Integration with Game Engines

Unity

Integration with Unity can be done only using C# binding. We tested it only on Windows, but it may work on Linux and MacOS too. Android and IOS are not supported.

You can build C# binding from source or download compiled package directly from Nuget.

Here we will use Nuget to download and install BrainFlow.

Download nuget.exe and run

nuget.exe install brainflow -OutputDirectory <OUTPUTDIR>

Open OUTPUTDIR, in our example it is D:\BrainFlowNuget. At the moment of writing this tutorial latest BrainFlow version is 4.0.1, it is ok if you download newer version from Nuget, it does not affect the process of integration with Unity.

For BrainFlow there are Managed(C#) and Unmanaged(C++) libraries. C++ libraries are located inside folder D:\BrainFlowNuget\brainflow.4.0.1\lib, C# libraries are located inside folder D:\BrainFlowNuget\brainflow.4.0.1\lib\net45.

Open your Unity project and copy Managed(C#) libraries to the Assets folder, after that copy Unmanaged(C++) libraries to the root folder of your project.

Now, you are able to use BrainFlow API in your Unity project.

For demo we will create a simple script to read data.

Add a game object to the Scene and attach script below.

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

using brainflow;
using brainflow.math;

public class SimpleGetData : MonoBehaviour
{
    private BoardShim board_shim = null;
    private int sampling_rate = 0;

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    void Start()
    {
        try
        {
            BoardShim.set_log_file("brainflow_log.txt");
            BoardShim.enable_dev_board_logger();

            BrainFlowInputParams input_params = new BrainFlowInputParams();
            int board_id = (int)BoardIds.SYNTHETIC_BOARD;
            board_shim = new BoardShim(board_id, input_params);
            board_shim.prepare_session();
            board_shim.start_stream(450000, "file://brainflow_data.csv:w");
            sampling_rate = BoardShim.get_sampling_rate(board_id);
            Debug.Log("Brainflow streaming was started");
        }
        catch (BrainFlowException e)
        {
            Debug.Log(e);
        }
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        if (board_shim == null)
        {
            return;
        }
        int number_of_data_points = sampling_rate * 4;
        double[,] data = board_shim.get_current_board_data(number_of_data_points);
        // check https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html for api ref and more code samples
        Debug.Log("Num elements: " + data.GetLength(1));
    }

    // you need to call release_session and ensure that all resources correctly released
    private void OnDestroy()
    {
        if (board_shim != null)
        {
            try
            {
                board_shim.release_session();
            }
            catch (BrainFlowException e)
            {
                Debug.Log(e);
            }
            Debug.Log("Brainflow streaming was stopped");
        }
    }
}

After building your game for production don’t forget to copy Unmanaged(C++) libraries to a folder where executable is located.

Unreal Engine

We provide Unreal Engine Plugin with precompiled libraries for most commonly used configurations. Check Readme for installtion details.

This blog post can help if you want to write your own plugin or extend existing one.

CryEngine

CryEngine uses CMake, build BrainFlow by yourself first and check C++ examples for instructions to integrate BrainFlow into CMake projects.

Keep in mind MSVC runtime linking, default in BrainFlow is static, you can provide -DMSVC_RUNTIME=dynamic or -DMSVC_RUNTIME=static to control it.