Python
BrainVoyager 22 Now Available With Major New Features
11 12, 20
We are happy to announce the availability of BrainVoyager 22.0, which is a major release introducing important new features. The two most outstanding new features are BV Notebooks for reproducible data analysis and an advanced cortex segmentation tool that is based on a deep neural network (DNN) with an advanced "Tiramisu" architecture. These as well as other new features, enhancements and bug fixes are described in the release notes and the updated 22.0 User's Guide.
The DNN segmentation tool has been developed for high-resolution sub-millimeter data to segment grey matter with very high accuracy both along the inner (white-grey) and outer (pial) boundary. The high-quality segmentations are especially suited for cortical thickness measurements and mesoscopic (laminar and columnar) fMRI analyses.
The introduced BV Notebooks offer (script) programmers a means to write Python code to document performed analysis steps. BV Notebooks are inspired by Jupyter notebooks but they offer many BrainVoyager-specific features. Probably the most unique feature is that they support reproducible analyses also for users that do not (want to) program by converting essential GUI actions into corresponding code. Both manual as well as auto-generated code can be easily enriched with images, animations, rendered Markdown text as well as embedded BrainVoyager viewers enabling any BrainVoyager user to create rich documents. For a more detailed description of BV Notebooks, please read the BrainVoyager 22 release blog. To install BrainVoyager 22.0 for your operating system, go directly to the Downloads page.
The DNN segmentation tool has been developed for high-resolution sub-millimeter data to segment grey matter with very high accuracy both along the inner (white-grey) and outer (pial) boundary. The high-quality segmentations are especially suited for cortical thickness measurements and mesoscopic (laminar and columnar) fMRI analyses.
The introduced BV Notebooks offer (script) programmers a means to write Python code to document performed analysis steps. BV Notebooks are inspired by Jupyter notebooks but they offer many BrainVoyager-specific features. Probably the most unique feature is that they support reproducible analyses also for users that do not (want to) program by converting essential GUI actions into corresponding code. Both manual as well as auto-generated code can be easily enriched with images, animations, rendered Markdown text as well as embedded BrainVoyager viewers enabling any BrainVoyager user to create rich documents. For a more detailed description of BV Notebooks, please read the BrainVoyager 22 release blog. To install BrainVoyager 22.0 for your operating system, go directly to the Downloads page.
BrainVoyager 20 now available!
12 12, 15
A major new release of BrainVoyager is now available with many substantial new features. A first change you might observe is that the name of the software is now simply "BrainVoyager" since the "QX" part - indicating cross-platform availability - is no longer needed since BrainVoyager is known as a cross-platform product since almost 15 years now. BrainVoyager 20 is equivalent to BrainVoyager QX 3 and the latter name will also be used interchangeably for backward compatibility. While BrainVoyager 20 keeps its elegant user interface, a powerful new tool has been introduced to create, manage and document your projects. This data analysis manager tool can be used to create projects and to run basic analysis pipelines in the same way for the data of all subjects of a project. The data manager can be viewed as a batch processing tool to handle experiments no matter how big they are without the need to write scripts. In addition to batch processing, the data manager keeps track of created data and performed analysis steps in a data base providing a persistent overview of the state of all created experiments. BrainVoyager 20 also introduces automatic MNI normalisation of anatomical and functional documents, both via standard dialogs for individual data sets as well as via the new data manager for all subjects of an experiment. Other important new features include representational similarity (RSA) analysis, a new cover-flow like open documents panel and a new zoom view panel. Many enhancement for the analysis of high-resolution sub-millimetre data are available, including a masked VTC-VTC across-run registration tool and improved handling of non-1mm data for cortex-based alignment. Besides many other enhancements, there is now experimental support for an embedded Python interpreter providing an easy and unified alternative to the standard JavaScript scripting and C++ plugin development. For a more detailed description of the new features, please read the BrainVoyager 20 release blog.