INDI support

[Ryther]

Hi Vince, Robin

the instructions can be a little fuzzy, so I will list what I've done.
I know that Vince already did some of these, but I will be the more detailed as I can for future reference.

• Install INDIGO on the server. On the server there is no need for the control panel application
  • To do this I'm using a Debian distro so in the terminal I've launched

    Code: Select all

    sudo apt-get install indigo -y

• Run the indigo server on the linux server by running in a terminal:

  Code: Select all

  indigo_server

  here you can find more about the server https://github.com/indigo-astronomy/ind ... S_GUIDE.md

• Install the ASCOM Remote (alpaca) on the Windows client https://github.com/ASCOMInitiative/ASCOMRemote/releases

• Now on the client you can reach the Control Panel of the server on the browser by going to the ip at port 7624, for example http://192.168.1.100:7624

• In the Control Panel you can enable the driver for Alpaca and all the drivers you need for you camera/focuser/mount/etc
  

When I tried to do this I had some problem understanding what each application did; in the end:

• Alpaca is ASCOM Remote and it's the driver used by Windows to comunciate with INDIGO
  • SharpCap use this driver to search for remote hardware

• INDIGO is both the linux drivers and the remote server

SharpCap comunicate with Alpaca as an ASCOM driver while Alpaca connect to the INDIGO server which run all the drivers.

I hope it helped somehow!

Regards,
Edoardo

[rumen]

Hi all,
I am one of the core INDIGO developers. And I want to make several things clear

Indigo server is available for Linux and MacOS only there is no Indigo server for Windows, however Indigo client framework is available for Windows too.
INDIGO and INDI are quite different architecturally. For example INDIGO has Agents (https://github.com/indigo-astronomy/ind ... _AGENTS.md) and they contain the logic to execute some particular task so that indigo does not need a client to operate. One can think of the clients as visitation tools without a busyness logic in them. Clients are just the eye candy. Those agents make it easy to add wired logic like Alpaca bridge. or LX200 layer to enable all mounts to be controlled over LX200 protocol. Along with the normal stuff that are mandatory: imager agent, guider agent, mount agent, platesolver agent etc. For comparison, INDI does not have this possibility and all the logic for guiding, image acquisition, mount control, should be in the client and the client should implement them. Ekos has all this logic in the client, therefore if the network is disconnected and ekos looses the connection to the server the whole session is gone. In indigo you can start your sequence and deliberately disconnect the client. and in the morning you can start it and request the data from the server. Further more indigo has a scripting functionality which means that one can add triggers for some events like if the starin sensor detects rain it will execute the script that will close the dome and shut down the system or whatever you like. In fact the new sequence engine is migrated to INDIGO script.

Alpaca agent is quite easy to configure. Basically, it works out of the box, you just need to load it and the available indigo devices should be discoverable by the ALPACA-enabled clients.

If you are using Raspberry Pi you may want to consider IndigoSky image it runs on all RPIs form 2-5. https://www.indigo-astronomy.org/indigo-sky.html

I hope this helps

Rumen