gonio-imsoft 0.0.2

Goniometric imaging software

Goniometric imaging software

Gonio Imsoft is a command line Python program designed to control the goniometric high-speed imaging experiments where

• rotary encoder values are read over serial (pySerial)
• NI-DAQmx is used for general input/output (nidaqmx)
• the camera is controlled over MicroManager (MMCorePy)

It was developed for the need of imaging 200 distinct rotations (eye locations) per specimen fast, requiring only the space bar to be pressed between the rotations.

For general imaging, it is more convinient to use MicroManager or similar.

Required hardware and current limitations

• Any MicroManager supported imaging device
• Any National Instruments input/output board (NI specificity can be lifted in future by using PyVISA or similar)
• Any serial device reporting rotation values in format "pos1,pos2\n"

There are currently some limitations however (to be fixed soon)

1. Imsoft yet lacks dialogs to select and configure devices in a user-friendly manner. Currently, the same can be achieved by modifications in camera_server.Camera.__init__, core.Dynamic.analog_output and arduino_serial.ArduinoReader.

2. At least previously, MicroManager used to ship only Python 2 bindings and because of this, the camera_server.py has to be ran with Python 2 and rest of the software with Python 3.

3. Some parts only work on Windows (nidaqmx and msvcrt modules)

How to install

Rotary encoders

We connected two 1024-step rotary encoders to two perpendicular rotation stages (goniometers), and used Arduino for readout.

When using similar setup to us, you can modify and flash arduino/angle_sensors/angle_sensors.ino, and use Serial Monitor in the Arduino IDE to confirm that the readout work.

Alternatively, any serial device reporting rotations in format "pos1,pos2\n" where pos1 and pos2 are rotation steps of the two encoders will do.

Main software

First please make sure that you have

• MicroManager installation with a working camera
• National Insturments cards configured with names Dev1 and Dev2 for input and output, respectively
• Python 3 and Python 2

Then, with Python 3's pip

pip install gonio-imsoft

How to use

python -m gonioimsoft.tui