-structs defining tags to attach to the AOI. Use the static function TalkToProLab.makeAOITag to create the structs
Define an AOI for a specific video media in the Pro Lab project.
getExternalPresenterState()
  1. EPState: string indicating the state of the external presenter service in Pro Lab
Get the state of the external presenter service in Pro Lab.
startRecording()
  1. name: name by which the recording will be identified in Pro Lab
  2. scrWidth: width of the screen in pixels
  3. scrHeight: height of the screen in pixels
  4. scrLatency: (optional) numeric value indicating delay between drawing commands being issued and the image actually appearing on the screen
  5. skipStateCheck: boolean (optional) if true, checking whether Pro Lab is in the expected state is skipped
  1. recordingID: string: a unique ID for identifying the recording in the Pro Lab project
Tell Pro Lab to start a recording.
stopRecording() Stop a currently ongoing recording of Tobii Pro Lab.
finalizeRecording() Finalize the stopped recording in Tobii Pro Lab. Note: after this call, you must still click ok in the Pro Lab user interface.
discardRecording() Discard (remove) the stopped recording in Tobii Pro Lab.
sendStimulusEvent()
  1. mediaID: unique identifier by which shown media stimulus is identified in Pro Lab
  2. mediaPosition: location of the stimulus on screen in pixels, format: [left top right bottom]
  3. startTimeStamp: timestamp at which stimulus presentation started (in local time, in seconds, as provided by PsychToolbox)
  4. endTimeStamp: (optional) timestamp of when presentation of this stimulus ended (in local time, in seconds, as provided by PsychToolbox). If empty, it is assumed stimulus remained on screen until start of the next stimulus
  5. background: color of background (RGB: 0-255) on top of which stimulus was shown
  6. qDoTimeConversion: boolean (optional). If true, will convert provided timestamps from seconds to microseconds and do sync to a remote Pro Lab instance, if needed. For internal use, do not specify unless you know what you are doing
Inform Pro Lab when and where a media (stimulus) was shown.
sendCustomEvent()
  1. timeStamp: (optional) timestamp at which event occured (in local time, in seconds, as provided by PsychToolbox). If empty, current time is taken as event time
  2. eventType: string: event type name
  3. value: (optional) string, the value of the event
Add an event to Pro Lab's timeline.

Properties

The following read-only properties are available for a TalkToProLab instance:

Property Description
projectID The GUID indentifying the project opened in Pro Lab.
participantID Filled by TalkToProLab.createParticipant(). The GUID indentifying the participant for which a recording will be created in Pro Lab.
recordingID Filled by TalkToProLab.startRecording(). The GUID indentifying the current recording in Pro Lab.
clientClock Websocket interface to the clock API of Tobii Pro Lab.
clientProject Websocket interface to the project API of Tobii Pro Lab.
clientEP Websocket interface to the external presenter API of Tobii Pro Lab.
isTwoComputerSetup Boolean indicating whether Pro Lab is running on the same computer as this code (false) or another computer (true). Determined by means of the IPorFQDN argument provided to the constructor.