Tracker

Tracker is the real-time spot tracker and configuration tool at the core of ITS. Tracker has integrated graphical calibrator and experiment configuration tools allowing the same system to be used for multiple experimental paradigms. Setup and switching between paradigms is accomplished in moments. During an experiment, Tracker provides visual feedback with user-selectable live-video, present and past position overlays, the locations of reinforcement and reinforced events, etc. Tracker can track location and azimuthal direction in 2-D or 3-D. It stores the coordinates of the tracked object at the 50/60 Hz television field rate and optionally stores concurrent video on the hard disk drive as an .AVI file. Tracker also allows the user to configure interactive experimental paradigms by setting when external devices are triggered by arbitrary, position-dependent and/or time-dependent events such as arena rotation velocity, location-triggered shock, food delivery, etc. Tracker provides a continuously-updated summary of events (i.e. elapsed time, elapsed path, time to first event etc). The track and event data are stored in a transparent ASCII format. 3-D tracking is achieved using two parallel cameras and an optical disparity algorithm.

With the optional two-camera configuration, Tracker corrects tracking errors due to

1. Lens non-linearity including fish-eye lenses
2. Parallax, especially when an animal changes elevation such as by rearing away from the optical center of the camera.

Off-line batch-mode data analysis is done with TrackAnalysis.