XmCCD
-----

The programs provided here offer a Linux graphical user interface to
astronomical and scientific CCD cameras.  Now primarily for Apogee cameras,
XmCCD was developed initially for SBIG cameras and legacy support for them
is still included in this version.

SBIG
====

SBIG has provided the library used here.  It is the latest one they offer
and the files included allow support for Android and Mac OS X. 

This distribution of XmCCD includes source code to utilize the SBIG shared
library libsbigudrv.so with a Motif-based graphical user interface. Please note
that these  SBIG library materials are subject to their copyright.

XmCCD has been tested with several SBIG cameras that we have at our
observatories, but not the very latest ones. It is expected that all 
but the newest designs will work with this software. 

At the time of this release (June 2018) SBIG has a new line of Alumna cameras
which have Linux support that will use a different library and API's.  Since we
do not have one of these cameras now, we are not including them in this package
but may do so in the future.


Apogee
======

XmCCD is being maintained for Apogee Alta and Aspen cameras when compiled and
used with  libapogeedrv.so . The open source code for this library is included
here. It depends on programs developed by Dave Mills, The Random Factory, 
http://www.randomfactory.com .  Please see the directory libapogeedrv for notes
on the changes needed to the source distribution in order to use it with XmCCD.

The most recent version of XmCCD is available from
http://www.astro.louisville.edu/software and you are encouraged to check 
there for the latest release, sources for other software needed to compile 
and run XmCCD, and supporting utilities.

XmCCD software is offered under the GNU Public License.  
Please see the files  LICENSE and COPYRIGHT for more information.

SBIG and APOGEE describe how to build and install XmCCD. It does require other
programs to compile and run, some of which are not usually present in Linux
distributions.  Before building and running XmCCD, you will need to install the
following if they are not already on your system:

Motif or LessTif development libraries and headers
fxload

Motif development libraries and the firmware loader fxload are not installed 
by default in Suse 12.2,  but are available from software repositories. 

The XmCCD source package includes source code for:

xpa
cfitsio

which you should install and compile first if it is not already on your system.
The source code for each of these libraries is in a separate named directory in
the package that includes installation instructions if needed.

SAOimage ds9 is the primary image display for XmCCD. A binary that works in
the recent Opensuse release is included.  Other binaries and source code are
available on github from the ds9 developers.


The software is designed to work in parallel with AstroImageJ (AIJ) for data
processing.  Typically we use ds9 to monitor the image acquisition, and AIJ
to process photometric data in real time.  Imaging data for other uses may be
processed using our Alsvid package. 
 
XPA is a communication protocol used by ds9. It enables xmccd to notify the
display when a new image is available, and to accept coordinates from ds9 
to select regions of interest.  XPA should be installed system-wide with
the source code included here. Earlier versions will work if the library and
include files are in /usr/local/lib/ and /usr/local/include/.

The cfitsio library package provides standard FITS library support for 
the image file format in xmccd. A recent version is included in the XmCCD
source code, and should be used if possible. Earlier versions should work as
well.  If you use a different version, the fits library and header files are
expected in /usr/local/lib and /usr/local/include/.  

  
Links to sources for AstroImagej, AstroCC, and Alsvid are  on the web site 

                         www.astro.louisville.edu/software
                         



John Kielkopf
2018 September 29



