sappelhoff / brainvision-validator

Validator for BrainVision EEG file triplets

BrainVision-Validator

TL;DR: This npm module allows for validation of BrainVision EEG files.

BrainVision is the name of a file format commonly used for storing electroencephalography (EEG) data. Originally, it was put forward by the company Brain Products, however the simplicity of the format has allowed for a diversity of tools reading from and writing to the format.

The format consists of three separate files:

1. A text header file (.vhdr) containing meta data
2. A text marker file (.vmrk) containing information about events in the data
3. A binary data file (.eeg) containing the voltage values of the EEG

Both text files are based on the Microsoft Windows INI format consisting of:

• sections marked as [square brackets]
• comments marked as ; comment
• key-value pairs marked as key=value

A documentation for core BrainVision file format is provided by Brain Products. You can view the specification here.

Having three separate files for each EEG recording means that the single files have internal pointers to each other's locations. See this example:

Brain Vision Data Exchange Header File Version 1.0
; Data synthesized by MNE-BIDS

[Common Infos]
DataFile=test.eeg
MarkerFile=test.vmrk

...

The BrainVision-Validator checks among other things, whether these internal pointers are functional.

Usage

In the command line

npm install -g brainvision-validator

brainvision-validator some/path/to/a/brainvision/headerfile.vhdr

or check the help using the help option: brainvision-validator -h

In a script

npm install brainvision-validator

var validateBrainVision = require('brainvision-validator').validateBrainVision;

var vhdrPath = 'some/path/to/a/brainvision/headerfile.vhdr';

// get an array of issues ... issues.length==0 if there were none.
var issues = validateBrainVision(vhdrPath)

Tests

Run npm install and then npm test from the project root.