[open] gazepoint eye tracker - get TCP/IP stream into opensesame data output

MAR

Hi There! Great work on the program and forum. I've haven't seen a post regarding how take a data stream from a socket and place it into the opensesame data output. I'm familiar with how to create a variable that shows up in the data file...
so far i've been able to connect to the socket. the 'open gaze' API (http://gazept.com/Publications/Gazepoint_API_v2.0.pdf) provides a great functionality so that I can call the device with little trouble... but how to take a 60hz stream within opensesame, and log it with the data for analysis, this is where i have stalled and could use some advice!

thanks so much for any help!
Martin

import socket
import sys

#create TCP/IP socket
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)

#connect socket to the port 
server_address = ('127.0.0.1', 4242)
print 'connecting to %s port %s' % server_address
sock.connect(server_address)

sebastiaan

Hi Martin,

If you want to log continuous data to the OpenSesame logfile, you're best off not using a logger item (which creates a spreadsheet-like format) and writing the data yourself using self.log() in an inline_script. For example ...

for i in range(3):
    self.log('This is number %d' % i)

... will give a log file like ...

This is number 0
This is number 1
This is number 2

See also:

• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/usage/logging/

But I'm not sure whether this is your main question, or whether you have trouble retrieving the data from the GazePoint tracker in the first place? If the latter is the case, you're better off first asking the manufacturer if they can provide you with some working Python code. Once you have this, we can see how you can incorporate this into OpenSesame, which shouldn't be too difficult.

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

neon

Hi Mar (and Sebastiaan),

I'm looking to do something similar with the Gazepoint GP3 eye tracker. Were you able to make any headway with Sebastiaans answer? I am wondering how would you continually log data from the eye tracker, whilst presenting a stimuli? I am guessing you would run an inline script in parallel to the stimuli (e.g. sketchpad item) and have it poll the eye tracker and log the received data? E.g. in pseudo code the script would basically say "while 1: poll the eyetracker, write the data to the log", but would stop when the stimuli was no longer displayed.
So, I'm wanting to only grab the eye tracker data during trials, rather than continually.
I hope this makes sense - please let me know if you have any thoughts.

TIA,

Neon

neon

OK, maybe I should have waited before posting the above, as I've had a crack at getting the Gazepoint working with Opensesame. I've done more or less what I mentioned above and it seems to work, but I'm concerned its maybe very inelegant or worse...

I've created a global variable to flag when the eyetracker should be recording. The experimental trial runs parallel (in a parallel item) with an inline script that polls the eye tracker continuously whilst the previously mentioned flag is true. When the experimental trial is finished (e.g. a key has been pressed), another inline script (below the keypress event) sets the global flag to zero. This stops the recording (and writing the x,y and time co-ordinates to the log file via self.log().

Is there a better way to run the script to collect the eye tracking data for an arbitrary period of time? Does what I have done make you want to physically vomit? If so, and you have a superior / safer way of doing this, I would be really grateful if you could let me know.

Also, to try and record timing for the eye tracker data relative to logging data from the keypress event, I've used another global variable that records the time at the start of the trial. Again, I suspect this is quite a crime.

Let me know your thoughts, and many thanks in advance.

Neon