Set up EyeLink and PyEdfRead in 2024

[Evelyn92]

I found it a bit tricky to get pyEdfRead working in 2024. Here are the steps I followed to make the package work on my Windows system. Note that some updates differ from the instructions provided here:
https://www.axonlab.org/hcph-sops/data-collection/notes-software/#conversion-of-et-recordings-into-bids

1. Install EyeLink

   • The EyeLink MUST be installed before PyEDFRead and Pychopy.
   • Register a new account for downloading the EyeLink Developers Kits.
     https://www.sr-research.com/support/forumdisplay.php?fid=3
   • The activation of the new account might take up for 24 hours.
   • Install the EyeLink Developer Kit and EyeLink Data Viewer
     

2. Ensure you have installed the Microsoft C++ Build Tools.

   • Download them from the Visual Studio website.
     https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/zh-hans/visual-cpp-build-tools/
   • Make sure to select the "Desktop development with C++" workload during the installation.
   • Properly set up the environment variable:
     • For example on Windows system

     D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.40.33807\bin\Hostx64\x64
     D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.40.33807\include
     

3. Prepare conda virtual env, with python version above 3.7. Some unexpected issues will occur if the python version=3.6 or below.

   	$ condo create -n edfenv python=3.8
   	$ conda activate edfenv
   	$ pip install cython
   	$ pip install pandas
        $ pip install h5py

4. Modify the files in the directory of EyeLink for supporting Windows

   • Edit edftypes.h in the dir: C:\Program Files (x86)\SR Research\EyeLink\Includes\eyelink
     

5. Install pyedfread from the original repo:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/s-ccs/pyedfread

[oesteban]

Thanks @Evelyn92 - our SOPs are only for Ubuntu installations, so I would like to add this as an appendix for Windows users. Does that make sense to you?

[Evelyn92]

Thanks @Evelyn92 - our SOPs are only for Ubuntu installations, so I would like to add this as an appendix for Windows users. Does that make sense to you?

Hi @oesteban , that sounds like a great idea :)