File formats

There are a number of supported file formats for the point grey camera device (which is suitable for most cameras). PNG is the standard, and is the best for wide distribution. The primary disadvantages of this file format are the large number of files generated and the relatively slow write speed. The two file formats that can be used to overcome this are tdms and hdf5.

PNG

PNG is the standard, and is the best for wide distribution. The primary disadvantages of this file format are the large number of files generated and the relatively slow write speed. The two file formats that can be used to overcome this are tdms and hdf5.

TDMS

The only thing you need to do to set tdms as the file type is set this as the SaveType variable (and set that as default if required). The file format is self-explanatory. You can open it in Excel and many other programs if you have the plugin installed. The data is stored as a 1d array, and the width property gives you the information to convert to 2D.

HDF5

This file format has the advantages of tdms, along with the additional advantage of compression. It is implemented in GEECS through a Python script, which was written by Axel Huebl. Follow the steps below to install Python and the required packages.

- only official python from Python.org works with LabView. (i.e. not conda)

- set a registry key (optional but potentially useful):

https://docs.python.org/3/using/windows.html#removing-the-max-path-limitation

- Install the executable installer with /quiet and other options

https://docs.python.org/3/using/windows.html#installing-without-ui

/quiet /PrependPath=1 /CompileAll=1

- pip install -r requirements.txt

(the file that comes with the software https://github.com/ax3l/openPMD-CCD:

this is just a shorthand for getting these: pillow python-dateutil numpy h5py