Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Mark Rivers via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov> · Fri, 26 Feb 2021 13:19:13 +0000

Hi Jorn and John,

I may be able to shed some light on this. The problem is that there are multiple incompatible versions of the PvCam library.

This is from my memory, so may not be entirely correct ...

Historically there were two companies, Photometrics and Princeton Instruments.  Photometrics had an SDK called PvCam.  Princeton Instruments did not really have an SDK, they just had the Windows applications WinSpec and WinView.  My ADRoper areaDetector driver automates WinSpec and WinView because there was no SDK available.

Over 20 years ago the companies were merged into Roper Scientific.  Princeton Instruments added support for their cameras to PvCam, and WinView and WinSpec were changed to use PvCam.

The merger appears to have been rather loose, and the 2 versions of PvCam diverged.  The version from Photometrics could not control Princeton Instruments cameras, and the version from Princeton Instruments could not control Photometrics cameras.  Eventually Princeton Instruments stopped using PvCam and developed their own SDK called PICam.  That is what they use today.  Meanwhile Photometrics has continued to develop PvCam and it now supports 64-bit Linux.  But I am quite sure that version won't support your MTE cameras because they are from the Princeton Instruments side of the house.

Mark

________________________________
From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Jörn Dreyer via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2021 12:39 AM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Re: Teledyne-Photometrics/PVCAM

Hi Jhon,

I hope you are aware of, that the PVCAM linux SDK is 32bit only! At leasththe
one that I got from piacton's ftp site.

I'm currently fighting to get the needed rspiusb driver running under a decent
5.X kernbel. It was developped originaly for 2.6 and has not seen any updates
since 2011 We have in total 4 PI-MTE cameras of the old generation. Not MTE3!
These are only supported by PvCam while the MTE3 is supported by PICam.

Where did you get the new SDK from? If that would work with the ADPvCam code
and use libusb instead of a kernel module it would help a lot to get our
cameras working.

Jörn

Am Donnerstag, 25. Februar 2021, 22:19:38 CET schrieb John Dobbins via Tech-
talk:
> Mark,
>
> I was able to download their SDK for Linux version 3.9.4.2.1 which has a
> date of Nov. 6 ,2020.  So that is hopeful.
>
> John
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2021 4:06 PM
> To: John Dobbins <john.dobbins at cornell.edu>
> Cc: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
> Subject: RE: Teledyne-Photometrics/PVCAM
>
>
> Hi John,
>
>
>
> It is true that ADPvCam has not seen much development in recent times.
> However, I view it as an important driver to continue to support and update
> to the current release of PVCAM, since Photometrics still makes useful
> cameras, and is planning to make some interesting new ones in the future.
>
>
>
> Mark
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> On Behalf Of John Dobbins
> via Tech-talk Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2021 1:52 PM
> To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
> Subject: Teledyne-Photometrics/PVCAM
>
>
>
> Teledyne-Photometrics cameras use PVCAM.  Looking at the documentation for
> areaDector PVCAM it wasn't obvious to me if people still use this for new
> cameras. Advice?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> John Dobbins
>
>
>
> Research Support Specialist
>
> Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source
>
> Cornell University
>
>
>
> www.chess.cornell.edu<http://www.chess.cornell.edu<http://www.chess.cornell.edu<http://www.chess.cornell.edu>>

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System