JSON_loading

Digital Event Series

Digital event series are data represented by an ordered sequence of timestamps. Examples include spike timestamps from extracellular recordings or behavioral events (e.g. go cue, reward given).

Digital Interval Series

16 bit binary representation

{
  "filepath": "ttl.bin",
  "data_type": "digital_interval",
  "name": "laser",
  "format": "uint16",
  "channel": 2, // REQUIRED, bit (0 based) for channel of interest
  "transition": "rising", //optional, 
  "clock": "master", //optional, clock signal to assign to these events
  "header_size": 0 //optional, number of bytes to skip at start of file
}

Element	Description	Required?	Type	Notes
filepath	Path to binary file, relative to JSON file.	Yes	string
data_type		Yes	string	“digital_interval”
name	Name of the data once it is loaded into Neuralyzer	Yes	string
format		Yes	string	“uint16”
channel	Specifies which bit in binary representation should be extracted as digital interval	No	number	Default is 0. Valid values range from 0-15
Transition	“rising” will count a TTL interval as one extending from low-to-high transitions to high-to-low transitions. “falling” will count a TTL interval as one extending from high-to-low to low-to-high transitions.	No	string	Default is “rising”. Valid values are “rising” or “falling”.
clock	Clock signal to associate with this digital interval	No	string	The clock string must match the name of a loaded clock signal.
header_size	This many bytes will be skipped at the beginning of the file before reading the rest.	No	number	Default is 0. Accepted values range from 0 to size of file in bytes.

CSV

{
  "filepath": "ttl.bin",
  "data_type": "digital_interval",
  "name": "laser",
  "format": "csv"

}

Element	Description	Required?	Type	Notes
filepath	Path to csv file, relative to JSON file.	Yes	string
data_type		Yes	string	“digital_interval”
name	Name of the data once it is loaded into Neuralyzer	Yes	string
format		Yes	string	“csv”

Tabular Binary Events (multi_column_binary)

Use this format when you have a tabular file with a time column and multiple binary event columns (0/1 values), and you want to extract intervals from contiguous “on” regions.

{
  "filepath": "events.dat",
  "data_type": "digital_interval",
  "name": "channel_v0",
  "format": "multi_column_binary",
  "header_lines_to_skip": 5,
  "data_column": 1,
  "delimiter": "\t",
  "binary_threshold": 0.5
}

Element	Description	Required?	Type	Notes
filepath	Path to tabular data file, relative to JSON file.	Yes	string
data_type		Yes	string	“digital_interval”
name	Name of the data once loaded	Yes	string
format		Yes	string	“multi_column_binary”
header_lines_to_skip	Number of lines to skip before column headers	No	integer	Default is 5
time_column	Column index (0-based) for timestamps	No	integer	Default is 0
data_column	Column index (0-based) for binary event data	No	integer	Default is 1
delimiter	Column separator character	No	string	Default is “ (tab)
binary_threshold	Values >= threshold treated as 1 (on)	No	number	Default is 0.5
sampling_rate	Hz for converting fractional time to indices	No	number	Default is 0.0
clock	TimeFrame to associate with intervals	No	string	Must match a loaded TimeFrame name

How-To Guide

See How to Load Tabular Binary Event Data for a complete walkthrough with examples.

TimeFrame

TimeFrame objects define the time basis for other data. Multiple formats are supported.

Tabular Binary Events (multi_column_binary)

Load timestamps from a tabular file with fractional time values:

{
  "filepath": "events.dat",
  "data_type": "time",
  "name": "daq_clock",
  "format": "multi_column_binary",
  "header_lines_to_skip": 5,
  "time_column": 0,
  "delimiter": "\t",
  "sampling_rate": 14000.0
}

Element	Description	Required?	Type	Notes
filepath	Path to tabular data file	Yes	string
data_type		Yes	string	“time”
name	Name for the TimeFrame	Yes	string
format		Yes	string	“multi_column_binary”
header_lines_to_skip	Lines to skip before column headers	No	integer	Default is 5
time_column	Column index (0-based) with timestamps	No	integer	Default is 0
delimiter	Column separator	No	string	Default is “
sampling_rate	Multiplier to convert fractional time to integers	No	number	Default is 1.0

Sampling Rate Required for Fractional Times

TimeFrame stores integer values. Set sampling_rate to convert fractional seconds to integers (e.g., 14000.0 for 14kHz sampling).