The Gx CCD camera drivers for INDILIB

Main page▹Product Overview▹Software	4.12.2020 \|

Standardized software interfaces bring the possibility to use various devices in many programs, providing device manufactures as well as software developers implement particular standard. ASCOM standard for CCD cameras and other astronomy equipment is widely used within the Windows operating system, while a new INDILIB initiative stars to appear as emerging standard in the world of Linux-based operating systems. Libraries and drivers supporting this standard are now available for all CCD cameras of the Gx series, connected through both USB and Ethernet.

Gx CCD camera drivers can be downloaded from the download section of this www server. The drivers support all currently shipped cameras, which means G0 to G4 series. If a new camera type or variant of existing camera is added, requiring updates of the driver, it may be necessary to download new driver version.

The INDI libraries and also 'cfitsio' and 'libusb-1' libraries (or their development variants) have to be installed to compile the driver. It is also necessary to have some C++ compiler (e.g. gcc) and CMake installed. The compilation is launched with commands:

$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr .
$ make
$ su -c 'make install' or sudo make install

The driver is then available for programs using INDI protocol.

If the camera is connected through the Gx Camera Ethernet Adapter device, it is also necessary to notify the INDI camera driver about the ETH adapter IP address. This address has to be defined in the configuration file in the '/home/<user>/.config/' directory. The configuration file must be named either 'gxccd.ini' or 'gxccd.<camera_id>.ini' (e.g. 'gxccd.1111.ini'). Configuration file is a text file and must contain a section named [driver] and the IP address definition starting with the IP keyword:

[driver]
IP = 192.168.0.5 ; define adapter IP address here

The INDILIB initiative web page is http://indilib.org/.