Tobii Pro SDK support

[alisdt]

PyGaze doesn't currently implement the new Tobii SDK, module tobii_research:

http://developer.tobiipro.com/python/python-sdk-reference-guide.html

I've successfully adapted an experiment to use this SDK using inline code in OpenSesame, so I think I'm in a position to try and add this. I'm creating this issue to flag it up to anyone else who is interested (and as a reminder to myself!).

It seems that older Tobii devices don't support this new SDK, and newer devices don't support the old one -- and I'm not sure whether there are any in the middle that support both.

This SDK uses a callback which can cause problems in OpenSesame, see:

open-cogsci/OpenSesame#545

(the solution is probably to restrict what's done in the callback, rather than making changes to OpenSesame)

[arnohakk]

We are using the TX300 (which to my knowledge supports both SDKs) and would also be interested in migrating, perhaps it would be good to stay in touch.

[grebdems]

Hi @alisdt !
Magnus from Tobii here. Funny that you would happen to mention this now, as we (at Tobii Pro) are just looking into doing exactly the same!
Maybe we can bounce some ideas on how to best do this? I'm guessing you have more experience with PyGaze, and we have more experience with the Tobii Pro SDK...

Some questions we're considering:

1. Should this be a new trackertype? (or should it replace the exising one?) I'm leaning towards adding it as a new type, as the old class has a lot of methods that are not in BaseEyeTracker, and there's no knowing if someone is using them or not.
2. Should the new type retain the output/log format of the old one? It's somewhat limited (doesn't include pupil data, for example), but again, I don't know if there are people out there that have built analysis code on this format (noticed that there is no support for this format in PyGazeAnalyzer though).

Regarding device support, Tobii Pro SDK supports almost all of Tobii's older eye trackers (see http://developer.tobiipro.com/tobiiprosdk/supportedeyetrackers.html for full list). Essentially, it should support any model that the previous SDK did, but we have "only" verified it with the ones on that list.

Btw, I'm leaving for vacation now, so I will probably not personally push any code here, but my colleague should probably be able to get something up during the coming weeks!

[alisdt]

@arnohakk Interesting, I ended up using the new SDK because our TX300 refused to work with the old plugins.

[alisdt]

@grebdems

Thanks, it's great to see Tobii taking an interest in free software!

1. I'm not that knowledgeable in PyGaze but I would imagine a new type would be advisable. This would allow people to keep running old experiments on older equipment without having to keep a previous version of PyGaze around.

2. My code just logged everything (including OpenSesame loop variables, which caused the bug I referenced above). I'll upload an example experiment soon and make it license compatible with PyGaze / OpenSesame, in case you want to incorporate part of the code into a PyGaze PR. For us, I know that pupillometry would be important.

[esdalmaijer]

Great to see so many people are looking to help PyGaze advance! As for the questions above:

1. I definitely think it would be best to write a completely new class, e.g. TobiiNewSDK or something. In fact, as Tobii itself suggests that the new SDK should work with older models too, I would be in favour of renaming my older Tobii class, and making the new SDK class the default. The new SDK should inherit the BaseEyeTracker class, and most of it's functionality should be implemented.

2. It's not necessary, and I'd be happy to write an extension for PyGaze Analyser to read the new format (once I actually have an example, as I currently don't have access to a Tobii machine).

[grebdems]

Wow! Great with a lot of action on this one!
@esdalmaijer We'll go with your suggestions. That gives us the most freedom!
Do you want us to push some intermediary commits on a branch, or should we just push everything as a pull request once we think we're done?
Do you have any more examples or tests that we can use to verify that everything works ok? (except for the ones in examples/)

[arnohakk]

@alisdt We are using Pygaze with the old SDK with the TX300 for two years now, it works fine.
@grebdems Great to hear that Tobii is active here as well, it would be great to have an online fixation algorithm in either the SDK or Pygaze since all of the code we found so far does not consider the freely moving head. The Pygaze algorithms are still somewhat working fine, but are "wrong".

[alisdt]

As promised here's my code:

https://github.com/alisdt/tobii-pro-sdk-opensesame-example

Once support has been added to PyGaze I'll go back to make it clear that it's obsolete. For now I've left a warning for folks to check PyGaze / OpenSesame support before using my code.

[esdalmaijer]

Perhaps of use: @oguayasa has been developing a Python wrapper for the new Tobii Pro SDK too. https://github.com/oguayasa/tobii_pro_wrapper

@grebdems: Please use whatever way of working you like best. I'd be happy to provide comments on step-by-step commits, but would also be happy with you doing a pull request once everything is finished. (Please do keep in mind that I don't actually have access to a Tobii tracker, so I rely on people in this thread and others to do the actual testing.)

As for the testing: The examples are a bit dated, I'll see if I can set up some newer ones :)

[oguayasa]

thanks for posting @esdalmaijer ! If anyone has a tobii tracker and runs into bugs with the wrapper, please let me know.

As a quick side note, Tobii has also put out an "upgrade key" that should make older model non-Pro trackers compatible with the new SDK as well.

[grebdems]

Pull request: #100

[esdalmaijer]

Thanks! Very useful addition! As I mentioned before, I'm not in a position to test it (no Tobii trackers around), but I will advertise this in the hope that people will give your code a test run on their own systems. (I assume you already thoroughly tested this, but still good to advertise the new option.)

I've also added OpenSesame support by updating the plug-ins. See 09f1836

[alisdt]

I'd like to add my thanks! I'll test this as soon as it makes its way into an OpenSesame release.

[esdalmaijer]

Pinging @smathot. You back from all your conferencing yet? ;)

You might be interested in the above, #100, and 09f1836