User`s Manual
Contents
1. OK 1 100 1 100 Temperature Commands GetTemperatures return all temperatures The values are obtained from the last time the ReadTemperatures command was executed which is done internally in the background Typically the values are no more than a few seconds old but may not be updated at certain times such as during image readout The temperatures are in degrees Celsius Any number of temperature values may be returned in the return list as available for the specific system SetTemperature Temperature sets the detector control temperature For example SetTemperature 105 0 sets the control temperature of the default sensor to 105 0 Celsius Globals TemperatureSource may be set to instrument or controller to define where the temperature sensors are read This allows the camera controller or a separate temperature controller to be used for temperature control Instrument Commands Note that the base instrument commands are often overridden by specific instrument commands See documentation for the specific instrument Instrument commands are issued as methods and attributes of the instrument object which must be defined in the SystemModule For all commands the InstrumentTypeID parameter indicates a specific mechanism when multiple mechanisms are available There is always a default value for this parameter which may depend in the instrument and therefore it does not need to be explicitly listed An example would2. as the databases communication interfaces etc The required command syntax is object Command where object is the object name such as controller instrument telescope and Command is the command to be sent If Command uses parameters they are specified as comma separated values of the appropriate type such as object command ITL 1 234 45 For example to send the command CompsOn to the instrument use instrument CompsOn To send the GetHeader command to the telescope use telescope GetHeader A controller command might be controller SetRoi 1 100 1 200 2 3 All object commands return a python list in the format status value1 value2 where status is the string OK or ERROR OK means the command executed successfully and ERROR means the command encountered a problem When status is ERROR then value1 is always an error message string describing the problem The error message string is enclosed in double quotes as in ERROR bad parameter specified for Action When reply to a client the python list is converted to a space delimited string so that returning OK value1 value2 would become OK value1 value2 User Commands A high level user command syntax is also provided in additional to object commands User commands are defined which do not require object names and which internal call the proper lower level object commands Generally user commands return the same status list as object commands but t
3. be multiple focusing mechanisms in which each mechanism can be controlled separately Instrument comparisons are usually lamps used for data calibration For some systems comparisons may be unique mechanisms such as Fe 55 X ray sources or LED illumination panels Comparisons are specified as a string or a list of strings for multiple values e g quartz or quartz fene hene Not all instruments support all these commands and additional commands and attributes may be available See the documentation for specific instrument details A specific instrument module class definition must be located in the python search path but is not usually included with the main AzCam distribution It is common to place the file in SystemFolder See instrument commands for instrument command details Telescope Commands Telescope commands are generally not used directly by users or clients but are used internally in AzCam during an exposure to update the image header and for focus control during focus exposures The commands are made available to clients for scripting debugging and system checkout Note that it may be possible for clients to communicate directly with the appropriate telescope server rather than indirectly through AzCam For all commands the TelescopeTypeID parameter indicates a specific mechanism when multiple mechanisms are available There is always a default value for this parameter which may depend on the telescope and
4. port so typically 2403 for the first AzCam process Prompts will be displayed if no command line parameters are specified Scripting Scripts may be executed within AzCam for data acquisition and image analysis These scripts must be written in pure python There are many files which define the many AzCam commands These files must be imported into a script before they can be used For example from Scripting import is almost always needed for scripts to properly execute Other imports may include ExposureCommands ImageCommands DisplayCommands or PlotCommands After these files are imported the AzCam commands are available to those scripts for example Expose or Reset The general form for calling the lowest level AzCam commands within scripts is Globals controller SomeControllerCommand or Globals instrument SomeInstrumentCommand A script cannot be run outside of AzCam e g from File Explorer since scripts require global data structures which are only defined within AzCam We do not recommend executing scripts remotely via a client socket connection since there may be complex interactions between plotting windows te command line console and the CommandServer running in the background Scripts may be included automatically in the AzCam startup procedure by appending their module name or the name of a module which imports them to the UserCommands list This is typically done in the SiteConfiguration or SystemModule fi
