1 INTRODUCTION

All VLT instruments¹ will be controlled and operated by instrumentation software which from the user's perspective has a common look-and-feel. This common look-and-feel is not only provided by the GUI, but deeper than this visible surface-layer by a standard structure of all VLT instrumentation software, the use of standard commands, identical interfaces to other VLT software, and the use of common software (libraries and utilities). These principles and their application are clearly specified in [6].

1.1 PURPOSE

This document describes the INS common software. It is not restricted to the description of the libraries and utilities common for all instruments and provided by ESO, but also includes a detailed description of the standard commands and some of their parameters to which all VLT instrumentation software designers must adhere. It logically follows the VLT Instrumentation Software Specification document [6], where the software common to all instrumentation packages are outlined.

It is not the purpose of this document to deal with all possible situations for all VLT instruments, but rather to describe and give rules for the anticipated commonalities. Hopefully the philosophy applied to these cases will be extrapolated to deal with peculiar situations.

The intended readers of this document are those designing or implementing the software functions described here, and those in charge of such projects. They are throughout this document collectively referred to as Instrument Developers or Instrument Designers.

Some of the formats and files described in this document are distributed as templates with the VLT Common Software, within the insc module. The insc module which is compatible with the contents of this document has version 1.11 or bigger.

1.2 SCOPE

This document deals with the detailed specifications of the standard commands and software common to all instrumentation packages. The term INS Common Software will in the context of this document refer to both of these categories.

Operational procedures which could be common for e.g. maintenance and set-up of several instruments are not covered by this document.

Only where explicitly mentioned ESO is committed to actually provide software. For all other items this document merely provides rules and guidelines to design instrumentation software.

1.3 APPLICABLE DOCUMENTS

The following documents, of the exact issue shown, form a part of this document to the extent specified herein. In the event of conflict between the documents referenced herein and the contents of this document, the contents of this document shall be considered as a superseding requirement.

[1] GEN-SPE-ESO-19400-0794, 2.0 21/05/2002 - Data Interface Control Document

[2] VLT-SPE-ESO-10000-0011, 3 in prep. - VLT Software Requirements Specification

[3] VLT-SPE-ESO-10000-0228, 2 in prep. - VLT Software Programming Standards

[4] VLT-ICD-ESO-17240-0415, 2.6 17/11/1997 - ICD between INS and VLT Archive System

[5] VLT-ICD-ESO-17240-19200, 1.3 07/06/2000 - ICD VCS - Observation Handling subsystem

[6] VLT-SPE-ESO-17212-0001, 4 13/01/2005 - VLT Instrumentation Software Specification

[7] VLT-SPE-ESO-17210-0667, 1.2 08/10/2001 - Guidelines for Development of VLT Appl. SW

1.4 REFERENCE DOCUMENTS

The following documents are referenced in this document.

[8] VLT-SPE-ESO-17240-0666, 1.0 21/10/1994 - VLT INS Common SW Part 2 Design Description

[9] VLT-MAN-SBI-17210-0001, 3.7 05/10/2001 - VLT SW LCC User Manual

[10] VLT-MAN-ESO-17210-0619, 2.4 31/03/2004 - VLT Software CCS User Manual

[11] VLT-MAN-ESO-17210-0707, 1.6 30/09/1999 - CCS On-line Database Loader User Manual

[12] VLT-MAN-ESO-17220-0737, 3 28/03/2002 - VLT Software HOS/Sequencer User Manual

[13] ISBN 0-201-63337-X - Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, John K. Ousterhout

[14] VLT-SPE-ESO-19000-0749, 1.10 23/07/1996 - VLT On-line Data Flow Requirement Spec.

