To be able to integrate programs that load visual input with the hardware that controls and streams visual information into experimental subjects' visual field, we use the software package Vizard. This proram works in tandem with sophisticated host of hardware and optical tracking devices that allow computers to process coordinates in real time to coordinates in the visual world. The transmission of x,y,z coordinates in the real world and the relay of this information between computer, headset and user is a critical to creating visual scenes with a high degree of verissimilitude.

Vizard allows us to time events and write code in an objected oriented language called Python.

VR experiments record all manners of different data, with the data taken and often recorded several times every second. By the time an experiment is done, there are several dozens of data files with several hundreds of lines in them each; far too many for a human being to process within a reasonable timeline. But if a way to understand the datafiles can be programmed, then all these files can be read in by machine and then analyzed within seconds. And that's where Matlab comes in - it can read in datafiles as long as they are standardized, and it has a battalion of mathematical tools for analyzing the data. You can do plots, graphs, get maximum and minimum values, averages standard deviation and many many more. But in the final analysis, I guess the matlab processor is an artist - he/she would have to present the data in ways that can be visually understood."