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phy is an open-source Python library providing a graphical user interface for visualization and manual curation of large-scale electrophysiological data. It is optimized for high-density multielectrode arrays containing hundreds to thousands of recording sites (mostlyNeuropixels probes).

Phy provides two GUIs:

• Template GUI (recommended): for datasets sorted with KiloSort and Spyking Circus,
• Kwik GUI (legacy): for datasets sorted with klusta and klustakwik2.

• [5 June 2024] phy 2.0 beta 6, bug fixes, install work, fixing some deprecations
• [7 Sep 2021] Release of phy 2.0 beta 5, with some install and bug fixes
• [7 Feb 2020] Release of phy 2.0 beta 1, with many new views, new features, various improvements and bug fixes...

• Documentation
• Mailing list

It is recommanded to store the data on a SSD for performance reasons.

There are no specific GPU requirements as long as relatively recent graphics and OpenGL drivers are installed on the system.

Run the following commands in a terminal (currently working for Linux machines):

1. Create a new conda environment with the conda dependencies:

   conda create -n phy2 -y python=3.11 cython dask h5py joblib matplotlib numpy pillow pip pyopengl pyqt pyqtwebengine pytest python qtconsole requests responses scikit-learn scipy traitlets

2. Activate the new conda environment withconda activate phy2

3. Install the development version of phy:pip install git+https://github.com/cortex-lab/phy.git

4. [OPTIONAL] If you plan to use the Kwik GUI, typepip install klusta klustakwik2

5. Phy should now be installed. Open the GUI on a dataset as follows (the phy2 environment should still be activated):

cd path/to/my/spikesorting/outputphy template-gui params.py

6. If there are problems with this method we also have anenvironment.yml file which allows forautomatic install of the necessary packages. Give that a try.

In some environments, you might get an error message related to QtWebEngineWidget. Run the commandpip install PyQtWebEngine and try launching phy again. This command should not run if the error message doesn't appear, as it could break the PyQt5 installation.

• Do not install phy 1 and phy 2 in the same Python environment.
• It is recommended to delete~/.phy/*GUI/state.json when upgrading.

To install the development version of phy in a fresh environment, do:

git clone git@github.com:cortex-lab/phy.gitcd phypip install -r requirements.txtpip install -r requirements-dev.txtpip install -e.cd ..git clone git@github.com:cortex-lab/phylib.gitcd phylibpip install -e. --upgrade

Since the switch to M-series chips Mac install for Phy is not being officially supported.Rarely people are able to hack together a version with old versions of python etc.

• See a list of common issues.
• Raise a GitHub issue.

In addition to launching phy from the terminal with thephy command, you can also launch it from a Python script or an IPython terminal. This may be useful when debugging or profiling. Here's a code example to copy-paste in a newlaunch.py text file within your data directory:

from phy.apps.template import template_guitemplate_gui("params.py")

phy is developed and maintained byCyrille Rossant.

• International Brain Laboratory
• Cortex Lab (UCL) (Kenneth Harris andMatteo Carandini).

Contributors to the repository are:

• Alessio Buccino
• Michael Economo
• Cedric Gestes
• Dan Goodman
• Max Hunter
• Shabnam Kadir
• Christopher Nolan
• Martin Spacek
• Nick Steinmetz