Connection to NIRStar

The Lab Streaming Layer (LSL) (Kothe, C. (2014). Lab streaming layer https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer) is used to establish a connection to NIRStar / Aurora.

To establish a connection with NIRStar, just press the “Connect to NIRStar” button in the control settings, which are located in the top right of the main window.

A window with available LSL streams will appear (see below). Select the preferred stream and confirm by clicking “OK”.

NOTE: Ensure that the firewall is setup correctly and allows the specific ports and applications to connect to each other!

NIRx LSL Interface

The NIRX LSL Interface is the default connection type to NIRStar since it allows flexible sampling rates and also transfers the layout information defined in NIRStar. This is not possible using the NIRx SDK, which requires the layout to be loaded manually in Turbo-Satori. If the NIRx SDK Interface is not explicitly selected, the connection will be automatically established using the LSL. To be able to make use of this interface, one needs to enable LSL in NIRStar.

To enable the LSL Interface in NIRStar, browse to the Hardware Configuration Dialog, select the Data Streaming tab and enable the “Enable LSL streaming” check box. As Data Type you can either choose “Raw Data” or “Hb States”. Both options are supported in Turbo-Satori. Note that the “Both” option is currently not supported! If one selects “Raw Data”, Turbo-Satori will calculate the Hb States internally using the baseline period defined in the analysis settings of the main window. If the Hb States type is selected, the Hb transformation will be performed by NIRStar using the defined settings in the [HB] Parameters tab of the Hardware Configuration dialog.

The LSL Interface is designed so that it allows Turbo-Satori to automatically find NIRStar if it is available in the same network. No explicit definition of a host-name or IP is necessary. If the automatic discovery is not possible, a configuration file (lsl_api.cfg in the Turbo-Satori application folder) can be used to specify the IP or host-name. Simply adapt the lsl_api.cfg by adding the host-name or IP in the “KnownPeers” parameter. You can find more information about connectivity settings in LSL on this website: https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer/wiki/NetworkConnectivity.wiki#customizing-network-features-of-lsl

NIRx SDK Interface (deprecated, removed in V1.2.4)

To connect to NIRStar using the NIRx SDK Interface you only need to check the “Use NIRx SDK Interface” check box as shown in the figure below:

Below the check box, one can define the IP or host-name of the computer running NIRStar. To check the IP of the computer running NIRStar, one can open the command prompt (on Windows: press Windows key and type “cmd”) and execute the “IPCONFIG” command. Search for the Ethernet adapter you want to use, and write down the “IPv4 Address”. This address needs to be entered in Turbo-Satori.

NOTE: If you want to run Turbo-Satori and NIRStar on the same computer, you can either use 127.0.0.1 or localhost as the NIRStar IP parameter.

In NIRStar you also need to turn on the SDK data streaming in the Data Streaming tab of the Hardware Configuration Dialog (see figure below).

You can also change the TCP Port, if necessary, but the default setting in Turbo-Satori is the same as the one in NIRStar (Port 45342). Disable the compression option (default) and keep the Buffer Depth set to 1 (default).

Note: The SDK only allows the use of all sources and detectors attached (e.g., the lowest sampling rate). Higher sampling rates can cause delay in the data transfer and even cause a loss of frames. This will be indicated by a green light of the Overflow led in the Data Streaming info pane of the NIRStar main window.

Always ensure that you have selected all sources and detectors connected to your system in the Channel setup tab of the Hardware Configuration Dialog in NIRStar (e.g., set the number of steps to max).