Where can I find the dipoli command-line executable?

The Boundary Element Method (BEM) allows for source reconstruction of EEG data with realistic head geometries. FieldTrip implements the BEM method for EEG in a general fashion in the forward ft_compute_leadfield function. However, this requires that a previously prepared BEM model is passed to the ft_sourceanalysis function or to the ft_dipolefitting function. To construct such an EEG BEM model, you can use the ft_prepare_headmodel function, where in cfg.method you should specify dipoli, bemcp or openmeeg.

Dipoli is a command line application that was developed by Thom Oostendorp. A compiled version for Linux, macOS and Windows is included in fieldtrip/external/dipoli. As of September 2024, it is also possible to call the Windows executable directly from the FieldTrip code (previously it was not).

Linux

(NOTE: the below is probably outdated, and needs checking) The dipoli executable for Linux was compiled on a 32-bit system. To run it on a 64-bit system, you need to install the “ia32-libs” library (sudo apt-get install ia32-libs). On newer systems, ia32-libs are deprecated so you should enable the i386 architecture (sudo dpkg –add-architecture i386 && sudo apt-get update) and install the 32-bit libraries (sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libstdc++6:i386).