Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

<[email protected]> · Mon, 3 Oct 2016 14:57:09 +0000

Hi Jonathan,

Diamond is taking a slightly different approach to this, which we have partially presented at the last collaboration meeting, but I will outline here.

We are developing a Python package called Malcolm:

http://pymalcolm.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
https://github.com/dls-controls/pymalcolm

It acts as a middlelayer between attributes mirroring hardware settings (mainly served over CA from IOCs) and our client facing software (GDA). It groups these hardware attributes into logical devices that are then served up via pvData over pvAccess or JSON over websockets. We have two current uses for this package:

- Talking CA to areaDetector and motion controller IOCs, exposing a configure() run() interface over pvAccess to GDA, as presented here:

https://conference.sns.gov/event/11/session/7/contribution/15/attachments/122/325/13_EPICS_Collaboration_SNS_2016_Malcolm.pptx

- Talking TCP to a server running on PandABox, exposing a visualisation of the wiring of blocks and allowing setting of attributes via websockets, as presented here:

https://conference.sns.gov/event/11/session/1/contribution/58/attachments/107/291/06_PandaBox-Fall-EPICS-2016v3.pptx

This second use case will also be used to wire up areaDetector plugin chains. The javascript side of it is written in ReactJS using the Flux design pattern, which provides some useful speed boosts for SVGs. The current GUIs are all autogenerated from the structure created by these logical devices, but we are planning to have some hand crafted machine status displays that use the same server, communication protocol and widget set. The repository for the html and javascript is here:

https://github.com/dls-controls/malcolmjs

If anyone else is interested in making ReactJS based GUIs then we would be happy to collaborate.

Thanks,
Tom Cobb

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:tech-talk-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of Jonathan Hanks
> Sent: 29 September 2016 22:14
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: HTTP access to control systems screens
> 
> At the meeting last week we had two presentations on efforts to display
> live control screens in browser.
> 
> I have an internal effort at LIGO where I am translating our MEDM .adl
> files to html/svg/js. If there is interest in the community I would
> rather focus on an effort larger than myself.
> 
> Feel free to contact me on/off list.
> 
> Thanks,
> --
> Jonathan Hanks
> CDS Software Engineer
> LIGO Hanford Observatory

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Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System