OptoFly Setup

This is the main pipeline — what you run to actually record experiments. Set this up last, after camera and lens calibration are done (see Workflow).

Install

cd ~/src/optofly
uv sync

If it succeeds, you'll see no error output, ending with a line like "Installed N packages".

Configure

cp configs/config.example.toml configs/config.toml
cp configs/visual_stimuli.example.toml configs/visual_stimuli.toml

Edit configs/config.toml to point at your Braid server and calibration files.

Run

Make sure Braid is already running and recording before starting optofly:

uv run python main.py

Once it's actually running, you should see log output showing it's connected to Braid and listening for tracking data.

⚠️ Common failure: optofly starts but no flies ever trigger anything — this almost always means Braid isn't tracking yet, or the trigger zone in config.toml doesn't overlap the arena. Check Braid's own web UI for live 3D tracks first.

Full documentation

This setup page only covers the bare minimum to get optofly running. For the complete calibration pipeline, architecture, and every subsystem (camera, opto trigger, visual stimuli), see:

• Getting Started
• Calibration
• Architecture
• Troubleshooting