[OpenSPIM] HamamatsuHam, Windows 7 & OpenSPIM

[Alexis Maizel]

Hi there,

I use an ORCA Flash4 in our OpenSPIM setup but I run into severe problems regarding its integration with the OpenSPIM software. 

The latest  DCAM drivers (Feb 2013) brought compatibility with windows 7 (what we run on) and allow the integration and use of e.g. an Orca Flash4 in micro-manager (MM v1.4.13) using the HamamatsuHam device adapter . I tested this in a standalone MM and it works great. 

However, as the current micro-manager code base used by OpenSPIM is anterior (seems to be MM v1.4.9), this latest  HamamatsuHam device adapter is not recognised/loaded by the OpenSPIM software.

Unless I am mistaken, in order  to have this  HamamatsuHam device adapter compatible with OpenSPIM, the OpenSPIM/MicroManager code  has to be brought in sync to the current MM version 1.4.13/14; which in other words mean, recompiling OpenSPIM using the latest Micromanager source code, correct?

I have been struggling for several weeks now to try to do just that…

First, and unfortunately for me,  the OpenSPIM development environment installer (http://openspim.org/downloads/OpenSPIM-dev-env-20130201.exe) which is supposed to make it really easy for everyone, did not work for me (it hangs and does not fetch the different sources). So I had to go the "hard way" and download, configure everything properly (d/l the boostPro libs, Ant, JDK, PATHs configurations, etc…). After a few hours of sweating, I troubleshooted almost everything. However, I am far from the described step " by clicking on Build>Build Solution or by pressing the F7 key" everything builds auto-magically.

If I understood correctly, to get a functional OpenSPIM software compatible with MM v1.4.13, I have to , a minima,  recompile:
- MMCore
- MMcoreJ_wrap
- Any  DeviceAdapter I  need (OpenSPIM, Cobolt, etc…) or on which the MMCoreJ_wrap depends (SerialManager, …)
- mmstudio
- SPIMAcquisition

I have questions regarding the last 2:
- mmstudio: about 40 devices adapters are listed as dependencies (AAOTF, etc…). Do I have to recompile them or it will be OK to forget about them (assuming I do not need them) or adding them from the current MM release? It is unclear whether I can recompile this in Visual Studio or using Ant. 

- SPIMAcquisition: that's a JAVA plugin how do I do that? Using Ant?

I have the feeling that I am getting lost in territories that have been charted by others before. 
At this point I could really benefit from help of any good samaritans in the community to point me into the right directions to help me recompile the whole OpenSPIM using a more recent MM code base. In my opinion, this effort would actually benefit the whole community, as I am probably not the only one which may suffer from OpenSPIM  being based on a several-month old MM release. 

Best,

Alexis