5. therefore it does not need to be explicitly listed An example would be multiple focusing mechanisms in which each mechanism can be controlled separately Not all telescopes support all the commands listed below and additional commands and attributes may be available for some telescopes A specific telescope module file must be located in the python search path it may not be distributed with the main AzCam distribution It is common to place specific telescope and instrument files in SystemFolder See telescope commands for command details AzCamMessages and AzCamMonitor AzCamMessages is a console like window which by default appears automatically along with the main AzCam window and is used to display messages These messages do not appear in the main console window since there would then be a complex mixture of messages from command line commands internal threading commands which run in the back ground and remote client commands AzCamMessages is a special usage of AzCamMonitor AzCamMonitor is a python client which can be used to display messages from AzCam on a remote machine It is for monitoring only no commands are sent to AzCam from AzCamMonitor To start AzCamMonitor run StartAzCamMonitor bat from the local folder Edit the command line parameters s ServerName and p PortNumber as needed ServerName is the host name of the machine running AzCam and PortNumber is the AzCam monitor port on AzCam usually one greater than the base
6. AzCam Users Manual Michael Lesser University of Arizona Imaging Technology Laboratory 04 March 2010 Table of Contents Introductiolzz xo eseneRURUDURPDGR USD ME LU R A D MM LUE AzCam Commiands te Er Rt n e e Re RUM eum stre tace ictu betue nucis ctt e PR qQ 2 ET S10 TLS 2acaiegas ic cited ated tata ead ttc alrite een 3 Objects 3 User COMMANGS aae ctiain ett Getae dd AE dun 3 POUT MS coco EE ETE EE EE LC hi d NOO E 3 Database or header keyword Command sssssssssssssssseessssssrirnnrnnnnnunnnnnnnennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnt 4 Expos re CoLltmands nosoceososgeo at pn aired aaa a cadant a E 4 Temperature Cammoaltidsus aceti te aetate eiaa 4 Instrument Comritands s gau eee Gaze cede ech geek t ected ace aiiai 5 Telescope Commands 2 uoce aate eerie aati te ecto tattoo abate nena ive ee ea pete Ea 5 AzCamMessages and AZCaMmMonitor esssesesssssscssssescstescsstesssstesssstescsstesesnssesueessseessnseesssatesessesesneessnntessaneessase SUCH POUL TA AAEE E VE SDS ECM AT SCE NIU S 2 edendi ede ei a oe ec eoa es 7 AzCam DSP Code for ARC and Magellan Controllers e seseernntttnnnnas Introduction AzCam is a software image data acquisition system developed at the University of Arizona Imaging Technology Laboratory It currently operates Astronomical Research Cameras Inc Gen3 Gen2 and Gen1 CCD controllers and Magellan Guider controllers The AzCam web site containing the l
7. a TestScript py ITL s DetCharScripts Many example scripts used for detector characterization are available from ITL A snapshot of the ITL detector characterization scripts can be found at e DetCharScripts zip file See the following link for the auto generated python documentation for the ITL scripts http azcam itl arizona edu Downloads DetCharScripts html index html AzCam DSP Code for ARC and Magellan Controllers The DSP code which runs in the controllers is assembled and linked with Motorola software tools The Motorola DSP tools installer is located MotorolaDspTools msi This file installs to create to the folder structure AzCam MotorolaDSPtools which is required by the batch files which assemble and link the DSP source code While the AzCam application code for the ARC timing board is typically downloaded during camera initialization the boot code must be compatible for this to work properly Therefore AzCam DSP code must be burned into the timing board EEPROMs before use The AzCam timing DSP code is quite different from the ARC code and is required for AzCam operation The PCI fiber optic interface board and the utility board use the original ARC code and does not need to be changed Note this applies to gen3 systems only the gen1 and gen2 situation is more complex For the Magellan systems there is only one DSP file which must be downloaded during initialization Note that S files are loaded for the Magellan systems wh
8. atest version of this document as well as files for downloading is located at http azcam itl arizona edu This manual assumes AzCam is already installed and configured for a specific system AzCam installation and configuration is described in another document AzCamInstallationManual The AzCamTool graphical user interface GUI for AzCam in described in AzCamToolManual AzCam Commands This section describes AzCam syntax and commands It applies to releases 4 0 and later It is intended for relatively advanced users of AzCam including those writing scripts and client applications The most up to date command information is always available from the automatically generated HTML files linked below It is useful to have some basic knowledge of python when reading those files e This link jumps to the AzCam HTML command description index Conventions Commands or methods and Parameters or attributes are named with MixedCase convention asin SetFormat 1 512 1 512 1 1 orVersion Commands must have parentheses following their names even if no parameters are required as in Reset Commands and Parameters are case sensitive While some commands passed into the ControllerServer program are case insensitive it is best to use the proper case for all commands and parameters Filenames should be given with forward slash separators even on Windows machines If back slashes are used for some reason they must be doubled as in
