NAME

rmanta - Controls the Allied Vision camera

SYNOPSIS

rmanta [debug] [rot=] [camera=] [num=] [gain=] [gtl=] [mirror] [XPC Options]

OPTIONS

rot= sets the rotation angle of the chip.

maxrows overrides the size of chip and determines maximum rows.

camera= changes the name of the command and the subcommands from "ccd" to specified string.

num= changes the camera number. This applies if there are multiple cameras. Note the order is not deterministic.

gain= changes the gain of the amplifier in dB.

gtl= is the path to the path the the Vimba cti directory. This can overirde the path set by the environoment variable GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH .

The API is found here. Good luck reading it.

COMMANDS

CCD

done ccd [time=] [noread] [box=sr,sc,nr,nc[,1]] [bin=] [dark] [nbytes=] [bzero=]

time - opens the CCD shutter for the specified number of seconds. It will wait for the exposure to end.

dark - will cause the shutter to stay shut, but delay for the desired time. Note: dark does not work with the Allied Vision cameras.

noread - will take the exposure but not read the ccd.

nbytes= specifies the number of bytes to be transmitted back using the BAIT binary protocol.

bin= sets the on chip pixel binning.

box=sr,sc,nr,nc - reads only the portion specified the parameters are the starting row and column and the number of rows and columns. All four parameters must be specified and delimited by commas.

bzero - subtracts the specified value before transmitting data.

mirror - adds the mirror keyword to the ccd_status line. The image program will make the WCS coordinate determinant -1.

CCD_STATUS

ccd_status

Returns a string similar to:
done ccd_status nrow=1038 ncol=1388 readtime=1 tchip=99.0 name=Manta_G-145B darktime=5 pixel=6.5 rot=0 gain=0.0

nrow - full size number of rows.

ncol - full size number of columns.

pixel - pixel size in microns.

readtime - is many seconds it should take to read the full chip into memory.

darktime- is the number of seconds since (the start of) the last readout.

tchip - the chip temperature is in degrees Celsius. Note: this is null here, because there is no thermometer.

rot- the chip rotation off RA/Dec in degrees. This is set by the command line.

gain - not sure.

CCD_SETUP

ccd_setup

Does nothing.

INSTALLATION

The Allied Vision VimbaX API must be downloaded. Then 
From api/include
sudo mkdir /usr/local/include/VmbC
sudo install -m 644 VmbC/*.h /usr/local/include/VmbC
And 
From lib
sudo install -m 644 libVmbC.so /usr/local/lib
sudo install -m 644 GenICam/*.so /usr/local/lib

sudo ldconfig -n -v /usr/local/lib

#copy the documentation
mkdir ~/wwwroot/PDFs/AlliedVision
cp docs/index.html ~/wwwroot/PDFs/AlliedVision
from Vimba Download
find . -name "*.pdf" -exec cp -p '{}' ~/wwwroot/PDFs/AlliedVision \;

Into /etc/environment
GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH=/home/treffers/Downloads/VimbaX_2023-4/cti

BUGS

The camera must be connected via high speed ethernet to work properly. There are no indications that it will not work other than poor images.

There are issues with higher binning values than 2. The server may have to be restarted.

MISCELLANEOUS

To do a hard reboot of the camera. 
Camera Reset register address: 0x10008h
Write: 0x02h   Hard Reset
Do NOT read this register
Program index