[ENH] BEP 020 Eye Tracking

[mszinte]

Important

This BEP is under community review from September 29 - October 10, 2025. Please participate at #2218.

Tip

HTML preview of this BEP

Here is the specifications of the BEP 020 about eye tracking.

• it follows the main discussion initiated on a google document.
• it includes the different modification the group of maintainers suggested to us during our zoom meeting.
• it includes the macros as used in other modality specific extensions
• it includes links toward dataset examples.

Note

We meet regularly and everyone is welcome :
Next meeting April 3rd 2025 4pm UTC (EST 11am, PST 8am, CET 5pm, GMT 4pm) on zoom.
Note that if you consider joining but this time or day doesn't suits you, reach me (@mszinte) and I will arrange another appointment.

Notes of last meeting

Chat and discussions also happening on matrix

We are currently drafing a companion paper for this BEP, feel free to participate (GoogleDoc)

Issues for:

• general todo list: To do list mszinte/bids-specification#1
• conversion discussion: Converter roadmap mszinte/bids-specification#4
• list datasets: eyetracking dataset examples mszinte/bids-specification#3

---

• implement macros
  • for filename templates ?
  • for examples ?
  • for metadata table
• add contributors to the wiki (so they can be added to the contributors page)
• end docmentation
• update examples
• update validator
• update list of contributors via the github wiki

[sappelhoff]

(NOTE: I'll cross-post this message across several BEP threads)

Hi there, just a quick notification that we have just merged #918 and it may be interesting to look at the implications for this BEP.

We are introducing "BIDS URIs", which unify the way we refer to and point to files in BIDS datasets (as opposed to "dataset-relative" or "subject-relative" or "file-relative" links).

If the diff and discussion in the PR is unclear, you can also read the rendered version: https://bids-specification.readthedocs.io/en/latest/02-common-principles.html#bids-uri

Perhaps there are things in the BEP that need adjusting now, but perhaps also not -- in any case it's good to be aware of this new feature!

Let me know if there are any questions, comments, or concerns.

Outdated

[effigies]

Some more foreignindexcolumns

[effigies]

I have opened mszinte#12 to address the two comments in @yarikoptic's review. It is easily addressed in the schema with no validator changes necessary.

@gbezold1 @julia-pfarr @mszinte Would you have a look?

[yarikoptic]

some clarifications needed as spotted during quick review

[yarikoptic]

"Description" suggests a text field but it is an object. But then it talks about items like in an array (of types object). I didn't find any other case like that in the schema and not sure if it is legit. @effigies might be able to help clarifying this for me.

If it is to be a dictionary (object) of some settings, may be some could at least recommend naming (in description) on some of those fields names?

[yarikoptic]

the same seems to apply to many other fields!

Note also that there is no example for GazeMappingSettings in the text, which again, leaves reader with a question on what it should contain and in what form.

[yarikoptic]

It seems that there was an agreement on consistent use of "eye-tracking" hence I think:

Suggested change

	Indicates the eye tracked, for example, `"left"` or `"right"`.
	Indicates the eye-tracked, for example, `"left"` or `"right"`.

[yarikoptic]

and adjust title of the PR (will get into changelog right?)