9. c data Strings must be enclosed in quotation marks single preferred as in Get Version Quotation marks must match Version is not acceptable A quotation mark may be included in a string by preceding it with a backslash I am Mike s dog AzCam commands should not use Python s print statement but instead use the Print function which prints to the AzCamMonitor system Scripts may use the print statement as they are designed to run from the command line The issue here is that AzCam commands are often run in threads by remote clients and printing can easily become jumbled Versioning AzCamServer consists of many different modules some of which may be dynamically loaded as well as remote controller telescope instrument server code There is therefore no single version number or date which uniquely identifies all the code The following convention is used A build version for AzCam can be read with Get Version It is a version string such as 4 45 and is incremented when significant changes are made All python source code modules may be examined for version information at the top of each file Objects At its lowest level AzCam utilizes object based commands which provide separate control of the various aspects of AzCam functionality There is unique code contained in the various objects which interacts with hardware such as controllers instruments and telescopes and well as within more virtual objects such
10. eader information as controller ReadHeader or instrument ReadHeader This is very different from the object Header methods which only manipulate the internal Header databases The telescope and instrument databases are considered temporary and re read every time an exposure starts This is so that rapidly changing data values do not become stale Most database information is written to the image file header if the selected image format supports headers When an object such as an instrument or telescope is disabled the corresponding object database information is deleted and no longer updated See header commands for header command details Exposure Commands Expose is used to take a complete exposure It does not return until the entire exposure sequence has completed Expose1 is the same as Expose but returns immediately The exposure process then runs in a seperate thread so that clients may query for exposure status integration time and pixel readout There is a similar command Guide1 which immediately returns after starting the Guide command SetRoi FirstCol 1 LastCol 1 FirstRow 1 LastRow 1 ColBin 1 RowBin 1 RoiNum 0 is used to set the region of interest The 1 default means to use the current values so all parameters do not need to be specified RoiNum defaults to 0 and so is not needed for single ROI systems For example to change binning only use SetRoi 1 1 1 1 ColBin RowBin GetRoi may return
11. here are many user commands which do not for the sake of simplicity Attributes Python attributes variables or parameters may be read with the Get command and written with the Set command It is recommended that Get and Set be used when reading and writing attributes from remote clients For example Get controller TimingBoardInstalled returns the value of the TimingBoardInstalled parameter from the controller object as well as its data type int in this case Note that Set instrument SomeParameter is not the same as Set telescope SomeParameter since SomeParameter in each case is an attribute of a different object If no object is provided then the Globals object is assumed which contains global variables across all objects Database or header keyword Commands AzCam uses object specific keyword indexed databases to maintain textual informational about the system The keywords and their corresponding values data type and comment field are stored in each of the controller instrument and telescope databases These databases are manipulated by commands both from clients and internally in AzCam Many of the database values are written to the image file header such as a FITS header when an exposure begins The databases are accessed through methods such as controller Header GetAllKeywords and instrument Header GetKeyword FILTER1 The ReadHeader method of each object will actively read hardware to obtain h
12. ile lod files are downloaded for ARC systems
13. les In this case the script command names are available at the command line or to remote clients just like built in AzCam commands Scripts are often executed using the Run command as Run GetTemps This method has the advantage of loading the script each time the run command is called which is useful when debugging a script In the first method above the script is only imported when AzCam starts and subsequent script edits are not registered When arguments are supplied on the command line using Run they must be space delimited and not placed in parentheses So Run GetTemps 0 2 logfile1 txt is OK but Run GetTemps 0 2 logfile1 txt is not Scripts often have an initialization file ini used to read and save defaults values These files are located in the same folders as the script modules and are usually created automatically as needed Scripts may also have data files txt such as lists of exposure times for different filters which are usually located in the same folder as the script itself If a script has a GUI frontend then the GUI should be called using the script name with a trailing Gui As an example Run AcquireImages will run the AcquireImages py script while Run AcquireImagesGui will run the GUI which controls the AcquireImages py script This is just a convention but it is important so that the Run command can find the right script and initialization files One can always Run a script with its absolute pathname as Run dat
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