xrfController

Python scripts to control the XRF

Dependencies

• termcolor: Needed for colour output

Usage

To run the utility, run the following command in a terminal on the XRF computer:

xrfController

No need to source anything!

The first screen prompts the user for fields to populate the .json file which will be given to daq_daemon. Here is a list of fields and their expected values

Field	Expected input
filename	string
scanType	either point or raster
time	Int. Time in seconds (only for point scan). Defaults to 10
bottomRightX	Float. (only for raster). Defaults to 100.0
bottomRightY	Float. (only for raster). Defaults to 100.0
topLeftX	Float. (only for raster). Defaults to 0.0
topLeftY	Float. (only for raster). Defaults to 0.0
cellSize	Float. (only for raster). Defaults to 0.5
rasterSpeed	Float. (only for raster). Defaults to 5
helium	y/n. Defults to n
voltage	Float. Give xray tube voltage in kV to store in the json
current	Float. Give xray tube current in uA to store in the json

After all prompts are given to the program, it replaces the placeholders in the template.json file with the given values or their defaults and creates an out.json file. The program asks the user if they want to save the json file. By default, the program saves the json file in the JSONDIR folder.

Warning system

The next screen shows all the values supplied by the user to let them double check if everything is ok. The program runs a sanity check when doing raster scans if anything looks off. The warnings currently trigger if:

• BottomRightX is smaller than TopLeftX or BottomRightY is smaller than TopLeftY
• If any of the coordinate fields, cell size, or raster speed are not numbers
• cellSize does not neatly divide either the image width or height. I don't know if the daq_daemon would be fine if the division was not neat, but I don't know for sure, and I don't think you'd want to run the program if the division was not neat, so the program lets you know anyway

The program then prompts the user if they want to continue. if the user says yes, then the program calls daq_daemon with out.json and prints the output of daq_daemon as it runs.

Post Scan Stuff

After the scan is done, the program prompts the user wants it to modify the output files if the scan was a point scan. This is because the current version of daq_daemon does not add image size information to the output file if it does a point scan. If the user says yes, the program adds the following to the output files:

<Image_Info>
<Width>1</Width>
<Height>1</Height>
<Pixels>1</Pixels>
</Image_Info>

Then the program asks the user if they want to open maxrf-spectra, and does so if the user desires. This allows the user to immediately see the spectrum acquired if it was a point spectrum without opening a new terminal. If the user wants to continue using the tool, they need to close maxrf-spectra

Finally the tool asks the user if they want to take another spectra. If the user says yes, the screen clears and the program starts over again.