Cytation camera driver

dev discussion
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as coming up in the structured concurrency thread about solving the python version ceilng for the Cytaition:

The Aravis is probably the way to go. I can tryout. Our Cytation 1 has a Blackfly BFLY-U3-13S2M camera, might work.

Also this one (Araviscam) is interesting.

In QMI there is a driver for the PtGrey BFLY-GPE-31S4M-C camera, it is ethernet so probably different than our usb device.

I read some Linux over windows preference though, which might be a worry.

Any help or remarks are very much appreciated

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Great, this would be a nice change. Spinnaker is annoying to install and has many limitations (old ubuntu, old python, very old numpy requirements)

Please let us know how it goes! I’ll be happy to test on our cytation 1 / cytation 5 cameras as well.

1 Like
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Update: got Aravis talking to the BlackFly in our Cytation 1! No Spinnaker SDK, no PySpin, no Python version cap.

What Aravis handles (the new part):

  • Camera discovery via USB3 Vision
  • Connect to BlackFly by serial number
  • Software trigger, single-frame capture → numpy array
  • Exposure and gain control via GenICam nodes

What PLR handles (existing BioTekBackend, unchanged):

  • FTDI serial connection to Cytation
  • Filter wheel, objective turret, focus motor, LED, stage positioning

With claude I built a drop-in driver: AravisCamera (standalone) + CytationAravisBackend (PLR integration). There’s also a Jupyter notebook that walks through the whole thing step by step.

Code, README, and notebook: pylabrobot/pylabrobot/agilent/biotek at aravis-driver · vcjdeboer/pylabrobot · GitHub

Install: brew install aravis + pip install PyGObject. Ready for testing @rickwierenga

Notes:

  • Built off the capability-architecture branch, not sure if that was the best base
  • I haven’t reviewed the code carefully yet
  • I haven’t gotten a proper in-focus image yet, my exposure/focal height settings were off for the plate I was using, or the capture flow isn’t quite right. I had the same issue when first setting up PySpin last year, so I don’t think it’s an Aravis issue, just didn’t have time to finish it
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That is amazing!! I will test this in lab.