Install

$ pip install microspecgui

This installs:

• pygame: Python interface for SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer), a highly portable library for low-level access to graphics hardware and input devices (keyboard/mouse/joystick)
• pygstuff: helpers to simplify pygame applications
• microspeclib: Chromation's spectrometer dev-kit API

Run

Connect the Chromation spectrometer dev-kit, then:

$ microspec-gui

Keyboard Controls

q   - quit
a   - auto-expose (spacebar works also)
x   - decrease exposure time
X   - increase exposure time
h/l - navigate wavelength slow
j/k - navigate wavelength fast
0   - go to shortest wavelength
$   - go to longest wavelength

Joystick Controls

BACK - quit
A    - auto-expose
X    - decrease exposure
Y    - increase exposure
right-stick   - navigate wavelength slow
left-stick    - navigate wavelength fast
left-trigger  - go to shortest wavelength
right-trigger - go to longest wavelength

Troubleshooting

Trouble installing pygame

Windows installs pygame with no problem.

If pygame fails to install on Linux Mint, it is because there are several non-Python dependencies that are missing.

Install pygame build dependencies

pygame is a Python wrapper around SDL and requires sdl-config.

Install sdl-config:

$ sudo apt install libsdl1.2-dev

The install collects additional packages that are not part of the default Linux Mint distribution. Proceed with installing the additional packages.

Check sdl-config is installed:

$ sdl-config --version
1.2.15

Obtain all of the other dependencies for building pygame using the list of build dependencies for the python-pygame package:

$ sudo apt-get build-dep python-pygame

The following dependencies are installed:

libflac-dev
libjbig-dev
libjpeg-dev
libjpeg-turbo8-dev
libjpeg8-dev
liblzma-dev
libmad0-dev
libmikmod-config
libmikmod-dev
libogg-dev
libportmidi-dev
libpython-all-dev
libsdl-image1.2-dev
libsdl-mixer1.2-dev
libsdl-ttf2.0-dev
libsmpeg-dev
libtiff-dev
libtiff5-dev
libtiffxx5
libvorbis-dev
libwebp-dev
python-all
pythonall-dev
sharutils

Note this is not the same as installing the Linux package python-pygame. These are the packages needed for building python-pygame. Luckily, these are also the packages for pip to run pygame's setup.py.

Now finally pygame will install with the usual command:

$ pip install pygame

Or:

$ pip install microspecgui

Trouble running the GUI because it does not see the dev-kit

If the GUI cannot see the dev-kit it is a setup problem with USB. Windows and Linux each have their own USB setup.

Enable VCP driver on Windows

The dev-kit uses FTDI# FT221X for USB communication. You should not need to download drivers from the FTDI site, but you do need to tell Windows to Load VCP for this device.

This setup only has to be done once for the dev-kit, but if you are using more than one dev-kit you need to do it for each one.

• open Device Manager
• locate USB Serial Converter, right-click and select Properties
• on the Advanced tab, check the box to Load VCP

Grant USB permission On Linux Mint

If this user is communicating with an FTDI device over USB for the first time, you probably need to add this user to the dialout group. This grants the user permission to communicate with the dev-kit over USB.

This setup only has to be done once for the dev-kit. If you are using more than one dev-kit, you do not need to do this setup again.

Check hardware is visible

• connect the dev-kit with a USB cable
  • expect: dev-kit indicator LEDs light up
  • two yellow LEDs
  • three green LEDs
• display messages from the kernel ring buffer that contain string FTDI:

$ dmesg | grep FTDI
[101038.609497] usb 3-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Check if the current user is part of the dialout group:

$ groups $USER | grep dialout

If the user is already part of dialout, a list of groups is printed and dialout is highlighted.

If the user is not part of dialout, nothing is printed.

Add this user to dialout:

$ sudo adduser $USER dialout

Confirm the user is part of the dialout group:

$ groups $USER | grep dialout

Finally, logout and log back in (or simply restart the computer). Even though the user is listed as a member of dialout, this change does not take effect until the user logs back in.