YAlpao

Yorick interface to Alpao deformable mirrors.

Usage

If the plug-in has been properly installed (see Installation below), it is sufficient to use any of its functions to automatically load the plug-in. You may force the loading of the plug-in by something like:

#include "alpao.i"

or

require, "alpao.i";

in your code.

To open an Alpao deformable mirror in Yorick, call:

dm = alpao_open(config);

where config is the path to the device configuration file (with an optional .acfg extension). The result, dm, is a Yorick object representing the deformable mirror. The device is automatically closed when dm is no longer referenced.

The object dm can be used to retrieve parameters as follows:

val = dm.key;
val = dm("key");

where key is the symbolic name of the parameter while "key" is the name of the parameter as a string. The case of the characters does not matter. For instance, any of:

dm.NbOfActuator
dm("NbOfActuator")
dm.nbofactuator
dm("nbofactuator")

yields the number of actuators of dm.

The deformable mirror object dm can also be used as a function or a subroutine to send a command to the deformable mirror:

dm, x;      // send command x
xp = dm(x); // send command x and return actual command

where x is a vector of dm.NbOfActuator floating-point values and xp is x clipped to the limits imposed by the deformable mirror.

The last commands sent to the deformable mirror are retrieved by:

xp = dm();

To reset the shape of the deformable mirror, call:

alpao_reset, dm;

To stop controlling the deformable mirror, call:

alpao_stop, dm;

Finally, you may call:

val = alpao_get(dm, key);
alpao_set, dm, key, val;

to repectively get or set the value val of a parameter key of the deformable mirror dm. Here, key is a string with the name of the parameter (ignoring the case of characters).

Installation

In short, building and installing the plug-in can be as quick as:

cd $BUILD_DIR
$SRC_DIR/configure --cflags="-I$PREFIX/include" --deplibs="-L$PREFIX/lib64 -lasdk"
make
make install

where $BUILD_DIR is the build directory (at your convenience), $SRC_DIR is the source directory of the plug-in code and $PREFIX is the installation directory of the Alpao Software Development Kit (SDK). The build and source directories can be the same in which case, call ./configure ... to configure for building.

More detailled installation explanations are given below.

1. You must have Yorick installed on your machine.

2. Unpack the plug-in code somewhere.

3. Configure for compilation. There are two possibilities:

   For an in-place build, go to the source directory of the plug-in code and run the configuration script:

   cd SRC_DIR
   ./configure

   To see the configuration options, type:

   ./configure --help

   To compile in a different build directory, say $BUILD_DIR, create the build directory, go to the build directory, and run the configuration script:

   mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR
   cd $BUILD_DIR
   $SRC_DIR/configure

   where $SRC_DIR is the path to the source directory of the plug-in code. To see the configuration options, type:

   $SRC_DIR/configure --help

4. Compile the code:

   make clean
   make

5. Install the plug-in in Yorick directories:

   make install