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)
- Installing EPICS on RaspberryPi
synApps (aka EPICS Support)
areaDetector
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)
Pre-built IOCs
Docker images
- EPICS Base 7.0.5, synApps 6.2: standard xxx, customized
- EPICS Base 7.0.5, synApps 6.2, area detector 3.10: standard, custom
Virtual Machines
Maintaining Documentation
APS ESAF & Proposal - Read-only interface
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. APS Bluesky 101 (from 2021).
- 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
- queueserver - Server for queueing plans., API documentation
- tiled - Data server for databroker and directories with data files., Template for creating a local tiled data server at APS.
- PyDM - Python Display Manager
- adl2pydm - Convert MEDM's .adl files to PyDM's .ui format.
Python support
Channel Access
- PyEpics - Python interface for Channel Access based on libca and libCom.
- caproto - Python interface for Channel Access in pure Python.
PV Access
- p4p - Python interface for PV Access
- pvapy - Python interface for PV Access, also provides CA interface
General
- bcdamenu - GUI menu to beam line software, such as synoptic display.
- mdaPythonUtils - Read .mda data files into Python.
- PvMail - Watch an EPICS PV. Send email when it changes from 0 to 1.
- pvView - Display one or more EPICS PVs in a PyDM GUI window as a table.
- 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.
- pysumreg - Statistics of list of (x,y) pairs from calculator-style summation registers.
- spec2nexus - Read SPEC data files into Python, write NeXus data file.