Quickstart¶

AvialSync helps you look at an experiment in time. It does not change your original files.

Before you start¶

Have one or more video files, plus any sensor, tracking, or recording files you want to inspect. AvialSync decodes video itself, so nothing needs to be installed alongside it and it opens whatever its bundled FFmpeg supports — see Formats. Your lab may also provide a plugin for its own recording format.

After installing¶

pip install avialsync is the whole install: video decoding, proxy generation, and clip export all run inside the Python packages, so there is no separate media runtime to add. On Linux, Qt still needs the usual desktop graphics libraries — see that note. Help → Diagnostics shows what this machine reported.

Running from a Git checkout instead of an installer or PyPI? See development setup.

Try it without your own data¶

avialsync demo

This creates and opens a complete synchronized example: three 30 fps CFR cameras, one VFR camera, sensor and dense ephys/TTL traces, and frame-indexed tracking. It works from the installer, a pip installation, or a source checkout, and needs nothing else installed. The first run shows generation progress; later runs validate and reuse the application-data cache.

Open files¶

Start AvialSync. Drag files onto the main window, or use the Open Files buttons at the top of the left panel.

Use Open Videos… for camera recordings.
Use Open Sensor/Ephys Data… for tables, recordings, tracking files, or lab formats.
Use Open Session… to reopen a saved .avv session.

The program examines each file and chooses the appropriate built-in or lab plugin. Large recordings are prepared in the background, so you can keep using the window while they load.

Inspect one moment¶

The lower time bar is the shared experiment time.

Drag it to a moment of interest.
The video panes show the corresponding camera frames.
The trace plots show the corresponding samples and values.
Data Streams shows which files actually have data at that time.

When a camera does not cover the selected moment, its pane says No Footage rather than showing an old frame.

Align recordings¶

Begin with the visible event that is easiest to recognize, and adjust that camera’s offset in the left panel. For recordings with TTL pulses or frame triggers, Align → Synchronize TTL / events… fits the mapping from that evidence and shows you the proposed match count, the residual error, and a plot of the residuals themselves before you accept it. Acceptance is always explicit, and your original timestamps are never changed.

Tutorial: align recordings covers every field in that wizard.

Where to go next¶

If you want to	Read
Work through a complete example	Inspect a first session
Import a table correctly the first time	Import sensor and recording data
Align cameras to TTL or frame triggers	Align recordings
Mark frames and get data out	Flag frames and export
Fix a pose estimate that landed in the wrong place	Correcting a tracked point
Rebind a shortcut, save a layout, or change a setting	Sessions, proxies, and the 3D view
Know every control in the window	User Guide