Linux Apogee Instruments camera drivers

The Random Factory is pleased to announce the latest release of our Linux drivers for the Apogee Instruments series of CCD cameras.

Four versions of the package are avilable

The runtime distribution contains the drivers and GUI, plus libraries required to run them. (~7Mb)
The source distribution contains the runtime plus all the sources and tools used to build the drivers. (~33Mb)
A full mini-linux embedded CCD camera controller system. May be nfs mounted as the root filesystem of an embedded PC (such as the MZ104 single board system), or copied to hard-disk or flash media, and booted directly.
The full developers kit on cdrom contains the runtime and source distributions plus a set of astronomical ,graphics, image processing and other tools, intended to make it easy to extend the driver and GUI with capabilities for your specific applications.

The following downloads are available from the project server

Installation

The archived distributions may be installed using any tar archive aware tool. For example The .tgz runtime whould be installed using the following commands

	cd /
	tar -xvzPf /path-to-archive/apogee-driver-0.5.tgz
	/opt/apogee/apogee-post

Whichever distribution is installed, the camera driver needs to be prepared (per-user) before use. Log in with the username you will be using to operate the camera, the open an xterm and type


	/opt/apogee/install

Prompts for the type of camera, and I/O port will appear. In the event that the .ini file for your camera is not listed, you may need to obtain the latest version from Apogee. (alternatively, examine the new .ini file format, and edit your current .ini file to conform to the same parameter names). Once the driver is setup, the GUI interface can be started using the command


	~/startapogee

An exception is the Embedded system image distribution. This needs special preparation. After unpacking the archive (in for example /nfsroot), locate the file

	/nfsroot/root/onboot

and edit it according the the instructions in the file. The embedded system will automatically perform the installation steps the first time the system is booted. Remember to give the embedded system permission to write to your desktop X-windows ( xhost +my-embedded-systems-name)., before booting.

Capabilities

The current release of the drivers have the following capabilities

Support for parallel port and ISA interface models
Full-frame, binned, and sub-region readout
Image read/write to FITS format disk files
In memory buffering of an arbitrary number of images
Automatic image display using DS9 image viewer
Calibration image library construction
On-the-fly calibration
Drift-scan mode
Focus frame readout
Graphical User Interface to major functions
Tcl level scripting interface to all aspects of driver
Tcl level scripting interface to image buffer management
Tcl level scripting interface to manage FITS images, tables, headers

History

V0.4 Released July 2001

New features

Updated GIMP version to latest
Updated VNC versions to latest
Changed to tar only archives to avoid RPM 3/4 problems
Added support for writing RGB triplets of images for cameras using the SONY color ccd chip
Added Embedded system image to distributions

Bug Fixes

Install no longer replaces tcl/tk shared libraries, uses private copies
Missing symlink to libccd.so repaired

V0.3-2 Released January 2001

New features -

Pause/Resume exposures
New Temperature control menu
Added Restore full-frame to Observe menu
Added IRQ masking options and GUI window (Alt-i to popup)
Added auto-incrementing sequence counter
Changed defaults for OBSTYPES to be single frame for every type
Added telescope/instrument/equinox to GUI
Added confirmation prompt to Exit option

Bug fixes -

Close out DS9 on program exit
Added prompt for filename when user chooses "do not overwrite"
Fix default setpoint on graphic
Fixed shared memory image transfer to DS9 (was broken for non-root users)
Fixed abort to handle single exposures
Fixed time/date in FITS headers
Fixed incorrect image type in FITS headers
Fixed buildso script to use /opt/apogee as location for swig files

V0.3-1 Released January 2001

New features -

First version written to new API
C++/tcl wrappers for all functions
Preliminary LX200 library
GUI for easy camera control
First user/programmers manuals

V0.2 - Not released

Early working version based on the now obsolete old Apogee API

V0.1 - Not released

This version was written prior to access to hardware, and was based on the now obsolete old Apogee API.