path: root/doc/v212revs.hlp

.help IRAF  Mar02  "V2.12EXPORT Release Notes"
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IRAF V2.12EXPORT Release Notes
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January 25, 2002
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Updated: March 25, 2002


These release notes provide a summary of the major changes in V2.12.  This
is a major release of IRAF and will be available for all supported platforms.
More detailed technical documentation of all system changes will be found
in the 'notes.v211' and 'notes.v212' files in the iraf$doc and iraf$local
directories.  Detailed revisions notes for each application package are in
the package directories in a file called Revisions, e.g. apphot$Revisions.

.nf
     1.  \fBHighlights of This Release\fR
     2.  \fBIRAF System Revisions Summary\fR
     3.  \fBCore IRAF Revisions Summary\fR
    	  3.1 New Tasks
    	  3.2 Existing tasks with new parameters/defaults
    	  3.3 Existing tasks with new capabilities
     4.  \fBNOAO Package Revisions Summary\fR
    	  4.1 New NOAO Packages
    	  4.2 New NOAO Package Tasks
    	  4.3 Existing tasks with new parameters/defaults
    	  4.4 Existing tasks with new capabilities
     5.  \fBGeneral Package Changes\fR
     6.  \fBGeneral Task Changes\fR
     7.  \fBParameter File Changes\fR
     8.  \fBDetails of Major System Changes\fR
    	  8.1 FITS Kernel Changes
    	  8.2 Large Image Support
    	  8.3 Virtual Memory Cache
    	  8.4 New Developer libraries
     9.  \fBSystem Changes Which May Affect You\fR
    	  9.1 Shared Library Version Incremented
    	  9.2 External Package Recompilation
    	  9.3 Parameter File Changes
    	  9.4 Installation Script Changes
    	  9.5 Help System Changes
	  9.6 Image Display Changes
	  9.7 PLIO Changes
	  9.8 New Environment Variables Changes
.fi


.nh
Highlights of This Release

.nf
    o \fBPixel Mask Support Added to FITS Kernel\fR
        The FITS kernel was modified to add support for storing images in
    	extensions as compressed pixel masks using the binary table extension.
	These masks may be accessed like any other image and allow for tasks
	to more easily store bad-pixel masks, regions masks, or error arrays
	in the same image file as the science data.
	
    o \fBNew Pixel Mask Tasks\fR
	Several new tasks have been added to the system PROTO package for
	manipulating pixel masks:  

	o MIMSTATISTICS allows image statistics to be computed while
	    rejecting pixels specified by an input mask.  
	o MSKEXPR task is a general-purpose mask expression evaluator
	    similar to IMEXPR for images, but has builtin boolean region
	    functions which can be used to set values inside or outside
	    of certain geometric shapes.
	o MSKREGIONS creates an output mask based on an input text de-
	    scription.  Region descriptions can be composed of geometric
	    shapes and logical operation on mask regions.

	o OBJMASKS in the NPROTO package is a new task for detecting objects
	    in an image and creating an output catalog or pixel mask of
	    found objects.
	
    o \fBShared Memory Limitations Eased\fR
	The IMAGES and DAOPHOT packages executables are now linked statically
	to remove per-process memory limitations imposed by the IRAF shared
	library on Sun and Dec Alpha systems.  Previously tasks such as
	DAOFIND and IMCOMBINE were limited to 268Mb on Sun systems,  these
	tasks can now use up to the machine memory limits.

    o \fBImage I/O Buffer Sizes Increased\fR
	Support for large image I/O was improved by changes to the internal
	buffer sizes.  These buffers may automatically adjust to optimal
	values for the image being accessed, however new environment variables
	may be set to further tune the buffers at the user level.  Where
	needed applications tasks were modified to take advantage of these
	buffer size changes to force the imio buffer to be the size of the
	input image.
	
    o \fBSimplified Installation Script\fR
	The install script was rewritten to clarify the output and provide
	some basic checking of the IRAF system setup prior to installation,
	and to do some of the most common post-install configuration.  The
	script will print an explanation of any errors it finds and suggest
	corrective action, the hope is this will lead the user past some of
	the most common installation errors.

