ADTLBC2

Overview

This is an areaDetector driver for the Thorlabs ThorLabs BC207 and BC210 beam profilers using the TLBC2 library provided along with the manufacturer’s SDK. It has been tested on the BC210CU/M camera, but should work for the entire model family.

The BC207 and BC210 profilers are CMOS camera beam profilers designed for beam analysis over the 245-400nm wavelength range (UV series) or 350-1100nm wavelength range (VIS series). The main difference between the BC207 and BC210 families is the resolution: 5.0 MP and 12.3 MP, respectively. All detectors include a front-mounted filter wheel with six neutral density (ND) filters to attenuate the beam.

These detectors also have built-in calculations for profiling the beam, such as: width and centroid along the X and Y axes and saturation, among others; as well as preprocessing steps such as: bad pixel correction, ambient light correction, etc. These calculations can be accessed and controlled via driver-speficis PVs listed in the ADTLBC2 specific parameters section.

Implementation of standard driver parameters

The following list contains all the EPICS record names of parameters defined in ADDriver and asynNDArrayDriver which are currently supported by the ADTLBC2 driver.

• $(P)$(R)TemperatureActual

• $(P)$(R)Gain

• $(P)$(R)MaxSizeX_RBV

• $(P)$(R)MaxSizeY_RBV

• $(P)$(R)MinX

• $(P)$(R)MinY

• $(P)$(R)SizeX

• $(P)$(R)SizeY

• $(P)$(R)ImageMode

• $(P)$(R)AcquireTime

• $(P)$(R)AcquirePeriod

• $(P)$(R)NumImages

• $(P)$(R)NumImagesCounter_RBV

• $(P)$(R)DetectorState_RBV

• $(P)$(R)StatusMessage_RBV

• $(P)$(R)Manufacturer_RBV

• $(P)$(R)Model_RBV

• $(P)$(R)SerialNumber_RBV

• $(P)$(R)FirmwareVersion_RBV

• $(P)$(R)SDKVersion_RBV

• $(P)$(R)Acquire

• $(P)$(R)ArrayCounter_RBV

The following table describes standard driver parameters which have specific implementations and behaviors inside ADTLBC2.

EPICS record name	Description
$(P)$(R)Gain	Detector gain in dB. Max value is 12 and min is 0.
$(P)$(R)MinX	Sets the first pixel to be read in the X direction and updates the ROI.
$(P)$(R)MinY	Sets the first pixel to be read in the Y direction and updates the ROI.
$(P)$(R)SizeX	Sets the size of the region to be read in the X direction and updates the ROI.
$(P)$(R)SizeY	Sets the size of the region to be read in the Y direction and updates the ROI.
$(P)$(R)StatusMessage_RBV	Contains the last error’s message.

ADTLBC2 specific parameters

The TLBC2 driver implements the following parameters in addition to those in ADDriver and asynNDArrayDriver.

drvInfo string	Description	EPICS record name	EPICS record type
COMPUTE_AMBIENT_LIGHT_CORRECTION	Compute ambient light correction. Toggled back to 0 once it has finished computing.	$(P)$(R)ComputeAmbientLightCorrection, $(P)$(R)ComputeAmbientLightCorrection_RBV	bo, bi
AMBIENT_LIGHT_CORRECTION	Ambient light correction mode toggle. Can only be enabled if AMBIENT_LIGHT_CORRECTION_STATUS is “Computed”, in other words, after ambient light correction has been computed at least once. Disabled by default.	$(P)$(R)AmbientLightCorrection, $(P)$(R)AmbientLightCorrection_RBV	bo, bi
AMBIENT_LIGHT_CORRECTION_STATUS	Ambient light correction status. Can either be “Never run” or “Computed”. Starting value is “Never run” and becomes “Computed” once ambient light correction has been computed for the first time. This status is used to determine whether ambient light correction can be applied to the next acquisition or not.	$(P)$(R)AmbientLightCorrectionStatus_RBV	bi
ATTENUATION	Attenuation in dB. Allowed range is 0-100. Default value is 0.	$(P)$(R)Attenuation, $(P)$(R)Attenuation_RBV	ao, ai
AUTO_EXPOSURE	Auto exposure toggle. Uses latest data to set automatic exposure. Disabled by default.	$(P)$(R)AutoExposure, $(P)$(R)AutoExposure_RBV	bo, bi
AUTO_CALC_AREA_CLIP_LEVEL	Auto calc area clip level. Default is 0.01.	$(P)$(R)AutoCalcAreaClipLevel, $(P)$(R)AutoCalcAreaClipLevel_RBV	ao, ai
AMBIENT_LIGHT_CORRECTION	Ambient light correction mode toggle. Can either be enabled or disabled. Disabled by default.	$(P)$(R)AmbientLightCorrection	bo, bi
BEAM_WIDTH_X	Beam width at clip level in X asis.	$(P)$(R)BeamWidthX_RBV	ai
BEAM_WIDTH_Y	Beam width at clip level in Y axis.	$(P)$(R)BeamWidthY_RBV	ai
CENTROID_X	Centroid position in X axis.	$(P)$(R)CentroidX_RBV	ai
CENTROID_Y	Centroid position in Y axis.	$(P)$(R)CentroidY_RBV	ai
CLIP_LEVEL	Clip level used for beam statistics. Allowed range is 0-1. Default value is 0.135.	$(P)$(R)ClipLevel, $(P)$(R)ClipLevel_RBV	ai, ao
COMPUTE_AMBIENT_LIGHT_CORRECTION	Change ambient light correction mode (enabled or disabled).	$(P)$(R)AmbientLightCorrection, $(P)$(R)AmbientLightCorrection_RBV	bi, bo
SATURATION	Ratio of the maximum intensity used.	$(P)$(R)Saturation_RBV	ai
WAVELENGTH	Set wavelength in nanometers. Allowed range is 245-400nm. Default value is 245nm.	$(P)$(R)Wavelength, $(P)$(R)Wavelength_RBV	ao, ai

IOC Startup Script

The command to configure an TLBC2 camera in the startup script is:

TLBC2Config(const char *portName, int maxSizeX, int maxSizeY, int maxMemory, int reset)

portName is the name for the TLBC2 port driver

maxSizeX is the maximum sensor dimension in the X axis.

maxSizeY is the maximum sensor dimension in the Y axis.

maxMemory is the maximum amount of memory the NDArrayPool is allowed to allocate. 0 means unlimited.

reset whether to reset device or not.

Restrictions

Since the libraries are provided by the vendor and are only implemented for Windows, this driver does not work on Linux.

This driver always connects to the first device it finds, therefore it’s not currently possible to have two cameras and one IOC for each in the same machine.

This driver should work with all detectors from the BC210 and BC207 series, however it has only been tested on the BC210CU/M model so far.

Compiling on Windows

The driver and firmware versions that have been tested and are known to work are 2.1 and 1.0.25, respectively.

The Makefiles use the build variables THORLABS_INC and THORLABS_LIB to find the relevant libraries and headers. Once the SDK has been installed, set these variables to point to their respective directories in a RELEASE.local file.

• THORLABS_INC must point to the SDK include directory (called Include).

• THORLABS_LIB must point to the 64-bit library directory (called msc).

Note that GNU Make does not deal with whitespace in file/folder names well, therefore the driver may have to be moved from its standard install location (inside Program Files) to another directory which contains no whitespace in order for GNU make to work.