INDISharp.INDI 0.9.0

libindi

INDI is a standard for astronomical instrumentation control. INDI Library is an Open Source POSIX implementation of the Instrument-Neutral-Device-Interface protocol.

The library is composed of the following components:

1. INDI Server.
2. INDI Drivers: Hardware drivers that communicate with the equipment. Many devices are supported including:

• Mounts
• CCDs, CMOS, Webcams, DSLRs (Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax..etc).
• Focusers.
• Filter Wheels.
• Adaptive Optics.
• Domes.
• GPS.
• Weather Stations.
• Controllers.
• Auxiliary Devices (switches, watchdog, relays, light sources, measurement devices..etc).

3. Client Library: Cross-platform POSIX and Qt5-based client libraries. The client libraries can be embedded in 3rd party applications to communicate with INDI server and devices.

Core device drivers are shipped with INDI library by default. 3rd party drivers are also available in the repository and maintained by their respective owners.

Learn more about INDI:

• Features
• Discover INDI
• Supported Devices
• Clients

Building

Install Pre-requisites

On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install libnova-dev libcfitsio-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev zlib1g-dev libgsl-dev build-essential cmake git libjpeg-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libtiff-dev

Get the code

git clone https://github.com/indilib/indi.git
cd indi

Build libindi

mkdir -p build/libindi
cd build/libindi
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ../../libindi
make
sudo make install

Build 3rd party drivers

You can build the all the 3rd party drivers at once (not recommended) or build the required 3rd party driver as required (recommended). Each 3rd party driver may have its own pre-requisites and requirements. For example, to build INDI EQMod driver:

cd build
mkdir indi-eqmod
cd indi-eqmod
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ../../3rdparty/indi-eqmod
make
sudo make install

The complete list of system dependancies for all drivers on Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install libftdi-dev libgps-dev libraw-dev libdc1394-22-dev libgphoto2-dev libboost-dev libboost-regex-dev librtlsdr-dev liblimesuite-dev libftdi1-dev

To build all 3rd party drivers, you need to run cmake and make install twice. First time is to install any dependencies of the 3rd party drivers (for example indi-qsi depends on libqsi), and second time to install the actual drivers themselves.

cd build
mkdir 3rdparty
cd 3rdparty
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ../../3rdparty
make
sudo make install
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ../../3rdparty
make
sudo make install

Architecture

Typical INDI Client / Server / Driver / Device connectivity:

INDI Client 1 ----|                  |---- INDI Driver A  ---- Dev X
                  |                  |
INDI Client 2 ----|                  |---- INDI Driver B  ---- Dev Y
                  |                  |                     |
 ...              |--- indiserver ---|                     |-- Dev Z
                  |                  |
                  |                  |
INDI Client n ----|                  |---- INDI Driver C  ---- Dev T


 Client       INET       Server       UNIX     Driver          Hardware
 processes    sockets    process      pipes    processes       devices

INDI server is the public network access point where one or more INDI Clients may contact one or more INDI Drivers. indiserver launches each driver process and arranges for it to receive the INDI protocol from clients on its stdin and expects to find commands destined for clients on the driver's stdout. Anything arriving from a driver process' stderr is copied to indiserver's stderr. INDI server only provides convenient port, fork and data steering services. If desired, a client may run and connect to INDI Drivers directly.

Support

• FAQ
• Forum
• Tutorials

Development

• INDI API
• INDI Developer Manual
• Tutorials
• Developers Forum
• Developers Chat
• Sample drivers are available under examples and drivers/skeleton directories. They can be used as a starting point for your driver development.

How to create Github pull request (PR)

How to contribute to INDI full guide

Here is the short version on how to submit a PR:

1. Login with a Github account and fork the official INDI repository.
2. Clone the official INDI repository and add the forked INDI repository as a remote (git remote add ...).
3. Create a local Git branch (git checkout -b my_branch).
4. Work on the patch and commit the changes.
5. If it is ready push this branch to your fork repo (git push -f my_fork my_branch:my_branch).
6. Go to the official repo's github website in a browser, it will popup a message to create a PR. Create it.
7. Pushing updates to the PR: just update your branch (git push -f my_fork my_branch:my_branch)..

If you would like to make cleaner PR (recommended!) please read this tutorial and follow it. The best way is to keep one logical change per commit and not pollute the history by multiple small fixes to the PR.

Driver Documentation

When submitting a new driver, the driver user documentation is required as part of the submission process.

• Installation: Driver name, executable name, version, required INDI version.
• Features: What features does it support exactly?
• Operation: How to operate the driver? Each sub section should come with a screen shot of the various tabs..etc. Preferably annotated to make it easier for new users to follow.
  • Connecting: How to establish connection? How to set port if any?
  • Main Control: Primary control tab and its functions.
  • Options: Explanation for the various options available.
  • Etc: Any other tabs created by the driver.
• Issues: Any problems or issues or warnings the users should be aware about when using this driver.

Sample Drivers

You can base a new driver from an existing driver. Look in either the examples or drivers/skeleton directories on how to get started.

Unit tests

In order to run the unit test suite you must first install the Google Test Framework. You will need to build and install this from source code as Google does not recommend package managers for distributing distros.(This is because each build system is often unique and a one size fits all aproach does not work well).

Once you have the Google Test Framework installed follow this alternative build sequence:-

mkdir -p build/libindi
cd build/libindi
cmake -DINDI_BUILD_UNITTESTS=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ../../libindi
make
cd test
ctest -V

For more details refer to the scripts in the travis-ci directory.