Difference between revisions of "Ultrasound acquisition"

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m (Created page with "The Phonology Lab has a [http://bkultrasound.com/ultrasonix/systems/sonixtabletq SonixTablet] system from Ultrasonix for performing ultrasound studies. Consult with Susan Lin for…")
 
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The Phonology Lab has a [http://bkultrasound.com/ultrasonix/systems/sonixtabletq SonixTablet] system from Ultrasonix for performing ultrasound studies. Consult with Susan Lin for permission to use this system.
 
The Phonology Lab has a [http://bkultrasound.com/ultrasonix/systems/sonixtabletq SonixTablet] system from Ultrasonix for performing ultrasound studies. Consult with Susan Lin for permission to use this system.
   
== Using the system ==
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== Data acquisition workflow ==
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The standard way to acquire ultrasound data is to run an Opensesame experiment on a data acquisition computer that communicates with the ultrasound system and saves timestamped data and metadata for each acquisition. The first step in the process is to create the experiment
   
 
=== Prepare the experiment ===
 
=== Prepare the experiment ===
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The first step is to prepare your experiment. You will need to create an [[ultrasession in opensesame|Opensesame script]] with a series of speaking prompts and data acquisition commands. In simple situations you can simply edit a few variables in our sample script and be ready to go.
 
The first step is to prepare your experiment. You will need to create an [[ultrasession in opensesame|Opensesame script]] with a series of speaking prompts and data acquisition commands. In simple situations you can simply edit a few variables in our sample script and be ready to go.
   
=== Start the ultrasound system ===
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=== Run the experiment ===
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==== Start the ultrasound system ====
   
 
# Turn on the ultrasound system's power supply, found on the floor beneath the system.
 
# Turn on the ultrasound system's power supply, found on the floor beneath the system.
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# Start the Sonix RP software.
 
# Start the Sonix RP software.
   
=== Start the data acquisition system ===
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==== Start the data acquisition system ====
   
   

Revision as of 10:02, 19 August 2015

The Phonology Lab has a SonixTablet system from Ultrasonix for performing ultrasound studies. Consult with Susan Lin for permission to use this system.

Data acquisition workflow

The standard way to acquire ultrasound data is to run an Opensesame experiment on a data acquisition computer that communicates with the ultrasound system and saves timestamped data and metadata for each acquisition. The first step in the process is to create the experiment

Prepare the experiment

The first step is to prepare your experiment. You will need to create an Opensesame script with a series of speaking prompts and data acquisition commands. In simple situations you can simply edit a few variables in our sample script and be ready to go.

Run the experiment

Start the ultrasound system

  1. Turn on the ultrasound system's power supply, found on the floor beneath the system.
  2. Turn on the ultrasound system with the pushbutton on the left side of the machine.
  3. Start the Sonix RP software.

Start the data acquisition system

Troubleshooting

Early versions of ultracomm and ultrasession.py had issues with occasional hangs when run in an Opensesame experiment. These problems are believed to have been resolved as of the Summer 2015 0.2.1-alpha release of ultracomm when used with an up-to-date ultrasession.py and following the inline scripts used in the sample experiment. Nevertheless, it is good form to check for instances of sox and ultracomm that continue to run after your experiment has concluded, as they may continue to write data to disk until they are terminated. To do this press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and open the Task Manager. Check the Processes tab for instances of sox.exe and ultracomm.exe and use the End Process button to terminate these programs if they are present.

A known issue is that the ultrasound system sometimes starts imaging but never sends data to the acquisition computer. This situation occurs in about 1% of acquisitions and results in empty .bpr and .bpr.idx.txt files.