a free wrapper for MATLAB DAQ to make experiments easier
Kontroller is a free wrapper for MATLAB's DAQ toolbox that makes it easy to begin doing experiments. Spend less time writing code and more time doing real science. I don't know of a simpler solution that lets you get started with your experiments. If you know of one, please write to me.
Name a physical channel on your NI board to record from it or write to it. Delete the name to stop using it. It's that simple.
Choose vectors from your workspace to construct control paradigms to write data to devices.
Record continuous analogue data while writing predefined vectors to analogue or digital outputs at the same time. Control LEDs while measuring from light sensors. Turn stepper motors while measuring from a strain gauge. No matter what your task, it's the same config.
Don't want to record data but just see what your data stream looks like? A handy scope function looks at live data without recording anything. You can throw away that clunky Tektronik that's been hogging space on your ephys rack.
kontroller can be easily automated by creating Control Paradigms that specify sequences of reads and writes to your devices. Control Paradimgs can be run one after the other, with arbitrary inter-trial functions.
kontroller is fully programmable, and can be used as a command line tool for more complex tasks.
The recommended way to install kontroller is to use my package manager:
% copy and paste this into your MATLAB prompt
websave('install.m','https://git.io/viWvp')
install sg-s/kontroller
install sg-s/srinivas.gs_mtoolsif you have git installed, you can
# copy and paste this into into your shell
git clone https://github.com/sg-s/kontroller
git clone https://github.com/sg-s/srinivas.gs_mtools and don't forget to add these folders to your MATLAB path
kontroller will not be developed further, apart from bug fixes. kontroller2 is an exciting new object-oriented successor to kontroller, which will extend kontroller's capabilities in many ways.
kontroller generates MATLAB .mat data. In each .mat file generated by kontroller, the following variables exist:
ControlParadigm
% 1xN structure containing control signals that were used
% ControlParadigm contains fields called "Name" and "Outputs".
% "Outputs" is a CxT matrix, where C is the # of output channels,
% and T is the total length of the trial
data
% 1xM (M<=N) structure containing data
% fields in data are dynamically created by the names of the input channels
% e.g., data(4).voltage is a NxT matrix, for N trials from the 4th control
% paradigm
metadata
% 1x1 structure containing metadata, if any
OutputChannelNames
% 1xC cell array containing names of output channels
SamplingRate
% scalar, samples/sec
timestamps
% 3xT matrix containing the timestamps of every trial acquired
% timestamps(1,:) contains the control paradigm corresponding to every trial
% timestamps(2,:) contains the trial # of every trial
% datestr(timestamps(3,:)) shows the timestamps every trial was startedIf you use kontroller, please write to me to cite this appropriately!
The following publications have used kontroller: