We are happy to announce the final version (non-beta) of Brainsight 2.3.
Before proceeding with this update, please read the following important information.
Minimum requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later is required. For a free update, visit <https://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade>. Contact us if you need to upgrade your Mac hardware.
- This version of Brainsight was tested against OS X 10.10.5 and 10.11.4.
Changes since version 2.2.15:
- Important: Brainsight 2.3 now requires Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks or newer. If your Mac is reasonably recent (~2007 or newer), you only need to update the OS, see Apple’s website. If your Mac is older, it’s possible you might not be able to update your OS, in which case contact Rogue Research for other upgrade options.
- Note: the project file format has changed. Brainsight 2.3 can open documents created by older versions of Brainsight, but older versions of Brainsight cannot open documents created by Brainsight 2.3.
- Note: Brainsight is now installed directly in the Applications folder, no longer in a Brainsight subfolder.
- Added support for the Brainsight NIRS device.
- Added support for the Axilum Robotics TMS-Robot.
- Added support for using the MNI ICBM 152 average brain as the anatomical, for cases where you do not have a scan of the subject. In this case, the subject registration procedure is different, and includes a new ‘scaling’ step in online sessions.
- An optional refinement of subject registration can now be performed in the Session > Validation step. This is often useful to make corrections to small registration errors.
- TTL triggers (ex: from our optional foot switch) can now be used during the subject registration procedure (useful for single operators).
- The ruler tool now works in 3D views, allowing measurement along any reconstruction surface.
- Added a new kind of bullseye view that is target-centric instead of coil-centric. Both kinds of bullseye views now also show a twist angle.
- The session window has been reorganized, with several new steps added or changed:
- IOBox – this step allows for configuration and testing of the IOBox and EMG pod. You can choose which triggers to use, how long of a dead time, and which EMG channels to record. Note that the option to trigger from high to low has been removed; all triggers are now low to high only. These settings are now remembered as part of the session, and different sessions can now have different options. This step also displays a live view of the data coming from the EMG pod, to help you ensure that electrodes are well attached.
- NIRS – this step allows for configuration and testing of the Brainsight NIRS device.
- Neuro Prax – this step allows for configuration and testing of the neuroConn NEURO PRAX® device.
- Axilum – this step allows for configuration and testing of the Axilum Robotics TMS-Robot.
- Electrodes – this step is now also available in offline sessions. Electrode positions can now be imported from more file formats. The file coordinates are converted to subject space by choosing either an atlas space or the anatomical’s world coordinates. Additionally, you can now optionally project the location of electrodes sampled with the pointer to the skin to compensate for the thickness of the electrode itself.
- Improvements to waveform views:
- You can now zoom in by holding the command key and dragging. A box will appear, and its contents will become the full extent of the view. To zoom out, you must still use the buttons in the HUD or option-scroll with the mouse.
- Multiple waveforms can now be viewed at the same time, staggered along the y axis, in the same view. This replaces the ‘EEG Vertically Stacked’ view (now removed) and works not only for EEG but for EMG, ECG, EOG, and NIRS.
- Waveform views can now be customized, specifically, you can show/hide channels.
- The ‘Fit in Y’ button was renamed to ‘Fit All Y’, and a new ‘Fit Y’ button fits by looking only at the currently visible time range.
- From Preferences, you can now customize colours for the background, axes, and waveforms themselves.
- Inverted the option-mouse-wheel zoom shortcut to be consistent with 2D and 3D views.
- You can now pan by using the mouse wheel.
- You can now view the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) and RMS (Root Mean Squared) of any waveform (EMG, EEG, NIRS)
- Improvements to the legend (at the top-right of waveform views):
- Can now be expanded or collapsed and overlapping or not, as needed.
- Can now be scrolled when there are a lot of channels.
- Provides a checkbox for every channel that can be toggled to show/hide that channel.
- Provides a contextual menu to show/hide waveforms and to centre a waveform in the view.
- EMG improvements:
- There is now a live display of EMG data.
- Added support for baseline subtraction in live EMG views. The Session > IOBox step now provides a button to compute a per-channel baseline (or you can specify them manually) and this value will be subtracted from all live EMG views. This doesn’t impact data recording, only visualization.
- Fixed a bug where motor map visualizations could not be created if all the peak-to-peak values were manually entered (not from our EMG Pod).
- EEG improvements:
- When exporting electrodes in Session > Electrodes, you can now choose the coordinate system to use (for file formats that allow it).
