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Interpreting EEG Data to Create a 3-D Plot in Matlab

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This assignment was given to me in the Fall of 2016. For this assignment, I was put in a group with three other students and tasked with creating a 3-D plot from a collection of data in a Notepad file. This data contained density measurements collected from EEGs, and besides extracting it from the Notepad file, part of our assignment was graphing it in a pseudo-color scale to denote changes in density values. Although I had very little exposure to Matlab prior to this course, the skills I learned in Biocomputation helped me to appreciate coding and spark my interest in learning other programming languages.

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To begin our assignment, we first divided responsibilities. As none of us had much experience with Matlab before, much of our time was spent researching code syntax and meeting to discuss our findings. To keep us on time and on focus, I often initiated or planned out group meetings. My natural drive to work hard and finish projects early helped to keep the team going and also allowed us to finish our assignment before the project due date. This almost instinctual drive for getting ahead has often given me the opportunity to assume leadership of teams. As with this project, my quest for success and my drive as a leader allows me to finish group projects efficiently, professionally, and ahead of schedule.

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For the project itself, our initial challenge was to import the data. This required careful syntax within the "isosurface" function, which allowed us to import all the data at once. We then saved this data into its own file in Matlab to prevent us from having to import it again.

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After this initial step, our next challenge was plotting the relevant data. This required use of the "figure" function in conjunction with the patch function, as well as much trial and error. After much testing, we were able to successfully plot a 3-D rendering of the brain.

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From here, our next challenge was to introduce a color scale to our plot in order to delineate changes in surface density. This was done by using the "colormap" and "colorbar" functions. The scale itself was created in quite a clever way by using the "linspace" function to set color density values. After this task, our project and all its requirements were complete.

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With the extra time we had, we pursued further enhancements to our 3-D plot. With extra data from our instructor, we were able to include density data on the subject's face. Using the same programming, we overlaid a plot of the patient's head over our plot of the brain. We were even able to include plots of the electrodes used to collect these images. 

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Our initial rendering of the brain is shown below on the left. Our additional work, which included overlaying the brain with skin and electrodes, is shown on the right. For an opportunity to view part of our code, please click on the button below.

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