BrainVoyager Plugins for Linux

Support for plugins constitutes an important feature of BrainVoyager allowing to extent the software with additional computational routines. These extensions can be created by anyone able to write C++ code without the need for an update of BrainVoyager. When BrainVoyager is installed on your computer, you will find several supported plugins, most of which developed by Brain Innovation. All plugins are accessible through the "Plugins" menu (see figure on the right) after installation. The table below lists the most recent versions of these plugins. Additional plugins not listed below or not distributed with the standard BrainVoyager installation can be found at the Support Web Site.

Consult the "Plugins" topic in the "Additional Documentation" chapter of the User's Guide for further details on how to use plugins. If you have yourself created a plugin and think about sharing it with BrainVoyager users around the world, send an email to "support_at_brainvoyager_dot_com". Note that the plugins provided by Brain Innovation and Maastricht University are automatically installed with BrainVoyager. If you have a recent version of BrainVoyager installed, you usually do not need to download plugins.

Multiple users
. If you do not find plugins in the "Plugins" menu, it is likely that you are not logged in as the user who installed BrainVoyager since plugins are stored in the "Documents/BVExtensions" folder during installation. In that case we recommend to install the whole "BVExtensions" folder that includes all standard plugins as well as scripts and plugins (see below).

Note
. Since BrainVoyager 20, plugins can also be developed in Python. Python scripts and plugins are available through the "Python" icon in the main toolbar or via the "Python" menu.
Stacks Image 33

Download and Installation

It is recommended to download the contents of the whole "BVExtensions" folder containing all plugins as well as JavaScripts scripts and Python scripts and plugins:

BVExtensions_Lnx64_v21.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded "BVExtensions_Lnx64_v21.tar.gz" file in the Documents folder so that the unzipped contents is stored in the user's "Documents/BVExtensions" folder. If the data is extracted at another location, move the "BVExtensions" folder into the "Documents" folder. The "BVExtensions" folder will contain the "Plugins_64", "Scripts", "PythonScripts" and "PythonPlugins" subfolders.

If you want to (re-)download specific plugins, select the plugin using the respective link in the table below and put the downloaded file into the "Plugins_64" folder. The "Plugins_64" folder is located within the "BVExtensions" directory, which is itself located within your "Documents" folder. We advise to unzip the files using a Terminal and calling "> unzip [plugin_zip_file]". You can use also the respective file browser of your window manager (e.g. GNOME or KDE) to extract a downloaded .zip file. Make sure that the content is extracted at the right place or move the extracted files into the "Plugins_64" folder.

Getting Help for Plugins

Most plugins contain help files, which are extracted in sub-folders within the "Plugins_64" folder. The available documentation of a plugin can be accessed by clicking a respective link in the plugins overview text, which you get by clicking the "Description Of Plugins" item in the "Plugins" menu (see snapshot above). The help for the ICA plugins can be found in the User's Guide.
Plugins for Linux
Plugin Name   Author          Description Download
Example Plugin Rainer Goebel
Brain Innovation
Simple plugin inverting intensity values of a VMR. It can be used by developers to get started with plugin development (see section "For Developers" for source code) ExamplePlugin_Lnx64.zip
Example GUI Plugin Rainer Goebel
Brain Innovation
Simple GUI plugin providing functions to process VMR intensity data. It can be used by developers as a template for own GUI plugin development (see section "For Developers" for source code) ExampleGUIPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Data Simulator Rainer Goebel
Brain Innovation
Creates simulated volume time course data (VTCs). Realistic example of a plugin that can be used by developers to get started (see section "For Developers" for source code DataSimulatorPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Group Data Simulator Rainer Goebel
Brain Innovation
This tool allows to create simulated volume time course (VTC) data, protocols (PRT files) and design matrices (SDM files) for multi-factorial designs with between and within factors. GroupDataSimulatorPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Independent Component Analysis (ICA) Federico de Martino, Fabrizio Esposito, Rainer Goebel
Brain Innovation
Indpendent Component Analysis (ICA) for VTC files. Consult the User's Guide for documentation on how to start the ICA plugin via the "Independent Component Analysis" dialog and how to visualize the obtained independent components using the "Overlay Independent Components" dialog. ICAPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Self-Organizing Group ICA Fabrizio Esposito
Brain Innovation
Self-organizing group ICA for VTC files. Consult the User's Guide for documentation on how to use the plugin (chapter "Independent Component Analysis"). SogICAPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Cluster Threshold Estimator Fabrizio Esposito
Brain Innovation
This plugin provides a method for the correction of multiple comparisons using cluster-size thresholding. ClusterThreshPlugin_Lnx64.zip
BOLD Latency Mapping (BLM) Fabrizio Esposito
Brain Innovation
This plugin allows analysis and mapping of latency parameters of the BOLD response. BLMPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Fuzzy Clustering Federico de Martino, Alain Smolders, Rainer Goebel
This plugin performs a volume-based or cortex-based clustering of the voxels based on their (optionally averaged) time course. ClusteringPlugin_Lnx64.zip
Granger Causality Mapping (GCM) Alard Roebroeck
Maastricht University
This plugin creates maps of directed influences (effective connectivity). An extended version for random effects analysis is currently prepared and will be available in a few weeks. GCMPlugin_v15_Lnx64.zip
NIfTI-1 Converter Hester Breman
Brain Innovation
This plugin converts between BrainVoyager and NIfTI-1 file formats. It is also possible to obtain file header information via the BrainVoyager QX Log tab, in a text file or in both ways. nifticonverter_v106_Lnx64.zip
GIFTI Converter Hester Breman, Joost Mulders
Brain Innovation
This plugin makes it possible to import and export surface files (meshes, timeseries and statistical maps) to GIFTI format gifticonverter_v100_Lnx64.zip

For Developers

You may download the source code of the "Example" and "DataSimulator" plugins (see links on the right) to start your own plugin development. To start development of GUI plugins, download the "Example GUI" plugin on the right and consult the "C++ Developer Guide" that is available from the "Help" menu. Updates of general plugin include files should not be necessary for future BrainVoyager releases except if you want to use newly introduced API functions to get access to the new or updated functionality. To download the most recent include files, use the link "GeneralPluginIncludeFiles_v21.zip" (for "extern" definitions of API functions in a pair of header and cpp file) or "GeneralPluginIncludeFilesStaticVersion_v21.zip" (for "static" definitions of the API functions in a single header file). The static version is recommended since it supports all operating systems (Linux, Mac, Windows) while the non-static version only supports Windows and Mac. After downloading the zip file, extract the included files into the directory containing the code of your plugin overwriting any earlier version. Do not forget to update in your own plugin code the "BV version test" checking for the minimally required version of BrainVoyager that is needed to run your plugin code.

Developer Downloads

Click one of the links below to get the most recent include files, updated for BrainVoyager 21:

GeneralPluginIncludeFilesStaticVersion_BVv21.zip
GeneralPluginIncludeFiles_v21.zip

To get started with your own plugin development, you may find source code of the simple "Example" plugin and the more elaborate "DataSimulator" plugin helpful:

ExamplePlugin_v21_SRC.zip
DataSimulatorPlugin_v21_SRC.zip

To learn how to write GUI plugins (plugins with a rich graphical user interface), consult the Developer's Guide. You may download the source code of the described "Example GUI Plugin" here:

ExampleGUIPlugin_v21_SRC.zip