Add miv_data package

[frthjf]

MiV-Data

It turns out that the various HDF5 files for simulation construction, inputs, and results are becoming a useful IR since it is easy to share H5 files. However, installation of the MiV-Simulator to just load/process the data can be a substantial and unnecessary hurdle to sharing results with collaborators. After some discussion, I believe the right thing is to separate some key data I/O capabilities into their own package that should be much easier to install.

There is likely going to be some initial iteration and testing of this idea, so this is meant as a low-overhead (and somewhat hacky) incubator. If you have MiV-Simulator installed, it should become available as if it was it's own package (import miv_data).

Installation

To install miv_data without installing MiV-Simulator use the following:

pip install -e "git+https://github.com/GazzolaLab/MiV-Simulator.git@feature/miv-data#egg=miv_data&subdirectory=src"

Rationale

High-level interface to read and write

• cells.h5 and connections.h5 format used by the MiV-Simulator
• simulation inputs and results like spike trains etc.
• experimental recordings (?)

Non-goals

No data processing or plotting algorithms that go beyond what is necessary to read and write from H5 source files. The aim is to be a thin I/O library, nothing more; anything more sophisticated should go into MiV-OS.