Controls Software Documentation

This page exists to collect links to documentation about the instrument control system EPICS, its modules and related libraries (synApps, areaDetector), as used at the Advanced Photon Source.

Documentation referenced should be appropriate for beamline scientists, as opposed to only EPICS developers. New deployments should prefer EPICSv7, the latest release series.

See also the extensive resources from past EPICS Collaboration meetings.

EPICS Base

• Intro to EPICS
• EPICS Database Concepts
• EPICS Base Getting Started (official)

synApps (aka EPICS Support)

• synApps Collected Documentation
• synApps deployment instructions, including use of xxx template ioc

areaDetector

• areaDetector Official Documentation

Deploying, troubleshooting, and maintaining IOCs

• Troubleshooting EPICS IOCs
• simDetector Install directions (2BM)
• The Basics of an IOC (XXX documentation)
• Creation of an IOC using mkioc
• BCDA Tutorials (APS Internal)

Maintaining Documentation

• ReadTheDocs tutorial and example site

APS ESAF & Proposal - Read-only interface

• apsbss - Read-only interface to information from APS Proposal and ESAF (experiment safety approval form) databases.

Bluesky

• Bluesky home page
• Try Bluesky in a web browser (from NSLS-II)
• apstools - Various Python tools for use with Bluesky at the APS., Guides, How-Tos, and other examples.
• hklpy: Bluesky's diffractometer support, Diffractometer examples.
• Bluesky training for APS users
• Template for new instrument description. (Includes configuration for IPython console, Jupyter notebook, and bluesky-queueserver.
• Installation Steps for APS users
• Template for creating a local tiled data server
• PyDM - Python Display Manager
• adl2pydm - Convert MEDM's .adl files to PyDM's .ui format.

Python support

• PyEpics - Python interface for Channel Access based on libca and libCom.
• caproto - Python interface for Channel Access in pure Python.
• p4p - Python interface for PV Access
• pvapy - Python interface for PV Access
• mdaPythonUtils - Read .mda data files into Python.
• PvMail - Watch an EPICS PV. Send email when it changes from 0 to 1.
• pvWebMonitor - Post EPICS PVs to read-only (static) web site.
• punx - Python Utilities for NeXus HDF5 files: validation, structure, hierarchy.
• pyRestTable - Format a nice table in reST (reStructuredText) from Python.
• spec2nexus - Read SPEC data files into Python, write NeXus data file.