LabMaestro Settings

This article explains LabMaestro’s general settings, which are located under the Edit and View tabs in the main header menu.

While managing your general settings, some programs that use accessibility features (e.g., Grammarly) may cause the program to stop responding. If this happens, turn off the software and restart LabMaestro.

The settings listed in this section reflect the most recent available version of LabMaestro. To download the most recent release, see Software Download. For legacy support, please contact support@vpixx.com.

General Settings

General settings apply to the operation of LabMaestro software. To access general settings, click the Edit tab in the header menu, select Preferences, and then General Settings.

Setting	Description
Language	English is fully supported Mandarin has partial support (element names and some properties and parameters are translated, but tooltips are only available in English).
Anonymous History Length	The number of sessions saved in memory when running an anonymous participant (i.e., the Subject Name parameter is left empty). Default value of 1.
Offer Templates Documentation	When enabled: a pop-up window opens whenever a new template project is launched. The pop-up includes links to the project's associated documentation on the VPixx support website. When disabled: new template projects open without a pop-up.

Experiment Settings

In the same menu as General Settings, there is also an option for Experiment Settings. These settings are specific to controlling and executing experiments in LabMaestro.

Setting	Description
Multisampling	Multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA) helps increase image quality by applying partial anti-aliasing to remove jaggies (jagged edges). There are three options to control this parameter: Off to disable MSAA. Default performs 4x MSAA samples, which most modern GPUs support. Maximum will attempt to apply the highest amount of MSAA samples possible with the computer’s hardware. Maximal MSAA might lead to the best image quality but with the highest performance cost. The specifics of this option will depend on your computer’s hardware.
Vertical Synchronization (Vsync)	Ensures frame flips are not performed during an image update, thus avoiding potential screen tearing.
Borderless Fullscreen	When enabled: experiments run in fullscreen, but the user can access other software via alt-tab, or on a secondary monitor. May decrease performance compared to normal fullscreen mode, since the focus is not exclusively on the experiment. When disabled: provides the best performance by granting LabMaestro exclusive control over the main display during the experiment.
Batch Device Communication	When enabled: multiple commands to VPixx hardware are bundled into one USB transaction per video frame. This avoids lengthy transaction times and can reduce frame dropping; however, commands can only be executed on the next video frame. When disabled: each command to VPixx hardware executes immediately; commands are queued in the order they are called and executed individually.
Restore Device Settings After Experiment	When enabled: VPixx devices are returned to pre-experiment settings after running your experiment. When disabled: devices will remain set to experiment settings after the experiment ends.
Out-Of-Bounds Colours	Patterns have values ranging from -1 to 1. This setting determines what should happen when these values are exceeded (e.g., via multiplexing, additive blending or other settings). When enabled: If the pattern value is above 1, the user-specified peak colour is shown; if the pattern value is below -1, the user-specified trough colour is shown. When disabled: Pattern values above 1 will be clamped to 1; values below -1 will be clamped to -1.

User Interface Layout

The View tab of the top menu bar allows you to customize the layout of your LabMaestro window.

Setting

Description

Layouts

Config sets the layout as minimalistic as possible by removing all windows linked to the experiment builder. This layout is helpful if you only use LabMaestro to configure your VPixx hardware.
Builder enables all relevant components for building experiments, including the component library, variables, tooltips, and properties.

Graphic Elements

Toggle on/off the following graphic elements:

Console allows you to enter console commands to be read by LabMaestro.
Variables refers to the Variables Panel.
Properties refers to the Properties Window.
Tracker Camera enables the experimenter to see the tracker camera
Output shows the output obtained through console commands.
Calibration Results shows the results of the latest calibration for the TRACKPixx3.
Project refers to the Project Panel.
Component Library refers to this library.

Shortcuts

Customize shortcuts below the top menu bar. By default, all shortcuts are active.

Quick Layout creates icons that can be clicked to enable the “Config” and “Builder” pre-defined layouts.
Quick Launch creates a shortcut to launch experiments from the top bar, indicated by a green arrow.
Hardware Control creates the shortcuts to configure TRACKPixx devices and wake/sleep TRACKPixx and PROPixx devices.
Applications create shortcuts to other VPixx applications. For now, this adds a shortcut to the LabMaestro Hardware Simulator.
Server Control adds a shortcut to restart the connection to the VPixx device server in case of a disconnect.