ANY-maze Help > Troubleshooting > Problems running tests

Problems running tests

Introduction

The issues described here are related to the more technical aspects of running tests. You'll find details about issues which relate to the actual experiment, for example how to cancel an animal's test, in Resolving common problems when testing.

The apparatus in the video picture doesn't line up with the apparatus map.

I can't fit all my apparatus on the screen.

Auto-start doesn't work at all.

Tests take too long to start.

The animal is described as immobile when it's still moving.

The animal is not described as immobile although it's stopped moving.

The animal is described as hidden when it's still visible.

The apparatus in the video picture doesn't line up with the apparatus map

This problem is very common - particularly if you've moved the apparatus to clean the room or to run other experiments - see figure 1.

Figure 1. The plusmaze in the video picture doesn't line up correctly with the apparatus map. The map needs to be moved a little to the left and rotated slightly.

Fortunately resolving this issue is extremely simple - you don't need to drag the apparatus around the floor - instead you can drag the apparatus map around the screen!

To do this simply click the button shown just above the video picture on the Tests page - this will display a message advising you that you're about to enter Map adjustment mode, click OK.

In map adjustment mode you can move the map (i.e. drag it), rotate the map or even resize it. All these operations are performed using the mouse. Basically ANY-maze divides the video picture into nine sections (see figure 2) and the operation which the mouse will perform depends on the section it's in - to make this clearer the mouse pointer changes to indicate the operation.

Figure 2. The type of adjustment performed depends on where in the video picture you position the mouse pointer.

Mouse pointer styles and the adjustments they perform:

Holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse drags the map.

Holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse rotates the map around its centre point.

Holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse resizes the map. This can be useful if the camera has been moved closer or further from the apparatus, if you've adjusted the lens focus or if you've adjusted the zoom on a vari-focal lens.

The easiest way to get an idea of how this works is to try it. You can always undo the adjustments you've made by right-clicking and selecting Reset adjustments from the menu which appears.

To exit map adjustment mode simply click the button again.

I can't fit all my apparatus on the screen

This problem occurs most often when you're using multiple apparatus, for example when tracking in four water-mazes simultaneously. The first point is that for ANY-maze the problem is entirely benign - the tracking will work whether the picture is shown on the screen or not. However, if you want to score some behaviours using keys then you will need to see all the apparatus.

Here are some things you can try:

First make sure the ANY-maze window is full screen.

Select the

Scale to fit option in the ribbon bar on the Tests page. This will alter the size of the apparatus picture so it exactly fits the space available. This means you will, necessarily, be able to see it all, but it may also mean that the apparatus picture becomes quite small.

Use the options for adjusting the apparatus layout to reorganise the apparatus on the Tests page - this is often best combined with

Scale to fit option.

Use a higher screen resolution. You may find that your computer can show more information on the screen than it's doing at present. To try this, right click anywhere on the Windows Desktop and select Screen resolution; a window will open where you can adjust the resolution - if possible choose a higher value, then click Apply. A message might be displayed telling you that the new resolution will be tested for 15 seconds, click OK - the screen will then change. If the new resolution works correctly then you may need to confirm this otherwise Windows will revert to the old resolution after 15 seconds.

The disadvantage of changing the screen resolution is that writing etc. will all appear smaller, although you can improve this in ANY-maze by increasing the font sized used by the system.

Another solution is to reduce the size of the video images you're using. The topic 'Adjusting a video picture's size and/or orientation' describes how to do this.

Auto-start doesn't work at all

Auto-start works by detecting the experimenter (probably you) in the area of the camera's image which isn't part of the apparatus. In general the system detects you in much the same way as it detects the animals.

The most common reason for auto-start not to work is that there's not enough area outside the apparatus for the system to detect you. For example, in the open field shown in figure 3 the image has been cropped so that just the actual open field area is visible - the area outside this (shaded in green) is just too small for ANY-maze to detect the experimenter. This problem is resolved in figure 4 where more of the area outside the apparatus (or at least outside the part of the apparatus in which you want to track) is visible - now enough of the experimenter will be visible for auto-start to work correctly.

