Engineering software

This is software designed for lab testing and general alignment. It uses very old and well-tested camera driver interface scripts on rtc (the real-time computer) and IDL clients on a host machine (Linix or Mac)

Wavefront Sensor Live Display

WFS Camera Server

Servers need to be run on rtc, from within the socket directory:

cd ~/socket
./wfsCamServer -start &
...
./wfsCamServer -stop

-start

Starts the server

-stop

Stops the server

-status

Prints out the status of the server

WFS Camera Client

The client is run from an IDL session:

idl
.compile wfs_cam_client.pro
.go

go, [options]

Starts the capture of WFS camera images. This displays the raw WFS camera output and an analysis of the wavefront.

Options:

• /help - prints out help for all the go function options
• rate= - display rate, in frames per second. Default is 3
• timeout= - time, in seconds, to completion of captures and return to the idl user prompt. Default is 10.
• /forever - captures “forever” or until the Cancel button is pushed
• mode= - ShameAO Hartmann sensor mode ‘8x’, ‘16x’, or ‘30x’. Default is ‘16x’
• /take_dark - capture a set of dark frames, average, and save to disk. Use this averaged dark to subtract from subsequent camera frame displays. I recommend you turn out the lights before doing a dark.
• /zoom - zoom the display by 2x. This is useful in ‘16x’ mode
• /simulate - use simulation frames from disk, instead of connecting to the server. Useful for debugging the client.
• /chatty - give lots of reports on each frame

dark, [options]

Capture a set of dark frames, average, and save to disk. Use this averaged dark to subtract from subsequent camera frame displays. I recommend you turn out the lights before doing a dark.

The most recent dark file is stored in the present working director (the one from which you started idl) as wfs_camera_dark.fits. It is also stored in the main common block and is accessible as the variable wfsdark.

Options:

• /read - re-read the stored dark file instead of capturing a new dark
• /zero - zero out the

nodark

Zeros the dark frame. This allows seeing the live frames as raw data without darks being subtracted. This does not destroy the dark file on disk, which can be read in again using dark, /read.

Tip/Tilt Sensor Live Display

TT Camera Server

Servers need to be run on rtc, from within the socket directory:

cd ~/socket
./ttCamServer -start &
...
./ttCamServer -stop

-start

Starts the server

-stop

Stops the server

-status

Prints out the status of the server

TT Camera Client

The client is run from an IDL session:

idl
.compile tt_cam_client.pro
.go

go, [options]

Starts the capture of TT camera images. This displays the raw TT camera output and an analysis of the wavefront.

Options:

• /help - prints out help for all the go function options
• rate= - display rate, in frames per second. Default is 3
• timeout= - time, in seconds, to completion of captures and return to the idl user prompt. Default is 10.
• /forever - captures “forever” or until the Cancel button is pushed
• /take_dark - capture a set of dark frames, average, and save to disk. Use this averaged dark to subtract from subsequent camera frame displays. I recommend you turn out the lights before doing a dark.
• /simulate - use simulation frames from disk, instead of connecting to the server. Useful for debugging the client.
• /chatty - give lots of reports on each frame

dark, [options]

Capture a set of dark frames, average, and save to disk. Use this averaged dark to subtract from subsequent camera frame displays. I recommend you turn out the lights before doing a dark.

The most recent dark file is stored in the present working director (the one from which you started idl) as tt_camera_dark.fits. It is also stored in the main common block and is accessible as the variable ttdark.

Options:

• /read - re-read the stored dark file instead of capturing a new dark
• /zero - zero out the

nodark

Zeros the dark frame. This allows seeing the live frames as raw data without darks being subtracted. This does not destroy the dark file on disk, which can be read in again using dark, /read.