JBluIce/PyBluIce OverviewJBluIce/PyBluIce is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the GM/CA beamline control system, which is based on EPICS and conforms the look and feel of SSRL BluIce. EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) is a toolkit for designing distributed control systems and SSRL BluIce is a control system for macromolecular crystallography beamlines popular due to its convenient all-in-one tabbed user interface. While the SSRL BluIce was coded in the Tcl/Tk scripting language and used its own drivers for beamline electronics, the implementation of JBluIce/PyBluIce is quite different. First, it relies on widely tested and supported EPICS hardware drivers, and has less software layers than the SSRL BluIce, thus helping to easily access advanced features of hardware and implement faster beamline operations. Second, the implementation of GUI is also different. Before APS the GUI was based on Java and therefore it was called JBluIce. In 2023-2024 the system was ported to Python and respectively received the name PyBluIce. The PyBluIce interface is unchanged compared to JBluIce and includes the same hutch, sample, collect, scan and screening tab layouts, but the software migration enables new features. For example, the Eiger2 16M detector installed at the 23-ID-D beamline is capable of 560Hz frame rates, and PyBluIce supports the HDF file format needed for this speed. Also new in PyBluIce is that it uses streaming processing for real-time spot finding and integration with Argonne supercomputer center. New data collection tools are available such as a "jet collect" mode for serial data collection, and improved helical data collection with range selection. |
JBluIce/PyBluIce Tabs**JbluIce screenshots are show unless noted.
On the Hutch Tab users can change energy, attenuate the beam, open/close shutter, control slits, position CCD detector and align the beam to the goniometer axis.
PyBluIce implementation of the same Hutch Tab.
The Sample Tab provides the crystals view with two video cameras (on-axis microscope and a lower-resolution camera looking from a perpendicular direction) and the controls for sample illumination. It also offers diffraction images viewer, single-click selection of x-ray minibeam collimator, sample annealing, fine beam position adjustments and various other tools for sample environment.
The Screening Tab contains all the controls needed for screening crystals and their indexing with WebIce. This Tab also provides controls for the sample mounting robot.
The Raster Tab provides best-in-class controls for searching tiny optically invisible crystals and finding good spots on poorly diffracting crystals. Both diffraction and fluorescence modes are available. Rastering can be carried in fully automatic and user-managed modes. Polygon rastering can be selected to reduce the number of spots to be inspected with X-rays. The initial search area can be taken from optical loop centering. The data can be exported to data collection Tab for collecting partial data sets on multiple crystal spots.
On the Scan Tab users can acquire fluorescent spectra and perform fluorescence scans around chosen absorption edge in either automatic or advanced controls mode. The scans implement fast on-the-fly signal collection without stopping monochromator and automatic detection of the edge shift with respective shift of fine energy sampling range.
On the Collect tab users can do classic data collection operations such as composing frame collection sequences and viewing the acquired images.
PyBluIce implementation of the same Collect tab.
Besides that, the Collect tab also offers vector data collection.
... and data collection strategy.
On the Analysis Tab users can preview the results of background data processing that is automatically spanned by JBluIce/PyBluIce and runs on the beamline computing cluster. For more information about background data processing see:
The Log Tab offers controls for saving the parameters of the experiment.
|
JBluIce/PyBluIce ManualsFor JBluIce/PyBluIce user manuals including some video tutorials see the GM/CA @ APS 'During your Beamtime' page.
|
JBluIce/PyBluIce Downloads
|
GM/CA @ APS
