open Deltamed .EEG files

[pierremegevand]

Dear Denis,

I've just found out that the current versions of Cartool no longer seem able to open old Deltamed files, which have the extension .EEG. It used to be the case that Cartool could open them, at least with version 3.80 (5911). May I ask you to consider adding support for this file type again?

Thank you!

Pierre

[DenisBrunet]

Hi Pierre

You are right, since Cartool moved to 64bit, it can not read Deltamed files anymore, unfortunately. This is on Deltamed which kept their file format closed source for trademarks / copyrights reasons, and instead provided a library to access a single file at a time. Said library was 32bit, though, so it can not be used within a 64bit program... So this is a good example of closed formats breaking backward compatibilities against the users' interests. Same remark goes for ANT by the way.

Question remains if Deltamed would either provide a 64bit library, or open up their format? But it seems they no longer exist, so support can be expected to be close to 0 I guess? Are you in contact with any vendor you could ask by any chance?

One last resort would be to keep the last 32bit version of Cartool installed, and use it to only browse the old Deltamed files. A bit risky, as you can end up using an obsolete version of Cartool for processing which have been fixed or upgraded since..

Best,
Denis

[DenisBrunet]

Hi Pierre
Still thinking about this one. If you don't have too many of these old Deltamed files, I would just convert them once and for all to BrainVision with the old 32bit Cartool. However, if you have a lot, or it is a recurring need, then building a dedicated conversion tool might be something to be considered...
If you need the last 32bit Cartool installer, I can of course provide it to you.

[pierremegevand]

Hi Denis,

In my own case, the need would not be so large as to require a dedicated tool -- converting files with an older version of Cartool would work fine. I gladly accept your offer for the latest 32bit Cartool installer!

Thank you.

[DenisBrunet]

OK!
Here is the latest closed-source, 32bit Cartool installer from may 2021:

CartoolSetup(6647).exe

Do not use it for any other processing than your files conversions, as things have evolved a lot since 2021!

I would even go as far as recommending not to install it per se, and not running the installer, which would otherwise interfere with your current installation of Cartool (file associations mainly). Instead, you can resort to the old trick of just extracting all files it in a separate directory:

• Right-click on installer, and extract it (yes this is a zip file) to a local directory
• Then you can simply run Cartool.exe, and you are back to memory lane!
• Make a shortcut, with some explicit naming, to the desktop if you want to avoid looking for the exe all the time..

That should do it!