Package with an application for real-time plotting of sensor population for LinoSPAD2.

Full documentation (including all docstrings) can be found here.

The main purpose of this application is real-time plotting of LinoSPAD2 sensor population for easier handling of the setup. Given the detector data acquisition is running and once a path to where data files should be saved to, scripts constantly wait for the latest saved file, unpack the data, and plot it as a number of timestamps vs. pixel number.

This repo was separated from the main library of scripts for LinoSPAD2 data analysis. The reason is that the app requires its own 'main.py' to run and having it as a standalone makes it quite easy to generate an executable with pyinstaller.

To start using the package, one can download the whole repo. The 'main.py' serves as the main hub for starting the app. "requirements.txt" lists all packages required for this project to run. One can create an environment for this project either using conda or install the necessary packages using pip (for creating virtual environments using pip see this).

Using pip:

pip install virtualenv
py -m venv NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
PATH/TO/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME/Scripts/activate
cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -e .

Using conda:

conda create --name NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
conda activate NEW_ENVIRONMENT NAME
cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
conda install --file requirements.txt -c conda-forge
pip install -e .

Finally, to run the app, run the 'main.py' script.

On Windows, to create an executable, one can run the following: first, a separate virtual environment is highly recommended for a faster and smoother experience with the app, as pyinstaller packs everything it finds in the virtual environment; using pip:

pip install virtualenv
py -m venv PATH/TO/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
PATH/TO/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME/Scripts/activate

where the last command activates the environment. Here, all the necessary packages along with the app package itself should be installed. To do this, run from the environment (given the package was downloaded):

cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -e .

where the latter command installs the package itself in the environment. To create the executable, pyinstaller should be installed, too:

pip install pyinstaller

Then, given the current directory is set to where the package is, run

pyinstaller --clean --onedir --noconsole main.py

which packs everything in the package for the "main.exe" executable for the app. Options '--onedir' for installing everything into a single directory and '--noconsole' for running the app without a console are recommended. Additionally, in the '_tab.py' files, change the first lines in the 'init' functions to the following:

def __init__(self, parent=None):
    super().__init__(parent)
    os.chdir(r"FULL\PATH\TO\LinoSPAD2-app\gui\ui")
    uic.loadUi(
        r"LiveTimestamps_tab_c.ui",
        self,
    )
    os.chdir("../..")

Full path to the '.ui' files should be provided as pyinstaller does not handle relative paths, as it's implemented in the package. To run the app, run 'main.exe' in the 'dist' folder.

If using conda, use the following chain of commands:

conda create --name NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
conda activate NEW_ENVIRONMENT NAME
cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
conda install --file requirements.txt -c conda-forge
conda install pyinstaller -c conda-forge

and the rest stay the same as for the installation using pip.

This repo consists of two branches: 'main' serves as the release version of the package, tested, and proved to be functional and ready to use, while the 'develop' branch serves as the main hub for testing new stuff. To contribute, the best way would be to fork the 'develop' branch and submit via pull requests. Everyone willing to contribute is kindly asked to follow the PEP 8 and PEP 257 conventions.

This package is available under the MIT license. See LICENSE for more information. If you'd like to contact me, the author, feel free to write at [email protected].