Getting started with PPG-beats

A few pointers on how to quickly start using the toolbox.


Downloading the toolbox

To download the toolbox, either (i) manually download it, or (ii) install it automatically in Matlab. Please bear in mind the Matlab requirements detailed below.

(i) Manual download

The toolbox can be downloaded as a ZIP folder here:

After downloading the toolbox:

  1. Unzip the ZIP folder
  2. Add the extracted files and folders to the Matlab path, using for instance addpath(genpath('<path>')), where <path> is replaced with the path of the extracted files.

(ii) Automatic Installation

Alternatively, the toolbox can be automatically downloaded and installed by:

  1. Opening Matlab
  2. Setting the current directory as the one where you want to save the toolbox, e.g. cd C:/directoryname/
  3. Entering the following commands at the Matlab command window:
[old_path]=which('assess_beat_detectors'); if(~isempty(old_path)) rmpath(old_path(1:end-8)); end
toolbox_url='https://github.com/peterhcharlton/ppg-beats/archive/refs/heads/main.zip';
[filestr,status] = urlwrite(toolbox_url,'main.zip');
unzip('main.zip');
cd ppg-beats-main
addpath(genpath(pwd))
savepath

NB: These instructions are adapted from those provided for the WFDB Toolbox here.

Detecting beats in the PPG

The toolbox contains several PPG beat detectors, which are detailed here.

These PPG Beat Detection Tutorials provide instructions and code to quickly start detecting beats on sample data.

Assessing the performance of PPG beat detectors

The toolbox contains tools to assess the performance of PPG beat detectors, which are detailed here.

These Performance Assessment Tutorials provide instructions and sample data to quickly start using the toolbox to assess the performance of PPG beat detection algorithms.

Matlab Requirements

The toolbox is run in Matlab, and requires the following add-on:

In addition, the following add-ons are also required to enable the full functionality of the toolbox:

NB: You can obtain details of which functions use which Matlab toolboxes by running a Dependency Report in Matlab.

Finding the toolbox online

The toolbox is hosted by: