Introduction
PMAS has a three-layer instrument control software structure :
embedded controller code, low-level instrument control (unix), user-level
IDL command line, user-level
graphical user interface. The upper two levels
are accessibel to observers and collectively referred to as "PICS" (PMAS
Instrument Control Software).
See Fig.
1 for a graphical representation.
Users who do not wish to use the PICS GUIs but rather feel more comfortable
with running PMAS from command line statements can do so, except for the A&G camera
autoguider. Most of the low-level instrument control routines are wrapped into
IDL procedures which can be invoked directly from the IDL command line or from
IDL scripts.
The subset of PMAS IDL procedures relevant for instrument control tasks is
listed below. See also the complete overview of
PMAS IDL procedures.
To obtain more detailed information for a particular routine, follow the link
and read the corresponding man-page.
To obtain help, enter procedure name without
parameters.
By convention, all PMAS related procedures
will return a brief help message, indicating the correct procedure
call with the expected number and
sequence of parameters.
More detailed help can be obtained by typing:
Pmas>man, 'procedure_name'
Macros :
| pmas_batch.pro |
example for batch mode (call IDL macros from UNIX command line) |
Initialization procedures & Support Tools :
Command Line Exposure Control :