Introduction

Soapy is a Montecarlo Adaptive Optics (AO) simulation written exclusively in the Python programming language. It is aimed at rapidly developing new AO concepts and being a learning tool for those new to the field of AO.

The code can be used as an end to end simulation, where the entire system parameters are controlled by a configuration file. This can be used from the Python command line, python scripts or a GUI which is included, operation is described in the Basic Usage section.

The codes real strength lies in its modular nature. Each AO component is modelled as a Python object, with intuitive methods and attributes. Components can be imported and used separately to create novel AO configurations. Starting with the main Simulation module, these are described in detail in this documentation.

Quick-Start

Try out some of the code examples in the conf directory, either run the soapy script in bin, or load a python or IPython terminal:

import soapy
sim = soapy.Sim("configFilename")
sim.aoinit()
sim.makeIMat()
sim.aoloop()

Data will now be saved in the directory specified as filePrefix in the configuration file.

Alternatively, the GUI can be started with:

soapy -g <configFilename>

The use the buttons to initialise the simulation, make interaction matrices and run the AO loop. The interactive python console can be used to view data or change parameters