Integrated control system environment for high-throughput tomography

The extensive progress in hardware in recent years makes it now possible to develop nearly real time control system for tomography experiments. Such system can perform all the routines that are necessary for the experiment and provide real time feedback to the user. This feedback can be used for instant monitoring and/or for real time reconstruction. The initial design and implementation of such system was presented in the SPIE publication in 2014 [1]. In this paper an update to the system is presented. The paper will cover the following 4 topics. The first topic simply gives an overview of the system. The second topic presents the way how we integrate different software components to achieve simplicity and flexibility. As it is still in research and design phase we need a possibility to easily adjust the system to our needs introducing new components or removing old ones. The third topic presents a hardware driven tomography experiment design implemented at one of our beamlines. The basic idea is that a hardware signal is sent to the instrument hardware (camera, shutter etc). This signal is emitted by the controller of the sample axis which defines the moment when the system is ready to capture the next image i.e. next rotation angle. Finally as our software is in a constant process of evaluation a continuous integration process was implemented to reduce the time cost of redeployment and configuration of new versions

Waltz - A Platform for Tango Controls Web Applications

The idea of creating Tango web platform was born at Tango Users Meeting in 2013, later a feature request was defined (v10 roadmap #6) – provide a generic web application for browsing and monitoring Tango devices. The work started in 2017* and a name Waltz was selected by voting at Tango Users meeting #32. Waltz is the result of joint efforts of Tango Community, HZG and IK. This paper gives an overview of Waltz as a platform for Tango web applications, the overall framework architecture and presents an end result of real-life applications**. The work shows that having Waltz platform web developer can intuitively and quickly create full web application for his/her needs. Different architectural layers provide maintainability. The platform has a number of abstractions and ready-to-use widgets that can be used by web developer to quickly produce web based solutions. Among Waltz features are user context saving, device control and monitoring, plot and drag-n-drop interface solutions. Communication with Tango happens via Tango REST API using HTTP/2.0 and Server-Sent Events. Waltz can be also treated as a system for device monitoring and control from any part of the world

A novel solution for controlling hardware components of accelerators and beamlines

A novel approach to the remote-control system for the compact multi-crystal energy-dispersive spectrometer for X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) applications has been developed. This new approach is based on asynchronous communication between software components and on reactive design principles. In this paper, the challenges faced, their solutions, as well as the implementation and future development prospects, are identified. The main motivation of this work was the development of a new holistic communication protocol that can be implemented to control various hardware components allowing both independent operation and easy integration into different SCADA system

Micro-CT at the imaging beamline P05 at PETRA III

The Imaging Beamline (IBL) P05 is operated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht and located at the DESY storage ring PETRA III. IBL is dedicated to X-ray full field imaging and consists of two experimental end stations. A micro tomography end station equipped for spatial resolutions down to 1 μm and a nano tomography end station for spatial resolutions down to 100 nm. The micro tomography end station is in user operation since 2013 and offers imaging with absorption contrast, phase enhanced absorption contrast and phase contrast methods. We report here on the current status and developments of the micro tomography end station including technical descriptions and show examples of research performed at P05

TANGO Heads for Industry

International audienceThe TANGO Controls Framework* continues to mature and be adopted by new sites and applications. This paper will describe how TANGO has moved closer to industry with the creation of startups and addressing industrial use cases. It will describe what progress has been made since the last ICALEPCS in 2015 to ensure the sustainability of TANGO for scientific and industrial users. It will present TANGO web based technologies and the deployment of TANGO in the cloud. Furthermore it will describe how the community has re-organised itself to fund and improve code sharing, documentation, code quality assurance and maintenance

Characterization of the CCD and CMOS cameras for grating-based phase-contrast tomography

In this article we present the quantitative characterization of CCD and CMOS sensors which are used at the experiments for microtomography operated by HZG at PETRA III at DESY in Hamburg, Germany. A standard commercial CCD camera is compared to a camera based on a CMOS sensor. This CMOS camera is modified for grating-based differential phase-contrast tomography. The main goal of the project is to quantify and to optimize the statistical parameters of this camera system. These key performance parameters such as readout noise, conversion gain and full-well capacity are used to define an optimized measurement for grating-based phase-contrast. First results will be shown

State of the Tango Controls Kernel Development in 2019

This paper will present the state of of kernel developments in the Tango Controls toolkit and community since the previous ICALEPCS 2017. It will describe what changes have been made over the last 2 years to the Long Term Support (LTS) version, how GitHub has been used to provide Continuous Integration (CI) for all platforms, and prepare the latest source code release. It will present how docker containers are supported, how they are being used for CI and for building digital twins. It will describe the outcome of the kernel code camp(s). Finally it will present how Tango is preparing the next version - V10. The paper will explain why new and old installations can continue profiting from Tango Controls or in other words in Tango 'the more things change the better the core concepts become'

RCSB Protein Data bank: Tools for visualizing and understanding biological macromolecules in 3D

Now in its 52nd year of continuous operations, the Protein Data Bank (PDB) is the premiere open-access global archive housing three-dimensional (3D) biomolecular structure data. It is jointly managed by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) partnership. The Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB) is funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and US Department of Energy and serves as the US data center for the wwPDB. RCSB PDB is also responsible for the security of PDB data in its role as wwPDB-designated Archive Keeper. Every year, RCSB PDB serves tens of thousands of depositors of 3D macromolecular structure data (coming from macromolecular crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and micro-electron diffraction). The RCSB PDB research-focused web portal (RCSB.org) makes PDB data available at no charge and without usage restrictions to many millions of PDB data consumers around the world. The RCSB PDB training, outreach, and education web portal (PDB101.RCSB.org) serves nearly 700 K educators, students, and members of the public worldwide. This invited Tools Issue contribution describes how RCSB PDB (i) is organized; (ii) works with wwPDB partners to process new depositions; (iii) serves as the wwPDB-designated Archive Keeper; (iv) enables exploration and 3D visualization of PDB data via RCSB.org; and (v) supports training, outreach, and education via PDB101.RCSB.org. New tools and features at RCSB.org are presented using examples drawn from high-resolution structural studies of proteins relevant to treatment of human cancers by targeting immune checkpoints