udas_camera command

This page is part of the ING manual INS-DAS-29 Operations manual for UltraDAS

Function

This command starts a server programe for one camera. It is an engineering command.

The camera-server programme is the heart of the DAS. It runs on the DAS computer and:

manages the configuration of the camera;
programmes the detector controller;
mediates commands to the camera;
captures images from the camera in memory;
saves observations to disc in FITS files;
displays observations into an external display-server;
provides real-time output to drive the mimic;
keeps track of run numbers.

(The camera server doesn't make the tea, but only because standard programmes for making tea and coffee are supplied with DRAMA.)

There is one camera server per active camera.

Usage

   udas_camera <telescope> <instrument> <camera> <interface-device> &

where:

telescope is UltraDAS' formal name for the telescope (INT, JKT or WHT);
instrument is the formal name for the instrument (e.g. IDS);
camera is the formal name for the camera (e.g. EEV13);
interface-device is the name of the character-special file that is the access point to the device driver for the camera's DMA board (usually /dev/astro0) or a file that simulates that device.

Case is significant in formal names.

It is possible to run udas_camera in simulation mode. In this case, replace the name of the interface device with the name of a simulation file holding a picture to be "read out" from the camera. A selection of suitable files - tek.sim, eev42-1amp.sim, eev42-2amp.sim and wfc.sim - come with the udas_camera sources.

Notes and caveats

Udas_camera is normally invoked via startobssys on the DAS computer. Observers should not normally have to invoke udas_camera directly.

Typical interface-devices are /dev/astro0 and /dev/astro1 on S-bus computers, and /dev/astropci0 and /dev/astropci1 on PCI computers.

Udas_camera replaced udas_server in the transition from system s8 to s9.