Command and Real-time Acquisition in Parallelized PYthon (CRAPPY)

CRAPPY aims to provide a free and open-source software canvas for driving experimental setups in a versatile and accessible way.

Presentation

Setups in experimental research tend to get increasingly complex, and require to drive a variety of actuators, sensors, and cameras from various suppliers. However, as researchers are one step ahead of industrials, the commercially available testing solutions are not always well-suited to their objectives. Developing a custom software interface is also not always an option, as the synchronization of the devices and the optimization of the computer resources can prove challenging even to experienced developers.

The purpose of CRAPPY is to provide a framework for driving experimental setups, in which even the most complex designs can be controlled in usually less than a hundred lines of code. CRAPPY is:

• A free and open source Python module
• Written in pure Python, to make it easily understandable and editable by a large audience
• Highly modular and versatile, and can adapt to almost any setup
• Distributed with a wide collection of ready-to-run examples
• Heavily optimized, to make the most of your computer's resources
• Distributed with a collection of powerful tools for performing real-time data and image processing

Crappy is developed at the LaMCube, a mechanical research laboratory based in Lille, France, where it is used mainly for materials testing.

Requirements

CRAPPY can run with Python 3.10 to 3.14, and has been tested on Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi and macOS. It can probably run on other operating systems supporting the required Python versions.

CRAPPY has only one requirement: Numpy (2.0.0 or higher). In addition, other modules can be necessary depending on which features you want to use. The main ones are Matplotlib, openCV, pyserial and Pillow.

Installation

CRAPPY is distributed on PyPI, and can be installed on the supported operating systems simply by running the following command in a terminal:

python -m pip install crappy

You'll find more details in the dedicated installation section of the documentation, as well as alternative installation methods.

Citing Crappy

If Crappy has been of help in your research, please reference it in your academic publications by citing one or both of the following articles:

• Couty V., Witz J-F., Martel C. et al., Command and Real-Time Acquisition in Parallelized Python, a Python module for experimental setups, SoftwareX 16, 2021, DOI: 10.1016/j.softx.2021.100848. (link to Couty et al.)
• Weisrock A., Couty V., Witz J-F. et al., CRAPPY goes embedded: Including low-cost hardware in experimental setups, SoftwareX 22, 2023, DOI: 10.1016/j.softx.2023.101348. (link to Weisrock et al.)

Documentation

The latest versions of the documentation can be accessed on our ReadTheDocs page. It contains a description of Crappy's features, tutorials, and other useful information.

License

GNU GPLv2 © 2015, Laboratoire Mécanique de Lille & contributors