Workflow Tutorial#

  1. Download the following workflow (.bonsai file) and open it with Bonsai:

    uclaminiscopev4-miniscopedaq-savedata.bonsai
    uclaminiscopev4-miniscopedaq-savedata

  2. Set the UCLAMiniscopeV4 operator’s Index property to the value that corresponds to the index of your miniscope.

    screenshot of ucla miniscope v4 node properties for index

    1. Set the Index value to 0 by editing the Index field that appears in the Properties pane after left-clicking the UCLAMiniscopeV4 node.

    2. Test the selected Index value by starting the workflow [1] and double left-clicking the Image node. If the displayed video stream corresponds to that of your miniscope, proceed to the next step. Otherwise, increment the Index value by 1 and repeat this step.

    Note

    A device index specifies a camera device. If there are additional cameras connected to your PC (including laptop webcams), finding the correct index value might involve an iterative trial-and-error process.

  3. Save data according to your specifications:

    Image video data:

    screenshot of videowriter properties

    • Left-click the VideoWriter node and edit fields under the properties pane. Confirm frame rate matches that of the UCLA Miniscope v4.

    • For FourCC value recommendations, GREY and FFV1 are recommended for neural recordings.

      • GREY does not perform data compression.

      • FFV1 performs lossless data compression.

      MJPG or similar is sufficient for behavioral recordings.

    Orientation quarternion data:

    screenshot of csvwriter properties

    • Left-click the CsvWriter node and edit fields under the properties pane

    Note

    • It is best practice to set the Suffix property to Timestamp or FileCount or set the Overwrite property to False to avoid accidentally overwriting important data.

    • Left-click a property field’s corresponding label to display the property’s detail at the bottom of the properties pane (e.g. how it is for the FileName property in the two above screenshots)

    • To temporarily disable saving image or orientation data, disable the respective Writer operator left-clicking the Disable option in the menu that appears after right-clicking an enabled node (or left-clicking the node and using the Ctrl+D hotkey). Re-enable the Writer node by left-clicking the Enable option in the menu that appears after right-clicking a disabled node (or left-clicking the node and using the Ctrl+Shift+D hotkey).

  4. Start the workflow. [1]

  5. Stop the workflow. [2]

  6. Navigate to the directory where data was saved which was specified in step 3. Confirm the data exists and comports with expectations. The image can be easily viewed in any media playback software that supports the FourCC value specified in step 3. The orientation data can be easily viewed in any spreadsheet software that can supports .csv files.