IDL Procedures and Scripts
This section lists IDL procedures and scripts with links to individual man pages.

    Introduction

    PMAS has a three-layer instrument control software structure : embedded controller code, low-level instrument control (unix), user-level IDL command line, user-level graphical user interface. The upper two levels are accessibel to observers and collectively referred to as "PICS" (PMAS Instrument Control Software). The PICS procedures, subroutines and scripts are listed below. Follow the link to read the man-page for any routine of interest.

      Help:

      To obtain help, enter procedure name without parameters. By convention, all PMAS related procedures
      will return a brief help message, indicating the correct procedure call with the expected number and
      sequence of parameters.

      More detailed help can be obtained by typing: 
      Pmas>man, 'procedure_name'

    Main procedures and GUIs :
    pics_init initializes the PMAS hardware.
    pics_gui main GUI to operate the spectrograph.
    pics_ag main GUI to operate the Acquisition & Guiding Camera.

    Command Line Exposure Control :
    pics_s_bias take spectrograph bias frame
    pics_s_dark take spectrograph dark exposure
    pics_s_exp take spectrograph science or flatfield exposure
    pics_s_status get spectrograph ccd controller status information
    pics_s_qstatus get quick spectrograph ccd controller status information (~5 times faster than pics_s_status)
    pics_a_status get A&G ccd controller status information
    pics_a_qstatus get quick A&G ccd controller status information