IMACS Software Documentation

The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science (Carnegie Observatories), Pasadena, CA

Version 3.17

Christoph C. Birk (birk AT obs DOT carnegiescience DOT edu)

Location of this document: http://instrumentation.obs.carnegiescience.edu/Software/IMACS/overview.html

News

Software Documentation

Trouble Shooting

Further documentation:

The official IMACS User Manual

COSMOS: The Carnegie Observatories System for MultiObject Spectroscopy

CN7500 Omega controller

GP-375 vacuum sensor controller

Linmot linear motor controller (shutter, GISMO)

JackRabbit shutter code

News

MechGUI
Allow initialization of the PR- and SH-guiders while ROSIE is installed.

CamGUI
Write a temporary copy of the FITS data to /tmp/imacs_cX.fits.: These files allow to recover lost files in the event of a disk disconnect, but will be over-written by the next exposure.

CamGUI
Optionally send the CCD temperature setpoints at startup (or Reset/DSP) to the 'imacserver/DSP'.: The GUI looks for the file '$IMACSINI/setpointsX.ini' , where 'X' is either '4' (f/4) or '2' (f/2).; The file should contain 8 lines, one for each setpoint.

Release Notes

Index

Software Overview: Introduction; Design Philosophy; System Architecture; System Requirements
System Setup and Startup: Setup Tool; Startup Window; System Files
Mechanics Control: Low Level Control (Module Testing); Mid Level Control (Engineering); High Level Control (User)
Data Acquistion: CCDserver; CamGUI ( Scripting ); QlTool
Telescope GUI: Control; Airmass; SkyMap; Object List
Trouble Shooting: Common Error Codes; Dos and Don'ts; Starting Over; Linmot Controller Setup; Lantronix TCP/IP-Serial Converters

Software Overview

Introduction

The IMACS control system is responsible for controlling the IMACS instrument. It constitutes the interface between the user (observer) and all IMACS related hardware (science arrays, motion controllers and sensors).

Design Philosophy

All code for the IMACS control system was written in ANSI-C and runs under Linux, Solaris and macOS. All graphical components make use of the X11 libraries without any 3rd-party extensions to ensure high flexibility and compatibility over various platforms.

modular design (mechanics, data-acq, ql-tool indepenent)

3 level mechanical testing (xxtest, enggui, mechgui) necessary due to long lead times on components

System Architecture

The IMACS control system consists of several modules:

The "Instrument Motion Control"-GUI and the "Science Array Control"-GUI store their status in a common database. The database allows each module to retrieve status information about other modules but keeps interfaces between modules as simple as possible. Communication between all IMACS control system modules is done over TCP/IP sockets. This allows for maximum flexiblility and compatibility between operating systems.

System Requirements

UN*X operating system with X11 libraries. Linux (RedHat/Fedora), Solaris and MacOS-X (Tiger/SnowLeopard) are tested.
Note: Solaris is probably (I have no access to any computer running Solaris anymore) broken since it does limit the number of semaphores to 16, but the current IMACS software requires at least 24.
CXT (Christoph's X11-toolkit) library (source code is available here)

Shared memory (SysV) settings (#blocks >= 9, size >= 32 MBytes)
MacOS-X 10.4 (Tiger): /etc/rc
MacOS-X 10.5 (Leopard): /etc/rc.local

    sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=33554432
                       .shmmin=1
                       .shmmni=32
                       .shmseg=16
                       .shmall=65536

MacOS-X 10.6 .. 10.13 (SnowLeopard .. HighSierra): /etc/sysctl.conf

    kern.sysv.shmmax=33554432
    kern.sysv.shmseg=16
    kern.sysv.shmall=65536

macOS 11.x (Big Sur): use 'launchd'

/Library/LaunchDemons/shmsetup.plist

The SAO-, GSC- or USNO-A catalog(s) are optional to run the data simulator. If no catalog is present the software will create random stars in simulator mode.

2004-06-02, Christoph C. Birk, Carnegie Observatories