Instrument Control System Graphical User Interface

Source code for the Liverpool Telescope Instrument Control System Graphical User Interface. This is a generic Java program, that provides a graphical user interface, that allows the user to send generic instrument commands to a Liverpool Telescope instrument, monitor the instrument's progress and report the success or failure of the command.

This GUI supports the generic instrument command set which is common across all the Liverpool Telescope's instruments. There is some instrument specific code to handle the difference configuration options for each instrument, also a few instruments have odd constraints on other commands.

Directory Structure

• create_dialog This contains the code that builds the majority of the command set dialogs. These are machine generated by using reflection on the Java objects making up the instrument command set.
• java The source code (and configuration files) for the IcsGUI.
• latex LaTeX documentation. User guide and some design documentation.
• scripts Some scripts used for creating a stand-alone distribution of the IcsGUI software. The GUI is usually bundled with each LT instrument, but stand-alone distributions can be generated for operations machines.
• test Test java programs used for developing the software.

The Makefile.common file is included in Makefile's to provide common root directory information.

Dependencies / Prerequisites

• The ngat repo/package must be installed: https://github.com/LivTel/ngat . The specific sub-packages required can be derived from the ics_gui dockerfile, currently:

  • ngat_astrometry.jar
  • ngat_fits.jar
  • ngat_message_base.jar
  • ngat_message_inst_bss.jar
  • ngat_message_iss_inst.jar
  • ngat_net.jar
  • ngat_phase2.jar
  • ngat_sound.jar
  • ngat_swing.jar
  • ngat_util_logging.jar
  • ngat_util.jar

• The software can only be built from within an LT development environment

Deployment

IcsGUI is usually bundled as part of instrument distributions/installations. A standalone distribution can be generated for operations machines, see the scripts directory. We have also developed a docker distribution, initially for Loci. See the images directory for details.