Camera-only mode?

[Cody-G]

I have an idea that would require adding a new "dumb" mode to Imagine. In this mode I envision that Imagine will not record any analog or digital signals, nor will it generate any analog or digitial signals. So It won't write a .ai file or .di file. Imagine will only manage the camera control, writing the .cam file and .imagine file for the specified number of images. @kdw503 does this sound easy to implement? I think we would need to disable the analog/digital input/output threads. It would also be nice to indicate in the .imagine file that this mode was used. That could be as simple as setting the "ai file" and "di file" entries to "none", or something like that.

[kdw503]

I think it would be not that hard if we use 'ownPos = false' flag as camera 2 window.

[Cody-G]

I think it would be not that hard if we use 'ownPos = false' flag as camera 2 window.

Would this also prevent the DAQ-related threads from launching? In order to keep all of the sample clocks synchronized we'll need to make sure Imagine doesn't interact with the DAQ at all; the DAQ can be handled exclusively by Imagine.jl.

For what it's worth this mode also brings us closer to a Julia-only Imagine which will be pretty cool.

[kdw503]

Another idea.
If we modify some fields in our 'imagine.js' file as:
var positioner = "dummy";
var daq = "dummy";

Then, I think it will not touch DAQ at all.

[Cody-G]

Ah that sounds good. Then we could create a new "rig" that is called something like "ocpi2_no_daq". Eventually it could be nice to make it possible to select/change the rig from the Imagine GUI. Then maybe we could install Imagine on new / upgraded microscopes without manually editing the code.

[kdw503]

Yes, but that 'rig' information is used to initialize every hardware before we create and bring up Imagine GUI. So, I think we need another small GUI before this initialization for user to select rig available to that microscope.

[kdw503]

Or, we initialize DAQ later everytime the rig is selected as normal 'ocpi-1' after Imagine GUI up.

[Cody-G]

Either of those sounds fine. I have a slight preference for the one that doesn't require restarting Imagine to change modes, but I think it's fine to choose whatever is easier.