RE: Is it possible to switch to different camera for ADAravis without launching multiple IOC or restart the same IOC with different script?

["Liu, Wanming via Tech-talk" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Hi Mark,

Thanks a lot for the information.  I will check them out later.
One of our equipment decided to fail today and have to get that one fix first.

Thanks for making areaDetector available for the community.

Wanming


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu> 
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 11:38 AM
To: Liu, Wanming <wmliu at anl.gov>
Cc: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Re: Is it possible to switch to different camera for ADAravis without launching multiple IOC or restart the same IOC with different script?

Hi Wanming,


Note that what you are trying to do with switching cameras inside the driver should also be possible.  You are getting these errors:


(process:2490): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:20:01.768: invalid uninstantiatable type '<invalid>' in cast to 'ArvGcFeatureNode'

** (process:2490): CRITICAL **: 09:20:01.769: arv_gc_feature_node_is_available: assertion 'ARV_IS_GC_FEATURE_NODE (gc_feature_node)' failed


Those errors are coming because the arvFeature needs to created when the camera re-connects.  I have already added the code to do that in the master branch of ADAravis.  This is from the release notes for the future R2-3 release.


### R2-3 (July XXX, 2021)
----
* Improvements to allow reconnecting to the camera and downloading all settings to the camera without restarting the IOC.
  * Added arvFeature::initialize() and an std::vector of arvFeatures to allow re-initializing when the camera reconnects.
  * Require C++11 so auto iterators can be used.
  * Add autosave command create_manual_set(ADAutoSaveMenu.req, ...) to iocBoot/iocAravis/st.cmd.base.
    This can be used to save and load the camera and plugin PV when the camera reconnects.
    It can also be used to save and load different configurations for different setups.

So if you use the master branch then I think the errors you got will go away.

Mark



________________________________
From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Liu, Wanming via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 9:54 AM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Is it possible to switch to different camera for ADAravis without launching multiple IOC or restart the same IOC with different script?


Hi,



We have multiple PointGrey BlkFly cameras of the same model on our beamline.  We only take image data from one camera at any time.

We could launch multiple ADAravis IOCs with one for each camera and switching PV names in GUI/OPI.  But is it possible to launch just one IOC and switch to different cameras as needed?



I added stringout device support to ADAravis and created a record to change the camera name.  So far, It seems like I can get the IOC connect to a different camera with pvput.  But a lots of errors message will popup when I try to use the camera.



Here is what I did when the camera name stringout record is being processed.

I added a member function ChangeCamera to ADAravis as



void ADAravis::ChangeCamera(const char *cameraName)

{

    delete this->cameraName;

    this->cameraName = epicsStrDup(cameraName);

//    printf("%s\n",this->cameraName);

    connectToCamera();

}



When the CameraName record is processed, it will call this CahngeCamera function.



From the printout of IOC shell as response to the ChangeCamera call,



CameraName 192.168.2.98

ADAravis: Looking for camera '192.168.2.98'...

2021/09/27 09:13:01.493 13ARV1:cam1:ARConnectCamera devAsynInt32::processCallbackOutput process write error

ADAravis: Your tick frequency is 125000000

So your timestamp resolution is 8.000000 ns



It looks like that the camera was successfully switched in  aravis, but asyn driver seems to have some troubles.

When I tried to use the camera, lots of error or warning like the following pops up which seems that the other part of the IOC is still using the old camera instance which is no longer exist.



(process:2490): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:20:01.768: invalid uninstantiatable type '<invalid>' in cast to 'ArvGcFeatureNode'

** (process:2490): CRITICAL **: 09:20:01.769: arv_gc_feature_node_is_available: assertion 'ARV_IS_GC_FEATURE_NODE (gc_feature_node)' failed

(process:2490): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:20:01.769: invalid unclassed pointer in cast to 'ArvGcFeatureNode'

** (process:2490): CRITICAL **: 09:20:01.769: arv_gc_feature_node_is_available: assertion 'ARV_IS_GC_FEATURE_NODE (gc_feature_node)' failed

(process:2490): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:20:01.769: invalid unclassed pointer in cast to 'ArvGcFeatureNode'

** (process:2490): CRITICAL **: 09:20:01.769: arv_gc_feature_node_is_available: assertion 'ARV_IS_GC_FEATURE_NODE (gc_feature_node)' failed

(process:2490): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:20:01.769: invalid unclassed pointer in cast to 'ArvGcFeatureNode'





So it will take more than just ADAravis::ConnectToCamera() to make the switching work.  But I don't know what to add to ChangeCamera yet.



Any comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.





Thanks,





Wanming Liu



L120B, Bldg 360

HEP,ANL