[15] VLT-MAN-ESO-17230-0942, 2 22/03/2002 - VLT Software TCS User Manual

[16] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0726, 2 25/03/2003 - Setup Files and FITS log handling SLX User Mnl

[17] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0853, 3 26/03/2004 - VLT SW Objective SLX - OSLX User Manual

[18] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0637, 3 28/03/2002 - VLT SW Data Transfer Library (dxf) User Manual

[19] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0725, 1.3 07/05/1996 - VLT SW - Protocol Converter (pco) User Manual

[20] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0880, 2 28/03/2002 - VLT SW INS System Tools (ist) User Manual

[21] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0934, 5 31/03/2004 - INS Common Software Base ICS User Manual

[22] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-2606, 3 31/03/2004 - INS Common Software ICS GUI User Manual

[23] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0672, 1.6 25/09/1998 - CCD Detectors Control Software User Manual

[24] VLT-MAN-ESO-13640-1388, 3 31/03/2004 - FIERA Control Software User Manual

[25] VLT-MAN-ESO-14100-1878, 1.4 01/12/2003 - IRACE-DCS User Manual

[26] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-2265, 4 05/04/2004 - INS Common Sw Base OS Stub User Manual

[27] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-1913, 4 31/03/2004 - Install. Tool for VLT Sw packages User Manual

[28] VLT-MAN_ESO-17240-2153, 4 31/03/2004 - INS Common Sw Startup Tool User Manual

[29] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-2240, 4 31/03/2004 - INS Common Sw for Templates User Manual

[30] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-2325, 4 31/03/2004 - INS Common Sw Config. Tool User Manual

[31] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-1973, 5 13/01/2005 - Template Instr. Sw User and Maint. Manual

[32] VLT-MAN-ESO-17240-0866, 2.8 16/05/1999 - Real Time Display User Manual

[33] VLT-PLA-ESO-17240-2266, 5 13/01/2005 - INS Acceptance Test Plan Template Document

[34] VLT-MAN-ESO-17220-1332, 4 19/04/2004 - HOS/Broker for Observ. Blocks User Manual

[35] VLT-MAN-ESO-17210-0669, 1.6 02/10/1998 - Motor Engineering Interface User Manual

[36] VLT-MAN-ESO-17200-0981, 2 16/10/1998 - VLT Problem Rep. Change Request User Manual

1.5 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

The following abbreviations and acronyms are used in this document:

CDT Command Definition Table

DCS Detector Control Software

DICB Data Interface Control Board

FITS Flexible Image Transport Format

GUI Graphical User Interface

ICS Instrument Control Software

INS Instrumentation Software

IWS Instrument Workstation

MIDAS Munich Data Analysis System

MS Maintenance Software

OS Observation Software

OSS Observer Support Software

P2PP Phase II Proposal Preparation (System)

TBD To Be Defined

TCS Telescope Control System

TIF TCS InterFace module

VCS VLT Control Software

WS Workstation

1.6 GLOSSARY

Device²
The hardware device that is responsible for positioning or (de)activating a certain (optical) element; used in the context of the setup of an instrument. Examples of devices are filter wheels, calibration lamp mirrors, lamp switches, etc. Each device name allows to identify unambiguously one or more pieces of hardware considered part of it. E.g. "filter wheel 1" points to filter wheel number one, "lamp" could identify both the lamp mirror motor and switches (provided the instrument has a single lamp mirror motor).

Setup file
A setup file is an ASCII file in a special format, describing setup parameters for exactly one exposure. If a setup file contains all settable parameters of the complete equipment, it is called a reference setup file. In the other case it is called partial setup file. An example of the latter is a target setup file, with (part of) the necessary information to setup the telescope for a particular exposure (not to be confused with target list, which contains target information about a related set of exposures). Other examples of partial setup files are instrument setup files and detector setup files.

Short Hierarchical Format
A format derived from the Hierarchical FITS keywords; used for parameter files (setup files, configuration files, etc.). This is also referred to as Short-FITS in [8].

The following terms are defined in [6]

· Exposure

· Instrument Workstation

Other terms are defined in [2] and [8], section Glossary.

¹

The term "VLT Instrument" applies to any instrument, which uses the VLT Control Software, and therefore it includes also VLTI, VST, VISTA and some of the instruments at La Silla.

²

In the previous issues of this document the word Function was used in place of Device

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