Dave Mitchell's DigitalMicrograph™ Scripting Website

Function

A simple countdown timer to keep track of time-dependent processes at the microscope.

Version

version:20190619, v1.3

Author

D. R. G. Mitchell

Acknowledgements

-

Comments

Some microscope operations are time-dependent. These include such things as beam showering, electron irradiation for beam damage studies, stabilization times in in-situ heating and cooling experiments etc. This simple timer lets you select a time and then counts down to zero. It runs as a background thread, so normal DigitalMicrograph operations can be continued whilst it is running. The script displayes the elapsed time and a progress bar during the countdown.

There is an option which can be set in the File/Global Info/Global Tags/Event Timer/, to deactivate the alert which appears on the screen at the conclusion of the countdown. The timer can be set to days if it is to be used for timing longer duration activities such as cold trap filling etc.

Updated in v1.3 to resolve minor bugs.

System Requirements

Should be compatible with all recent versions of DigitalMicrograph and has no hardware dependencies.

Known Issues

The script runs as a background thread and uses the system clock for timing. It should have sub-second accuracy although accuracy for very long countdowns may not be that accurate.

Supported

Yes

Included Files

Main script file.

Source Code