areaDetector Release Notes
Release 1-3 (24-November-2008)
- Added a driver for MarCCD detectors. Compared to the previous support in the "ccd"
module, this driver uses the faster Version 1 protocol for the Mar server. It also
makes the detector data available via callbacks (by reading the TIFF files as soon
as they are written). This allows detector data to be displayed with EPICS clients,
and for ROI calculations.
- Added support for shutter control. Supports shutters that are driven directly
from the detector hardware, as well as shutters controlled by EPICS records. Shutter
support is implemented for the MarCCD, Pilatus, and simulation detectors.
- Added new methods for shutter support to the detector base class ADDriver.cpp
- ADDriver::setShutter()
- ADDriver::writeInt32
- Reorganized the file I/O parameters, template files and medm screens
- Moved the file capture parameters from NDPluginFile.h and NDPluginFile.cpp to
ADStdDriverParams.h. This allows a detector driver to use these capture parameters
if desired.
- Removed all of the file I/O records from ADBase.template and ADBase_settings.req.
These previously duplicated the records in NDFile.template and NDFile_settings.req,
which was hard to maintain. IOCs for detector drivers that can do file I/O now need
to load NDFile.template, while those that cannot no longer need to load these records.
They also need to have NDFile_settings.req added to auto_settings.req. This does
not effect the file plugin support, only drivers that directly do file I/O.
- Removed the file I/O PVs from ADBase.adl. Added a related display link to NDFile.adl.
- NDFile.adl now contains only the file related PVs, not the plugin related PVs.
The new file NDPluginFile.adl replaces the previous version of NDFile.adl, and contains
both the file PVs and the plugin PVs.
- Added new enums in ADStdDriverParams.h
- ADFrameType_t
- ADShutterMode_t
- ADFileMode_t
- Added new parameters in ADStdDriverParams.h
- ADShutterControl (replaces ADShutter)
- ADShutterControlEPICS
- ADShutterStatus
- ADShutterMode
- ADShutterOpenDelay
- ADShutterCloseDelay
- ADTimeRemaining
- ADNumImagesCounter
- ADFrameType
- ADArrayCallbacks
- ADFileWriteMode
- ADFileNumCapture
- ADFileNumCaptured
- ADFileCapture
ADArrayCallbacks can be set to 0 to disable callbacks with detector data. For the
MarCCD and Pilatus detectors setting this to 0 will disable reading the disk files
after collection. This can be used to reduce overhead when EPICS is being used just
for control, rather than to access the data.
- Added variant of NDPluginDriver::createFileName that returns the filePath and
fileName separately, rather than a complete file name including the path.
Release 1-2 (24-October-2008)
- Major update to documentation
- Significant enhancement to ROI plugin. Added net counts, ROI highlighting.
- Added driver for Pilatus detectors. This has undergone limited testing.
- Added driver for ADSC detectors (done by Lewis Muir, IMCA-CAT)
- Removed separate readback parameters in drivers and template files
- Changed from mbbi/mbbo records to bi/bo records where possible now that the asynInt32
interface supports bi/bo records.
- Internals
- Renamed asynParamBase to asynPortDriver.
- Renamed NDArrayBase to NDArrayDriver
- Renamed NDPluginBase to NDPluginDriver
- Renamed NDArrayBuff to NDArrayPool, now in NDArray.cpp.
- Renamed ADDriverBase to ADDriver
- Removed ADUtils
- The asynHandle interface in asyn was renamed to asynGenericPointer, many changes
to incorporate this.
- Base class constructor no longer initializes all asyn interfaces, only the selected
ones.
- NDArray pool is no longer global, each server creates its own pool if needed.
- Implemented real routines for writeInt32, writeFloat64, and writeOctet in asynPortDriver.cpp,
removed them from ADDriver.cpp where they were not needed.
Release 1-1 (10-May-2008)
- Major rewrite. Converted device drivers and plugins from C to C++ with C++ base
classes that handle many of the details of asyn and of callbacks and threading for
plugins.
- Everything except device drivers and top-level EPICS databases and channel access
clients are now fully N-dimensional, not restricted to 2-D.
- NDPluginFile now uses netCDF format, which is a portable self-describing binary
file format.
- Added NDPluginROI which implements region-of-interest.
Release 1-0 (11-Apr-2008)
- Initial release, still many things remaining to be done.
Suggestions and Comments to:
Mark Rivers : (rivers@cars.uchicago.edu)