	In addition, the SYSINFO diagnostic script which does more extensive
	checking of the system is also now part of the distribution.  This
	script can be used to verify the system once the install is complete,
	or to generate a report of the system configuration if needed by
	site support.  An UNINSTALL script to remove iraf command links and
	files created by the INSTALL script is also available to remove IRAF
	from a machine.  All scripts are now installed in the hlib$ directory.
	
    o \fBNew HELP GUI and Output Options\fR
	The HELP task was enhanced to have a new GUI option for XGterm
	users.  This is essentially the XHELP task which has been available
	in the GUIAPPS external package for some time, however the task is
	fully backwards compatible and the text-mode output is still the
	default.  As part of this work, help pages may also now be formatted
	as either HTML or Postscript for web presentation or pretty-printing
	to a hardcopy device.  The LROFF task was similarly modified to
	provide direct conversion of lroff text sources.

    o \fBDISPLAY Task Changes\fR
	As part of the recent X11IRAF enhancements, the DISPLAY task and
	others such as IMEXAMINE which interact with the display server were
	modified to take advantage of the new features in XImtool V1.3.
	These include support for 16 frame buffers (increased from 4 in
	previous versions), and enhanced WCS readout capabilities.  The
	changes are fully backwards compatible for use with older XImtool
	versions or display servers such as SAOimage, SAOtng, or DS9 which
	have not yet been updated.

	X11IRAF V1.3 is being released simultaneously (but still separately)
	with IRAF V2.12.  While V2.12 is fully compatible with older versions
	of X11IRAF,  however users will need to upgrade both systems to take
	full advantage of all the new features.  Users should consult the
	X11IRAF Release Notes for details on what has changed there.
	
    o \fBNew Packages\fR
	Several new packages are available in this release (see the NOAO
	package change notes below for details):

        - A new ASTCAT package for extracting astrometric and photometric
	  calibration data from remote or local catalogs was added to NOAO.

        - A new CRUTIL package for doing cosmic ray detection and removal
	  package was installed in the IMRED package.

        - A new QUADRED reduction package for QUAD format data was installed
	  in the IMRED package.  This is a generalized replacement for the
	  ARED.QUAD and XCCDRED external packages for processing CTIO and
	  ESO FORS1 multi-amplifier data.

        - A new OBSUTIL package was installed in NOAO.  This is a collection
	  of tasks from various external packages which are useful to plan or
	  carry out observations.

    o \fBNew Developer Libraries.\fR
	Several new libraries are available for SPP developers:

      	- PSIO is a new Postscript text generation library installed in
	  sys$psio.

      	- CATQUERY is a remote astrometric/photometric catalog access lib
	  installed in the XTOOLS utility library.  

        - SKYWCS is a sky coordinate transformation library installed in
	  the XTOOLS utility library.
.fi	


.nh
IRAF System Revisions Summary

.nf
    o The IRAF shared library version number was incremented for SunOS
	and Solaris systems.  See below for details on how this change
	will affect external packages and locally-compiled software.

    o The maximum number of nodes in a local iraf network was increased
	from 320 to 512.

    o The max number of open files in FIO, FIO_MAXFD, was increased from 
      	256 to 4096.  This is the "hard limit" on the maximum number of
      	open files in an IRAF process.

    o The maximum number of host level open files, MAXOFILES, was increased
      	from 64 to 256.  This is the maximum number of files that can be
      	simultaneously open at the host level.  It determines the maximum
      	number of files that can be simultaneously open by an IRAF process
      	in the usual case.

    o The number of keywords in a group header block for STF images (i.e.
	the MAX_PCOUNT) was increased from 50 to 99 in the STF image kernel.

    o Added support for the bitwise boolean operators: '&' (and), '|' (or),
      	'^' (xor), and '~' (not/complement), to vectory expression evaluator
      	fmtio$evvexpr.gy.  The IMEXPR task was modified to allow these new
      	bitwise operations.

    o Added new vector operators to VOPS library: alan, alank (logical AND)
      	and alor, alork (logical OR).  These take any integer data as input
      	(short, int, long) and return a logical (expressed as int) result.

    o The 'imextn' environment variable will now accept upper-case extensions
      	to specify image types.

    o Host Command Execution: The way command line arguments are parsed 
      	was modified to make it easier to set the value of a string parameter
	to the null string. Whitespace is still skipped in @par files
      	as before, however null strings are valid parameter values and will
      	no longer cause a parameter prompt.

    o The MKPKG special file list link support was enhanced to allow replacing
	LFLAGS (the link flags variable) as well as the entire link line.
	This makes is possible to write special-file list entries for packages 
	which need e.g. to be compiled nonshared on certain platforms without
	creating a platform specific mkpkg file for the package itself.

    o The HSI zawset.c routine which controls a process working set size was
	modified to automatically detect the physical size of system memory
	(with a maximum return value of 2Gb).  The hard upper limit on memory
	utilization defined by the unix kernel can be limited either by the
	value return by the IRAF kernel (up to 90% of physical memory), or by
	the value set in the user environment variable MAXWORKSET (given in
	units of Mb).

