Autodisplay Tool

SVN location: ​svn+ssh://cetus/svn/astronomy/autodisplay

Autodisplay is a command line tool that looks for new data and automatically displays it for the RA to help monitor incoming data quality. The tool accomplishes this task by checking for new directories or files associated with new data on a 15 seconds interval. When a new file or directory is seen it then sends a ds9 command to display that data for inspection. In the case of the HPF instrument autodisplay waits until the 3rd read in the ramp has been completed before issuing the display command through the HPF computer. As well as displaying the data it also streams the relevant instrument health messages in the console window for each exposure. This tool currently displays data for the LRS2, VIRUS, and HPF instruments. This will be extended to HRS when it comes online. To exit auto display you should issue a ctrl+C.

Getting help

Help can be found by executing autodisplay -h or autodisplay --help

The help output is as follows:

Useful Options

• -d This option allows you to override the display automatically selected and listed just after the initialization text. If you would like to force autodisplay to open ds9 windows on a nomachine session you can use the port number for the display. example: autodisplay -d 1003.

• -s This option enables the sound notifications after the ds9 command has been completed. This option has not been widely used, so minimal development has been put toward this.

• -nocal This option checks the incoming data to see if it is a calibration image. If this option is used at startup then autodisplay will not display calibration images (Lamp, Bias, LFC etc.). It will however still show twilight flats. This also does not affect the print out of lrs2err, viruserr or the checking of the LFC calibrations.

• -nopar The -nopar option checks to see if the incoming data is a parallel science image. If used at startup then autodisplay will not present the user with parallel images.

• -noerror This option has traditionally been used for troubleshooting/testing purposes. If used at start up it will not display the relevant LRS2 or VIRUS health check information (lrs2err,viruserr).

• -hpfsplits Autodisplay now only displays the first HPF image in a set by default. If you would like to override this feature and see each image you can force it by using this option.

Running Autodisplay

• Autodisplay now checks all incoming LFC images even if they are not being displayed. It prints out a verification message of whether the LFC appears to be working normally or not similar to what is output for lrs2err and viruserr. If autodisplay detects no LFC flux it will notify in the terminal that it is running in, as well as sending an email to the RA's to notify of an issue.

• Autodisplay now automatically selects the display that it is being run on unless it is overridden. This should match the output from echo $DISPLAY.

• Running autodisplay is as simple as issuing autodisplay if there are no options you need or want to use. In this mode all new data will be presented to the user on the current display.

• To exit autodisplay issue a ctrl+C. If autodisplay is not exited when finished it will continue opening ds9 windows, this has the possibility to slow down the RA computer substantially. So please exit the program when you are finished.

Examples

• If you would like to not see cals or parallel data. Which is the most common method:
  autodisplay -nocal -nopar