- Electrode orientation can now be exported/imported from text files (instead of only x, y, z).
- Electrodes are now displayed with orientation instead of only as a point.
- The Electrode Recording and Session > Electrode windows can now import electrode names and MNI positions from Brainsight .txt files.
- When creating a new session by importing a Brainsight .txt file, electrodes are now also created for any electrode information in the file.
- Electrodes are now listed in the session review window.
- When creating cortical targets, it is now easy to set their orientation to be optimal for placing a TMS coil on the scalp. Previously, clicking on a curvilinear reconstruction always set the orientation to be normal to the curvilinear reconstruction itself, now you can optionally specify a different reconstruction (usually the skin reconstruction) using the popup button under the AP/Lat/Twist sliders.
- The AP/Lat/Twist oblique crosshair angles can now be entered numerically in textfields, instead of only manipulated by sliders.
- During a session, Polaris tracking can now be disabled by toggling the ‘enable tracking’ checkbox. This is especially useful when working with NIRS, where the Polaris’ infrared emissions will cause interference.
- Better support for communicating with Magstim 200^2 and BiStim^2 stimulators. If the device reports an error condition, the status text is now shown in red. The BiStim2 is better supported with the pulse interval and second power now displayed and recorded as part of a sample.
- An atlas space’s 4×4 matrix can now be exported as a MINC .xfm file. This is especially useful when using our manual AC-PC-box method, as you can now export and use the exact registration in other software.
- Curvilinear reconstructions can now be cropped using the ‘3D Crop Tool’.
- Curvilinear reconstructions can now be exported as a folder of CAD files, one file per peel (this only gives the shape, not the colours).
- You can now change the opacity of curvilinear reconstructions.
- Surface reconstructions (ex: a skin reconstruction) can now be made with even more smoothness than before.
- When importing/exporting reconstructions to CAD files, atlas space coordinates can no longer be used, since they often involve a scaling component and would thus distort the shape/size of the reconstruction.
- In the session window, pressing left and right with the Apple Remote now changes steps.
- In the session perform and session review windows, a new optional table column is available that shows how a sample was created, ex: by TTL1, TTL2, etc.
- The file format of .txt files exported from the review window has changed slightly: EMG channels are now numbered starting at 1 instead of at 0 (to match how they are displayed in the user interface).
- Cloning a session now preserves more details, such as the view layout, view orientations, crosshairs position, custom views, etc.
- To accommodate different accents, the preferences window now allows you to specify custom words for ‘sample’, ‘next’, and ‘previous’ when using speech recognition.
- In 2D and 3D views, holding the command key and scrolling the mouse wheel is a new shortcut for panning.
- Added new region painting shortcuts: as before, when using the various painting tools, holding the option key toggles between paint and fill; now, holding the shift key toggles between paint and erase. So by using option and shift, you can now, paint, erase, fill, and erase fill without having to switch tools.
- Fixed a bug where the curvature of rectangular grids was not behaving as intended. The maximum curvature now results in ‘tighter’ grids.
- In Preferences, the highlight colour used when selecting targets/landmarks/samples can now be customized (the default is still red).
- Various performance improvements: much faster waveform views, better handling of large datasets, faster rotation of 3D views, faster computation of atlas spaces, faster computation of automatic curvilinear, faster ROI painting.
- The newest versions of the KeySpan (3.0) and FTDI (2.3) device drivers are now installed (these control communication with RS-232 serial devices like the Polaris camera and Magstim TMS stimulator).
- Fixed miscellaneous bugs.
Known Issues (new to 2.3 vs 2.2.15):
- ‘Save As’ can sometimes cause crashes, and so has been removed for now pending a complete fix. (There is no problem with regular ‘Save’.)
- If you have both a Polaris and Magstim device connected to your Brainsight Mac, one or the other sometimes may not be detected. If this occurs, just use the “Reset Polaris” or “Scan” buttons.
- The user manual is not yet fully up-to-date with the software.
Download:
- Brainsight 2.3 can be downloaded from our website here <https://www.rogue-research.com/downloads.html>
- You’ll need your serial number, which you can get from Brainsight itself from the Brainsight menu > ‘Enter Serial Number’.
- Make sure to also download and install the newest “Support Files” (also newly released). If your Support Files are out of date, Brainsight will warn you at launch.
Feedback:
Thank you,
The Rogue Research Team