Figure 3. The video image of this open field has been cropped to such an extent that the area outside the apparatus (shaded in green) is too small for ANY-maze to detect an experimenter, therefore auto-start won't work

Figure 4. In this image more of the area outside the apparatus (or more accurately the part of the apparatus where the system will be tracking) is now visible. ANY-maze will correctly detect the experimenter in this apparatus and auto-start will work.

A less common reason for auto-start failure is that you appear too similar to the floor of the room for the system to detect you. For example if the floor is white and you're wearing a white hat and a white lab coat then the system may simply not see you - you can resolve this by either putting something contrasting on the floor or by wearing a different coloured hat or coat!

Tests take too long to start

There are two possible issues here, firstly that ANY-maze is taking too long to actually enter 'testing mode' and secondly that the system is taking too long to find the animal once the test has actually started.

The second issue, taking too long to find the animal, is addressed in Problems with tracking, while the first issue is addressed here.

When using auto start:

If you're using auto-start, then the time ANY-maze takes to start a test is dependent on how quickly you leave the camera's field of view after you place the animal in the apparatus. Generally a test will start 0.5 seconds after this.

Therefore, in a plusmaze for example, if you take 1.5 seconds to leave the camera's view then the test will start 2.0 seconds after the animal is placed in the apparatus. If this is too long for your purposes then you can either try to leave the camera's view more quickly - cropping some of the edge of the image can help in this respect - or you can start the test manually using a remote start switch.

When using manual start:

If you are using manual start and the test start is too slow then you may wish to consider changing to auto-start. Except when you manually start a test using remote start switch, auto-start is almost always faster than manual start because, by definition, manual start requires that you reach the computer to start the test and this usually means you'll have left the camera's view which would have triggered an auto-start.

The animal is described as immobile when it's still moving

If you have specified a low immobility sensitivity then ANY-maze will consider that the animal is immobile provided it stays in the same place, even if it's moving its body. For example if an animal simply turns round and round on the same spot then, with low immobility sensitivity, ANY-maze will consider the animal to be 'immobile'. If you would only like to count the animal as immobile when it has truly stopped moving, then you should increase the immobility sensitivity.

The animal is not described as immobile although it's stopped moving

There are two possible causes for this:

If you have specified a high immobility sensitivity then ANY-maze will only consider that the animal is immobile if all (or almost all) of its body has stopped moving. This means that the animal might stop moving from place-to-place (and therefore you might consider it to be immobile) but if it is moving a paw or its tail, ANY-maze will still see it as mobile. To solve this just reduce the immobility sensitivity.

When you specify how ANY-maze should detect immobility you have to include a time limit - only if the animal remains immobile for at least this long is it then considered to be immobile. For example, if you specified that the animal must be immobile for 5 seconds before it's considered to be immobile then there will be a five second during which the animal's not moving but ANY-maze ISN'T describing it as immobile.

Of course, you can reduce this waiting period if you would like to score shorter periods of immobility.

By the way, it's important to understand that if the animal does enter an episode of immobility (i.e. in the example it's immobile for > 5 seconds) then ANY-maze will score the start of the immobility at the START of the 5 second waiting period and not at the point when it finally decided that the animal was indeed immobile (i.e. the end of the 5 second waiting period).

The animal is described as hidden when it's still visible

ANY-maze can't detect a hidden animal as such (because there's nothing to detect) rather it works on the principal that if it can't find the animal and you've told it that the apparatus includes a hidden zone then the animal must be in that hidden zone.

This works well provided ANY-maze doesn't have trouble finding the animal for some reason other than the fact that's it's hidden. For example, if the apparatus contains lots of moving reflections, or if the light level suddenly changes then ANY-maze may fail to find the animal in a number of consecutive frames. If this situation lasts more than half a second then the system will consider that the animal is hidden even though it isn't.

There's no simple solution to this - essentially for hidden zone processing to work well the tracking needs to be reliable. If this issue is causing you particular problems then please contact ANY-maze Support who may be able to advise you on how to improve the tracking in your apparatus.

ANY-maze help topic T1342