This package aims to provide an open-source software canvas for developing experimental tests in a versatile and accessible way.
Crappy is developed at the LaMCube, a mechanical research laboratory based in Lille, France to provide a powerful and easy-to-use framework for materials testing.
In order to understand the mechanical behaviour of materials, we tend to perform tests with more and more sensors and actuators from various suppliers. There's thus an increasing need to drive these devices in a synchronized way while managing the high complexity of the setups.
As we are one step ahead of industrials, the commercially available testing solutions may also not be well-suited to our objectives. Custom software solutions thus need to be developed in order to further improve our tests.
These are the original purposes of Crappy : providing a framework for controlling tests and driving hardware in a synchronized and supplier-independent software environment.
If Crappy has been of help in your research, please reference it in your academic publications by citing the following article :
- Couty V., Witz J-F., Martel C. et al., Command and Real-Time Acquisition in Parallelized Python, a Python module for experimental setups, SoftwareX 16, 2021, DOI: 10.1016/j.softx.2021.100848. (publisher link)
To install Crappy you will need Python 3 (3.6 or higher) with the following modules :
- Numpy (1.19.0 or higher)
In addition, other modules are necessary for a wide range of applications in Crappy without being mandatory for installing the module. The main ones are Matplotlib, openCV, pyserial and Tk.
Tested on Windows 10, Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04, and MacOS Sierra. Simply run in a terminal (with Python installed) :
pip install crappy
or
pip3 install crappy
Refer to the dedicated installation section of the documentation for more details.
The latest versions of the documentation can be accessed on our ReadTheDocs page. It contains descriptions of Crappy's features, tutorials, and other useful information.
Please report bugs, issues, ask for help or give feedback in the dedicated github section.
Refer to the file LICENSE.txt
for information on the history of this software, terms & conditions for usage,
and a disclaimer of all warranties.