Introduction

The purpose of the IFW Frame Grabber Framework (FGF) is to provide a toolkit for integrating camera frame grabber solutions used typically for controlling and acquiring COTS cameras used in the context of instrument control and for WFS purposes. Other use cases of COTS cameras may exist.

The main target of the toolkit is obtain a solution with as little overhead/latency as possible, for the efficient acquisition and publishing of data as possible.

The frame grabbers will typically be deployed on a dedicated Linux box, fanless, which could be located close to the camera.

The data publishing is based on RTMS.

To interface with the cameras, FGF provides a base class to implement Communication Adapters for the specific cameras.

A generator tool is provided to generate the necessary code, for accessing the specific camera namespace.

A template is also provided for initiating the development of a new FGF Application.

The manual does not attempt to describe the MUDPI and RTMS protocols. For more information about these, the appropriate documentation must be consulted.

Scope

The scope of this manual is developers, integrating camera frame grabber solutions.

Main Deliverables

In this version of FGF, the following main deliverables are provided by the project:

• The FGF SDK, used to integrate (develop) FGF camera frame grabbers.

• FGF Simulator application, which can be used for test and development purposes.

• Generator Tool to generate the code for the namespace.

• A template to initiate new FGF Applications.

Disclaimer

The FGF is a product which is stil under development. It is expected that modifications will be introduced in the FGF component in connection with future releases, which may not be backwards compatible.

Acronyms

DB	Database
CCF	Camera Control Framework
DCS	Detector Control Software
DDT	Data Display Tool
ELT	Extremely Large Telescope
ENVision	ESO Network Vision Protocol
FGF	Frame Grabber Framework
FITS	Flexible Image Transportation System
GUI	Graphical User Interface
HW	Hardware
ICS	Instrument Control System
IWS	Instrument Workstation
MUDPI	Multicast UDP Interface
NIC	Network Interface Card
ROI	Region Of Interest
RTMS	Real-Time MUDPI Stream
SW	Software
WFS	Wavefront Sensor

Nomenclature

Acquisition Thread	Thread executed internally to handle the acquisition of data from the camera and other interaction.
Adapter	Class derived from a base class provided by the FGF Package, implementing a customisable behaviour and logic of specific FGF instances.
Camera Name Mapping	YAML file used to map the generic names for parameters, used by a Communication Adapter, into the specific parameter names defined by the camera.
Configuration/ Configuration Parameter	The Configuration refers to properties of the system, controlling the behaviour and execution, which are loaded when the application starts up.
Control Application	The FGF Control, main application, executed to control and acquire the associated camera. Often referred to as “FGF Control”, for short.
Communication Adapter	Implements a specific communication protocol.
Deployment Module	A WAF module used for generating a specific version of a FGF Control executable.
FGF Application	Refers to an FGF project, created from the template Provided by the FGF Component. Implementing a new FGF involves mostly implementing the FGF Communication Adapter for the given camera as well as defining the OPC UA namespace.
FGF Node	A dedicated Linux based host, where one or more FGF Applications are deployed like a dedicated system.