Add shank thickness to the Probe model

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
48/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
python
Domain
backend

Research direction

Start by locating the Probe model and its existing contact-position and contour geometry fields. Review related issue #14 and the linked double-sided-probe discussion to clarify the API, units, and whether there is a reason thickness was omitted. Done should leave datasheet-sourced shank thickness available for complete probe descriptions and three-dimensional front/back reconstruction.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Thinking about double-sided probes on probeinterface_library surfaced a gap: front and back contacts sit at identical (x, y), so the only physical separation between a front site and its back twin is the shank thickness along the plane normal, and the Probe model has no field for it. The value is published for our main manufacturers (Cambridge NeuroTech 15 microns, https://www.cambridgeneurotech.com/neural-probes; Neuropixels 24 microns, https://www.neuropixels.org/probe1-0), yet it lives only on datasheets. Even SpikeGLX's geometry metadata stores the in-plane electrode coordinates (x, z) and omits thickness (https://billkarsh.github.io/SpikeGLX/help/imroTables/).

Useful beyond double-sided probes:

  • Forward-modeling of extracellular signals: the shank is an insulating body that shapes the recorded field, and ground-truth simulators model the probe body, where thickness is a direct input.
  • Completeness: it is the same datasheet-sourced geometry as the contact positions and contour we already store, so the probe description stays self-contained.
  • Enables reconstructing double-sided probes in three dimensions (front and back at plus or minus thickness/2 along the normal). [This is how I started thinknig about it]

Related: #14.

Altought maybe this is omited for a good reason?

Dominant language
Python
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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