Installation

It is recommended to install MxDC within a python virtual environment. MxDC can be installed using the python setup tools from within the top-level directory of the application as follows.

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
python setup.py install

This will install all MxDC and all it’s dependences in the python environment.

Configuration

MxDC needs a beamline configuration file to be able to perform the most basic control operations or run any of the included programs. The configuration file is a special python module placed in a specific directory defined by the MXDC_CONFIG environment variable.

An example configuration file CONFIG_example.py is available within the deploy/ sub-directory of distribution archive. Copy this file to the directory pointed to by MXDC_CONFIG and modify as needed. The name of the file is not important except it must be named such that it is a valid python module. The MXDC_CONFIG directory may contain as many beamline configuration files as desired.

The general philosophy for a configuration file is that you would typically import your device and service classes at the top of the module, and then create instances of the devices in the configuration sections. The following configuration sections are expected in configuration files.

CONFIG

A python dictionary specifying various configuration parameters for the beamline. Parameters defined in this section will be available through the beamline.config attribute of beamline objects. Only a few of these parameters are mandatory but there is no limit on which parameters can be defined.

Required Parameters for all Beamlines

  • name - The acronym of the beamline

  • facility - The acronym of the synchrotron facility

  • mono - The type of monochromator (eg ‘Si 111’)

  • mono_unit_cell - The monochromator unit cell length

  • source - The name of the beam source

  • type - The full module name of the beamline class as a string, e.g ‘mxdc.beamlines.mx.MXBeamline’

  • subnet - The beamline subnet, e.g. ‘10.52.4.0/22’

Example:

CONFIG = {
    'name': 'SIM-1',
    'facility': 'CLS',
    'mono': 'Si 111',
    'mono_unit_cell': 5.4297575,
    'source': 'CLS Sim SGU',
    'type': 'mxdc.beamlines.mx.MXBeamline',
    'subnet': '10.12.1.0/22',
    ...
}

DEVICES

A python dictionary mapping device names to device instances. The only restriction for device names is that they should be valid python attribute names since they will be available as attributes of the beamline instance. Additionally, each beamline class may define required devices that must be provided in configuration files for instances of that beamline.

Example:

from mxdc.devices import motor, goniometer

DEVICES = {
    ...
    'manager': manager.SimModeManager(),
    'goniometer': goniometer.SimGonio(),
    'omega': motor.SimMotor('Omega', 0.0, 'deg', speed=60.0, precision=3),
    'sample_x': motor.SimMotor('Sample X', 0.0, units='mm', speed=0.2),
    'sample_y1': motor.SimMotor('Sample Y', 0.0, units='mm', speed=0.2),
    'sample_y2': motor.SimMotor('Sample Y', 0.0, units='mm', speed=0.2),
    ...
}

SERVICES

A python dictionary mapping service names to service instances. The same restrictions for device names applies to service names. Services will also accesible as attributes of the beamline objects.

CONSOLE

Similar to DEVICES except devices specified here will only be available within the beamline console application.

Available Commands

The following scripts and commands are provided with MxDC.

  • mxdc, sim-mxdc: Launch the main MxDC GUI application or the simulated variant.

  • archiver: A script for synchronizing files between a file system and a portable drive.

    usage: archiver <source directory>  <destination directory>

  • blconsole, sim-console: Launch the beamline console application or the simulated variant. See Beamline Console.

  • hutchviewer: Launch the hutch viewer application. See Hutch Viewer.

  • imgview: A stand alone image viewer for diffraction images.

  • plotxdi: An application for plotting saved data in XDI format.