ScopeFoundry

A Python platform for controlling custom laboratory experiments.

http://www.scopefoundry.org

Requirements

• Python 3.8+ (Currently tested with 3.9, 3.10, 3.12, 3.13)
• qtpy with any Qt-binding: PyQt6, PySide6, PyQt5, PySide
• NumPy 1.24+
• PyQtGraph
• h5py

Optional:

• qtconsole
• pyqtdarktheme

Documentation

See http://www.scopefoundry.org

Installation

If you have all the requirements

pip install scopefoundry

From scratch

1. Download and install the Miniconda Python distribution.

2. Create an environment with the required dependencies. In the anaconda(3) prompt, run:

   conda create -n scopefoundry python=3.13
   

   conda activate scopefoundry
   

3. To install scopefoundry:

   pip install pyqt6 qtconsole pyqtdarktheme matplotlib scopefoundry
   

   qtconsole, matplotlib, and pyqtdarktheme are optional.

Upgrade

# conda activate scopefoundry
pip install --upgrade scopefoundry

If you have a folder named ScopeFoundry in your_project_folder, you are a core developer and can either pull from GitHub or rename the ScopeFoundry to ScopeFoundryArchive and:

# conda activate scopefoundry
pip install scopefoundry

Getting Started

After installation, use the Anaconda prompt and make or navigate to your_project_folder, then run:

python -m ScopeFoundry.tools

This will provide tools to create an initial ScopeFoundry App along with templates to develop hardware and add measurement components.

Equivalently run:

python -m ScopeFoundry init

More details

Analyze h5 with Jupyter

With ScopeFoundry installed, you can navigate to your folder with h5 files and:

python -m ScopeFoundry ipynb

analyze_with_ipynb will generate convenience functions to load data with Python. For details see here.

Recommended Folder Structure

├── your_project_folder
   	├── ScopeFoundryHW        # Your hardware component files
   	   	├── company1_model1        # For each hardware
   	   	   	├── company1_model1_hw.py        # Define a HardwareComponent class that will be integrated
   	   	   	├── company1_model1_dev.py        # Optional: an interface class 
   	   	   	├── company1_model1_test_app.py   # A test app for quick development
   	   	   	├── company2_model4
   	   	├── **
   	├── your_fancy_microscope_app.py 			# Your actual app that you will launch
   	├── measurements/
   	   	├──your_measurement_1.py        # Measurement class 
   	├── **
   	├── ScopeFoundry        # Optional: For ScopeFoundry core developers only

For ScopeFoundry Core Developers

Follow the same steps as above and additionally:

1. Installation as above (although scopefoundry does not need to be pip-installed).
2. Fork the repository on GitHub and pull it into your_project_folder (see folder structure above).

Additions to ScopeFoundry are welcome. See instructions here

Maintainer

Edward S. Barnard esbarnard@lbl.gov

Contributors

• Benedikt Ursprung
• Nick Borys
• Jonas Zipfel
• Frank Ogletree
• Clarice Aiello
• Hao Wu
• Alan Buckley
• Peter Ercius
• Mark Hager