RE: PIXIS-XO 100B

["Szalata, Zenon M." <zms@slac.stanford.edu>]

Hi Mark,
See below.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Rivers [mailto:rivers@cars.uchicago.edu]
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 12:17 PM
> To: Szalata, Zenon M.
> Cc: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov; Dunning, Michael
> Subject: RE: PIXIS-XO 100B
> 
> Hi Zen,
> 
> It's fairly complicated.  Here are the gory details as I understand them.
> 
> The Princeton Instruments WinView program is strictly a 32-bit Windows
> application.  It exposes its functionality through the Microsoft COM interface,
> and that is how the areaDetector Roper driver controls it.
> 
> Princeton Instruments is part of a larger company called Roper Scientific, and
> one of their sister companies is Photometrics.  Photometrics has a
> programming library called PVCAM which in principle runs on both Windows
> and Linux.  Princeton cameras can also be controlled with PVCAM.  The
> areaDetector PVCAM driver uses this library.
> 
> Unfortunately a few years ago the Princeton and Photometrics versions of
> PVCAM diverged.   I know that the Photometrics cameras with the
> Photometrics version of PVCAM are supposed to work under Linux.  But I also
> know that the few EPICS users who have tried it have given up and gone back
> to the Windows version.  I don't think that the Princeton Instruments version of
> PVCAM works  under Linux at all, but I am not certain of this.
> 
> Princeton has now released their own new SDK library, which they call PICAM.
> It works on 64-bits, but only Windows, not Linux.  It only works with their
> newer cameras, include the PIXIS.
> 
> > So, not on Linux.  This may be difficult to overcome.
> 
> Do you mean "overcome" in the sense of getting it to work on Linux
> technically, or "overcome" in the sense of a reluctance at SLAC to use
> Windows IOCs?
>

I guess I mean both.  On the one hand, getting this camera to work with EPICS on a Windows computer, will be somewhat of a challenge; I am not sure who will do it.  On the other hand, it seems that to get it to work under Linux is no doubt a much bigger challenge.  Well, now we know a bit more which should help deciding what to do.

Thanks Mark,
Zen
 
> Mark
> 
> 
> From: Szalata, Zenon M. [mailto:zms@slac.stanford.edu]
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 1:50 PM
> To: Mark Rivers
> Cc: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov; Dunning, Michael
> Subject: RE: PIXIS-XO 100B
> 
> Thanks Mark,
> So, not on Linux.  This may be difficult to overcome.
> I suspected that.  Is it limited to Windows because the vendor libraries are
> available for Windows only?  Or perhaps, it is the USB interface that forces that
> restriction.
> Zen
> 
> From: Mark Rivers [mailto:rivers@cars.uchicago.edu]
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:17 AM
> To: Szalata, Zenon M.
> Cc: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
> Subject: RE: PIXIS-XO 100B
> 
> Hi Zen,
> 
> Yes, it should work with areaDetector, we are using other PIXIS USB cameras.
> They work with the Roper driver (which uses their WinView program).  They
> should also work with the PVCAM driver, which uses the Photometrics PVCAM
> library, but I don't know if anyone has tested that.  Note that the Roper driver
> only works on win32-x86, it does not work on Linux and it does not work on
> 64-bit Windows, because WinView does not run on those platforms.
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> From: Szalata, Zenon M. [mailto:zms@slac.stanford.edu]
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 1:08 PM
> To: Mark Rivers
> Cc: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
> Subject: PIXIS-XO 100B
> 
> Hi Mark,
> We are planning to purchase Princeton Instruments PIXIS-XO: 100B X-ray
> imaging camera.  It comes with USB-2 interface.  Is this device supported by
> Area Detector package?  It is the USB interface which troubles me a bit.
> Thanks,
> Zen