Fifth (and final?) alpha for the v3 server

[j.stirling]

Hi all.

We have been very very busy since the last v3 alpha release around Christmas time. This release has been a huge amount of work and brings us significantly closer to a semi-stable beta release. We really hope that the next release will be stable enough to be a beta (hopefully including a return of the Gallery, Extensions, and direct control from the microscope).

For now, anyone who wants to can try the v3.0.0-alpha5.

Using the pre-release

To install the pre-release on a microscope:

• Using Raspberry Pi Imager 2
  • Select App Options → Edit Content repository
  • Select Use custom URL and paste in https://build.openflexure.org/raspbian-openflexure/manifest.json
  • Click Apply and Restart
  • Then select Raspberry Pi 4 → OpenFlexure Raspbian v3 Pre-Release → OpenFlexure Raspbian v3.0.0-alpha5
• OR download the image directly and install with Raspberry Pi Imager 1.x (Imager 2 will not allow customisation with a directly downloaded image)

What has changed.

Some highlights of the new release are:

OS changes:

• OS Now supports Raspberry Pi Imager 2
• Smaller SD card image size (by cutting down on installed packages that were not needed)

Server changes:

• Created ScanWorkflows, a backend change that allows switching scan methods. Enabling new types of scanning:
  • Raster Scan
  • Snake Scan
  • CChip Scan (experimental, requires a configuration change to use)
• Transition frontend from the end of life Vue2 to Vue3 which is in active development!
• Improvements to the simulation microscope including more simulation samples and camera options. Speeding up development.
• “Jogging” movement. The microscope can now move continuously when an arrow key is held.
• Improved server side UI specification. This brings us closer to “Things” being able to define their own tab, which will soon enable plugins in v3.
• A user interface for recentring and range of motion.
• Improved fallback server interface.
• Backlash correction in scanning.
• OpenCV camera switching. Enabling changing between cameras in settings when using the manual configuration.
• A huge number of other bug fixes and improvements.

Stitching changes:

• Better error handling and checking whether settings can successfully stitch
• Add support for masking the correlations between pairs of images, depending on your stage performance
• Add metadata to exported JPEG to show information about the scan

“Behind the scenes” changes that will improve development

• Move from LabThings Dependencies to ThingSlots. This has allowed for:
  • Much easier communication between Things
  • Static type checking
  • Simpler action creation.
• Improved testing, including better defined testing environments, separation of integration and unit tests, and tests passing on Windows
• Updated how stitching logs to make sure nothing is buffered or delayed
• Improved plotting of correlations and thresholds in stitching, for setting manual cut offs
• Move correlation code into stitching rather than importing, to allow greater control and less external dependence
• Move the OFM CLI tools into the server repo.

Final word

It has been a huge release, including some big changes upstream in LabThings. There has been a lot of work from the core team (Me, Joe, Beth, William, and Richard) with a lot of help from Ben (@chish). Also thanks to Antonio (@kny5) for migrating the user interface from Vue2 to Vue3, this will make it much easier to maintain and keep modern and secure.

I hope everyone enjoys the new release.

[j.stirling]

I should also thank NLNet whose funding enabled much of Antionio and my work on this release and previous releases! We were funded through NGI0 Commons Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet program. Learn more at the NLnet project page.

[adamglia]

Trying this version on HQ cam. Had to move the condenser very high up, otherwise the entire FOV was yellow. The edges are visible on the HQ and yellow’ish. Running a scan now and I’ll see what happens when it finishes.

[adamglia]

Loving the jogging mode, feels super responsive. Will try the recentering / range settings later

[adamglia]

Seeing some stability issues with the HQ camera setup, namely with the stream of the camera itself. Had this happen to the live stitch, with a similar thing happening (loss of stream) to the preview from the camera when jogging earlier.

Dev tools, in the console, “Image corrupt or truncated.” from “mjpeg_stream”. I’m unable to refresh the page, looks like the microscope crashed

Edit: the microscope is still scanning and moving, I just cannot seem to connect to it in any way, be it SSH, VNC or via IP to the OFM server

[j.stirling]

Yeah, the HQ should probably be rebased against a HQ focussed dev branch. I think @JohemianKnapsody can help with that.

We are hoping that the next release will also include some camera API consolidation, enabling us to decouple the cameras in a way that makes them both first class citizens. There are a few other core focusses so I won’t promise more of a timeline than a promise that it is very important to us and it will be very soon.