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AMSKY01 Viewer - Real-time Visualization Software

AMSKY01: GUI and CLI tools for sensor monitoring

AMSKY01 Viewer – Real-time Visualization Software

The AMSKY01 Viewer is a Python-based GUI application for real-time monitoring and visualization of data from the AMSKY01 sensor. It provides an intuitive graphical interface for viewing sensor data including thermal maps, environmental conditions, and sky brightness measurements.

AMSKY01 with GUI interface AMSKY01_viewer

Note: The amsky01 package also includes command-line tools (amsky01_cli) and log analysis utilities (plot_logs). See the AMSKY01 repository and Linux software usage guide for more information about these additional tools.

GUI Viewer

AMSKY01 Viewer interface

The graphical viewer provides real-time visualization using PyQt5 and PyQtGraph.

Features:

  • 16×12 pixel IR thermal map from MLX90640/MLX90641 thermopile array
  • Temperature and humidity from SHT41 sensor including dew point calculation
  • Light measurements from TSL2591 photometer with SQM (mag/arcsec²) conversion
  • Sensor diagnostics including supply voltage (Vdd) and ambient temperature (Ta)
  • Multiple tabs for organized data display (Graph, Data Table, HTTP API)

Usage:

# Basic usage with auto-detected port
amsky01_viewer

# Specify serial port and baudrate
amsky01_viewer --port /dev/ttyACM0 --baud 500000

# Enable debug output for troubleshooting
amsky01_viewer --port /dev/ttyACM0 --debug

Command-line Options:

  • --port - Serial port device (default: auto-detect)
  • --baud - Baudrate in bps (default: 115200)
  • --debug - Enable verbose communication logging

API interface

The AMSKY01 Viewer GUI application provides an HTTP network interface that allows easy access to sensor data over the network. This enables remote monitoring and integration with various astronomy and automation tools.

By default, the API is available on port 8080 and the sensor data can be accessed via the /data.json endpoint. For example: http://localhost:8080/data.json

Integration with INDI, EKOS and KStars

API also allows sensor data to be accessed directly from INDI-lib, EKOS, and KStars for observatory automation and FITS image metadata.

AMSKY01 implementation into INDI-lib and KSTARS environment

Configuration is simple: just enable the API endpoint on the third tab of the GUI. Then, in KStars, launch the indi-amsky01-api driver, which will automatically connect to the running API and make the data available in your astronomy workflow. It only require to install astrometers-indi libraries according to docs

Thanks to this integration, AMSKY01 seamlessly extends the capabilities of your observatory software, making advanced sky condition monitoring and automation easy and reliable.

Installation

The AMSKY01 software tools are available as a Python package on PyPI and can be installed easily using pip.

Requirements

  • Python 3.7 or newer
  • USB-C or RS-485 connection to AMSKY01 sensor
  • Linux, Windows, or macOS

It is strongly recommended to use a virtual environment to avoid conflicts with system packages:

# Create a virtual environment
python3 -m venv amsky01-env

# Activate the virtual environment
source amsky01-env/bin/activate  # On Linux/macOS
# or
amsky01-env\Scripts\activate  # On Windows

# Install the package
pip install amsky01

This will install the viewer along with all required dependencies including PyQt5, PyQtGraph, pyserial, pandas, and matplotlib.

Alternative: System-wide installation (not recommended)

pip install amsky01

Install from Source

For development or the latest features, you can install directly from the GitHub repository:

git clone https://github.com/roman-dvorak/AMSKY01.git
cd AMSKY01/sw
pip install -e .

Running from Virtual Environment

If you installed using venv, make sure to activate the environment first:

source amsky01-env/bin/activate  # Linux/macOS
amsky01_viewer

Troubleshooting

Device Not Found

If the viewer cannot detect your AMSKY01 sensor:

  1. Check USB connection
  2. Verify device permissions: 
    ls -l /dev/ttyACM*
sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0  # Or add user to dialout group
  3. Use --port option to specify device manually
  4. Check baudrate matches sensor configuration (default: 500000)

No Data Displayed

  • Enable debug mode with --debug flag
  • Verify sensor is powered and responding
  • Check serial port settings (baudrate, parity)
  • Ensure no other application is using the serial port

Import Errors

If you encounter import errors, reinstall dependencies:

pip install --upgrade amsky01
# Or install dependencies manually:
pip install pyserial numpy pyqtgraph PyQt5 pandas matplotlib

Source Code and Development

The AMSKY01 software tools are open-source and available on GitHub:

🔗 Repository: https://github.com/roman-dvorak/AMSKY01/tree/main/sw

📦 PyPI Package: https://pypi.org/project/amsky01/

Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome via GitHub Issues.

See Also