Getting Started

Prerequisites

The only true dependency is the numpy library, however it is highly recommended to have the numba just-in-time (JIT) compiler available.

Installing the Software

Download Using Pip

The package installer for Python (pip) is the typical method for installation:

pip install --user --upgrade andor3

The --user parameter installs using user-level permissions, thus does not require root or administrator privileges. To install system wide, remove the --user parameter and prefix the command with sudo (Linux, MacOS), or run as administrator (Windows).

The numba library is not a hard dependency, and so is not automatically installed. It is recommended to install it, for example:

pip install --user --upgrade numba

If the install fails, it may be because your system architecture or python version does not have a pre-compiled numba package in “wheel” format. Compiling from the “sdist” source package, or from the source code should work, but requires a system install of llvm. See the install instructions for llvmlite for more information.

Clone From Git

Alternatively, the latest version can be downloaded from the git repository:

git clone https://gitlab.com/ptapping/andor3.git

and optionally installed to your system using pip:

pip install --user ./andor3

Install Andor Software

The proprietary Andor libraries are required to be present on the system (either Linux or Windows). Unfortunately, the licensing means they can not be distributed with this package, or freely downloaded. The libraries will be attempted to be found in several common locations. Install Andor software such as the Andor Driver Pack, Andor Solis, or the Andor LabView SDK, and the libraries should be detected automatically.

Usage

from andor3 import Andor3
cam = Andor3()

# Configure capture settings using the various camera features
# This example is for a Zyla, features may not apply to other models
cam.SensorCooling = True
cam.FanSpeed = "On"
cam.CycleMode = "Fixed"
cam.AccumulateCount = 1
cam.TriggerMode = "Internal"
cam.ExposureTime = 0.01
cam.ElectronicShutteringMode = "Rolling"
cam.Overlap = True
cam.SimplePreAmpGainControl = "16-bit (low noise & high well capacity)"
cam.PixelReadoutRate = "280 MHz"
cam.PixelEncoding = "Mono16"
cam.SpuriousNoiseFilter = False
cam.StaticBlemishCorrection = False
cam.MetadataEnable = False

# Capture only the middle 128 pixels of the sensor
cam.AOIHeight = 128
cam.AOILeft = 1
cam.AOIWidth = 2560
cam.VerticallyCentreAOI = True

# Create a buffer for the image data to be stored in
cam.queueBuffer()
# Start the acquisition and retrieve the raw data from the buffer
cam.start()
data = cam.waitBuffer(timeout=1000)
cam.stop()
# Decode the raw data to an image (as 2D numpy array)
img = cam.decode_image(data)

To see all valid features for a connected camera:

print(cam.features)

['AccumulateCount', 'AcquisitionStart', 'AcquisitionStop',
 'AOIBinning', 'AOIHeight','AOILeft', 'AOIStride', ...]

Any valid feature name can be accessed as a property of an Andor3 object. For example:

print(f"{cam.CameraFamily} {cam.CameraModel} {cam.CameraName} {cam.InterfaceType}")

Andor sCMOS DG152XC0EFI219 Zyla CL 10 Tap

or

cam.ExposureTime = 0.1
cam.TriggerMode = "External"
cam.SpuriousNoiseFilter = False

To see details about avaliable camera features, such as data type and valid ranges:

print(cam.describe_features())

AccumulateCount: Integer (rw)
value=1 min=1 max=2.14748e+09
AcquisitionStart: Command (rw)
AcquisitionStop: Command (rw)
AOIBinning: Enumerated (rw)
->  0 : 1x1
    1 : 2x2
    2 : 3x3
    3 : 4x4
    4 : 8x8
AOIHeight: Integer (rw)
value=2160 min=8 max=2160
AOILeft: Integer (rw)
value=1 min=1 max=1
AOIStride: Integer (r-)
value=5120 min=40 max=10240
AOITop: Integer (rw)
value=1 min=1 max=1
AOIWidth: Integer (rw)
value=2560 min=40 max=2560
AuxiliaryOutSource: Enumerated (rw)
    0 : FireRow1
    1 : FireRowN
->  2 : FireAll
    3 : FireAny
...

Note that the above demonstrates a very “raw” method of interfacing to the Andor SDK. There are convenience classes and function in the andor3.utils package which make the streaming of frame data (FrameServer) or the bulk acquisition of frames (FrameDump) greatly simplified.