ARTIQ Network Device Support Package (NDSP) Integration for the PyVCAM Wrapper

PyVCAM Wrapper is a Python3.X wrapper for the PVCAM SDK. This project is a fork of the PyVCAM Wrapper developed by the Teledyne Photometrics team and is dependent on PyVCAM v2.1.5.

Getting Started

Follow the instructions below to get PyVCAM up and running on your machine for development and testing.

Prerequisites

• An understanding of PVCAM is very helpful for understanding PyVCAM.
• A C/C++ compiler is needed to build native source code. For Windows, MSVC 1928 was used for testing.
• The newest version of Python 3 which can be downloaded here.
• The latest PVCAM and PVCAM SDK which can be downloaded here.
• PyVCAM was developed and tested using Microsoft Windows 10/64-bit. The build package also supports Linux, but testing has been minimal.

ARTIQ Integration with Network Device Support Packages (NDSP)

Initial Setup

1. Clone this repository into your Projects folder with the command git clone git@github.com:quantumion/PyVCAM.git.

• Note: The following steps (2-3) may be skipped if installation is to be done in the default/user specified environment - virtual environment usage is not a requirement.

2. Navigate into your PyVCAM folder and create a virtual environment with virtualenv venv.
3. Activate your virtual environment with source venv/bin/activate.
4. Install PyVCAM by running pip install ..

Controller Activation

• Run python -m pyvcam.
• Add flags to specify parameters. Add -h to see a list of flags.
• To specify a port, run with python -m pyvcam -p <port number>. The default port is 3249.
  • NOTE: You need to modify your device_db.py file if you have changed the port number.

ARTIQ Experiment Setup

• In your device_db.py file, you will need to specify a remote port that your environment will connect to, as specified in the NDSP guide.

device_db = {
    "pyvcam": {
        "type": "controller",
        "host": "::1", # Change this for a different host
        "port": 3249, # Change this for a different port number
        "command": "python -m pyvcam -p {port}"
    }
    ... # The rest of your device_db
}

• In every ARTIQ experiment, you will need to initialize a pyvcam device within the build function.

def build(self):
    self.setattr_device("pyvcam")

Usage

• Camera functions run like a normal function with self.pyvcam.<function>().
• Functions with argument parameters may be input into parenthesis.
• Due to the implementation of the driver class, functions must also be modified from their default style. Follow the style in the "Driver Wrapper" columns as shown below.
• Example usage given that a camera object cam/self.pyvcam has already been created:

Bare PyVCAM Class	Driver Wrapper	Result
print(cam.gain)	print(self.pyvcam.get_gain())	Prints current gain value as int
cam.gain = 1	self.pyvcam.set_gain(1)	Sets gain value to 1

How to use the wrapper

Single Image Example

This captures a single image with a 20 millisecond exposure time and prints the values of the first 5 pixels.

• Given that a camera object cam/self.pyvcam has already been created:

Bare PyVCAM Class	Driver Wrapper
frame = cam.get_frame(exp_time=20)	frame = self.pyvcam.get_frame(exp_time=20)

print("First five pixels of frame: {}, {}, {}, {}, {}".format(*frame[:5]))

Reading Settings

This prints the current settings of the camera.

• Given that a camera object cam/self.pyvcam has already been created:

Bare PyVCAM Class	Driver Wrapper
print(cam.exp_mode)	print(self.pyvcam.get_exp_mode())
print(cam.readout_port)	print(self.pyvcam.get_readout_port())
print(cam.speed_table_index)	print(self.pyvcam.get_speed_table_index())
print(cam.gain)	print(self.pyvcam.get_gain())

Changing Settings Example

This is an example of how to change some of the settings on the cameras.

• Given that a camera object cam/self.pyvcam has already been created:

Bare PyVCAM Class	Driver Wrapper
cam.exp_mode = "Internal Trigger"	self.pyvcam.set_exp_mode("Internal Trigger")
cam.readout_port = 0	self.pyvcam.set_readout_port(0)
cam.speed_table_index = 0	self.pyvcam.set_speed_table_index(0)
cam.gain = 1	self.pyvcam.set_gain(1)

More information on how to use this wrapper and how it works can be found here.

Testing

TODO

Generating Documentation Using Sphinx

Installing Sphinx from PyPI

1. Install Sphinx by entering pip install -U sphinx in your terminal.
2. After installation, type sphinx-build --version in your terminal. A successful installation will return a version number.

Generating Documentation

1. Ensure the PyVCAM Package is already installed in your environment as shown in the Initial Setup. This is important as the Sphinx configuration will read directly from the installation.
2. Navigate to the docs/ folder.
3. Run the command make html. This reads the .rst files in docs/source/ and automatically generates documentation in html format in docs/build/.

Contributors

Steve Bellinger
David Giese
Lubomír Walder
Zhengqi Hao
HerrZiffer
Kevin Chen
Collin Epstein

MIT License

Acknowledgements

This program is developed and supported as part of the QuantumIon project at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo.

This research was undertaken thanks in part to funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.