Remote operation


Pixcel now supports an internet socket for remote control of picture taking and changing parameters.

New Features:

CONNECTION

The connection is made to the machines IP address and the socket number listed in the SOCKET entry in pixcel.ini

Remote operation uses the parameters in the [REMOTE] section of pixcel.ini.

SOCKET=16421

The normal telnet socket is 23, any socket above 1024 is probably safe.

REMOTE=TRUE

This disables remote connections, for obvious reasons it cannot be set remotely.

ENABLE_WARNINGS=TRUE

Pixcel will generate warning boxes about overwriting data, being unable to load external fits file etc. These messages require OK to be clicked on pixcel. If you are running the system completely remotely this disables the warnings so no access to pixcel is needed.

Note that system errors or crashes still need access to the machine running pixcel.

ALLOW=200.28.111.138

This is a comma separated list of machines which are allowed to connect to Pixcel


COMMANDS

Commands to pixcel can be abbreviated to the first unambiguous length and are not case sensitive. eg. 'G' can still be used for GO

All of the parameters on the GUI can be set remotely and almost all of the values in pixcel.ini. Generally it is safe to change any value while the camera is not reading data, changing readout mode in the middle of an integration might be a bad idea.

PARAMETERS

Some parameters are not directly set in pixcel.ini but can be controlled over the remote link,

TEST

Returns pixcel version and build date, used to test link.

DATE

Sets the computers clock, send either the time in the format hh:mm:ss or the full date in fits format YYYYMMDDThh::mm:ss

TIMET

Sets the computers clock using the Unix timet value, ie. The number of seconds since 1Jan1970

MODE

Sets the readout mode, either RRR or NDR

CHIP

Sets a single chip to be readout, values are 0,1,2,3 or 4 . Send chip 0 to select all chips.

QUAD

Selects a single quadrant to be read out, values 1 - 16, Send quad 0 to select all.

EXPTIME

Sets exposure time, value in seconds.

LOOPS

The number of exposures, note that the loops parameter in pixcel.ini is the numebr of reads, ie. the number of exposures+1

OBJECT

The name of the object, used in the fits header and in the file name if the OBJECT_NAME option is set.

FLUSHES

The number of pre-flushes before a sequence, the same as the pixcel.ini key NO_OF_FLUSHES.

PATH

The path to the data directory, now supports network paths of the form \\machine\user\dir

SAVE

Sets saving on/off, the same as the pixcel.ini key SAVE_FRAMES_TO_DISK


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