rt_cov.h File Reference

Real-time noise covariance estimation from streaming MEG / EEG data blocks. More...

#include "../dsp_global.h"
#include <fiff/fiff_cov.h>
#include <fiff/fiff_info.h>
#include <QSharedPointer>
#include <QThread>
#include <Eigen/Core>

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Classes
struct	RTPROCESSINGLIB::RtCovComputeResult
	Bundled output of a real-time covariance computation step containing the covariance matrix and sample count. More...
class	RTPROCESSINGLIB::RtCov
	Controller that manages background covariance matrix estimation from streaming data. More...

Namespaces
namespace	FIFFLIB
	FIFF file I/O, in-memory data structures and high-level readers/writers.
namespace	RTPROCESSINGLIB

Detailed Description

Real-time noise covariance estimation from streaming MEG / EEG data blocks.

SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause Copyright (c) 2026 MNE-CPP Authors

Author

Christoph Dinh chris.nosp@m.toph.nosp@m..dinh.nosp@m.@mne.nosp@m.-cpp..nosp@m.org

Since

2.1.0

Date

March 2026

RtCov maintains a running unbiased estimate of the channel–channel covariance matrix used by linear inverse operators (MNE, dSPM, sLORETA, beamformers). Every incoming block contributes its centred outer product X⋅Xᵀ to the accumulator together with the per-block sample count; the final covariance is the weighted sum divided by the total number of samples minus one. Computation is offloaded to a worker QThread so the acquisition pipeline never blocks on the dense matrix multiply.

The RtCovComputeResult bundle carries both the matrix and the sample count, which lets downstream consumers combine partial estimates, apply rank-corrections, or convert to a FIFFLIB::FiffCov for persistence and inverse-operator construction.

Definition in file rt_cov.h.