    o New stdimage display devices were added to support the display of Gemini
	GMOS CCD data.  These devices are named 'imt45' thru 'imt49' and
	correspond to the following frame buffer sizes:

		imt45   2080 x 4644        # imt45|imtgmosccd
		imt46   6400 x 4644        # imt46|imtgmos
		imt47   3200 x 2322        # imt47|imtgmos2
		imt48   1600 x 1161        # imt48|imtgmos4
		imt49    800 x  581        # imt49|imtgmos8
.fi

.nh
CORE IRAF REVISIONS SUMMARY

.nh 2
New Tasks
.nf
     imcoords.ccget - extract objects from a test file catalog
     imcoords.ccstd - transform to and from standard astrometric coordinates
proto.mimstatistics - do image statistics through a mask
      proto.rskysub - sky subtract images using running mean or median
      proto.mskexpr - general mask expression evaluator
   proto.mskregions - create a mask from a list of region specifications
.fi

.nh 2
Existing Tasks with New Parameters or New Parameter Defaults
.nf
 immatch.imcentroid - new parameter maxshift
    immatch.imalign - new parameter maxshift
     immatch.geomap - new parameter maxiter, default reject = 3.0 not INDEF
     imcoords.ccmap - new parameter maxiter, default reject = 3.0 not INDEF
  imcoords.imcctran - new parameter longpole
       imutil.hedit - new parameter addonly
imutil.imstatistics - new parameters nclip, lsigma, usigma, cache
.fi

.nh 2
Existing Tasks with New Capabilities
.nf
 immatch.imcentroid - optionally rejects objects whose centers wander too much
    immatch.imalign - optionally rejects objects whose centers wander too much
     immatch.geomap - iterative rejection capability added
     imcoords.ccmap - iterative rejection capability added 
  imcoords.imcctran - support for non-zenithal projections added
       imutil.hedit - support for add keyword only if new option
imutil.imstatistics - support for iterative rejection and memory caching added
      imutil.imexpr - support for bitwise operators or, and, xor, and not added
.fi


.nh
NOAO PACKAGE REVISIONS SUMMARY

.nh 2
New NOAO Packages
.nf
      astcat - Astronomical catalog and surveys access package
      crutil - Cosmic ray detection and removal package
     obsutil - Observing utilities package
.fi

.nh 2
New NOAO Package Tasks
.nf
      apphot.pcalc - Do arithmetic operations on a list of apphot databases
   apphot.pconvert - Convert a text database to a tables database
      apphot.pdump - Print selected fields from a list of apphot databases
   apphot.pexamine - Interactively examine and edit an apphot database
  apphot.prenumber - Renumber stars in an apphot database
    apphot.pselect - Select records from an apphot database
      apphot.psort - Sort an apphot database

     astcat.aclist - List the supported astrometric catalogs
    astcat.agetcat - Extract astrometry files from astrometric catalogs
   astcat.afiltcat - Filter astrometry files derived from astrometric catalogs 
   astcat.adumpcat - Catalog access debugging task
     astcat.aslist - List the supported image surveys 
     astcat.agetim - Extract FITS images from image surveys 
     astcat.ahedit - Initialize the image wcs and set standard keywords
    astcat.aimfind - Select images containing catalog objects
    astcat.adumpim - Image survey access debugging task
   astcat.aregpars - Default region parameter set
   astcat.acatpars - Default astrometry file format parameter set 
  astcat.afiltpars - Default astrometry file filtering parameters
    astcat.aimpars - Default image data parameters
   astcat.awcspars - Default image wcs parameters

 crutil.cosmicrays - Remove cosmic rays using flux ratio algorithm
  crutil.craverage - Detect CRs against average and avoid objects
  crutil.crcombine - Combine multiple exposures to eliminate cosmic rays
     crutil.credit - Interactively edit cosmic rays using an image display
      crutil.crfix - Fix cosmic rays in images using cosmic ray masks
     crutil.crgrow - Grow cosmic rays in cosmic ray masks
   crutil.crmedian - Detect and replace cosmic rays with median filter
   crutil.crnebula - Detect and replace cosmic rays in nebular data

obsutil.psfmeasure - Measure PSF sizes from stellar images
 obsutil.specfocus - Determine spectral focus and alignment variations
 obsutil.starfocus - Determine direct focus variations from stellar images
   obsutil.ccdtime - CCD photometry exposure time calculator
  obsutil.pairmass - Plot airmass vs time for a given coordinate
    obsutil.sptime - Spectroscopic exposure time calculator
  obsutil.specpars - Spectrograph instrument parameters for sptime
  obsutil.bitcount - Accumulate the bit statistics for a list of images
  obsutil.findgain - Estimate the gain and readnoise of a CCD 
   obsutil.shutcor - Shutter correction from images of varying exposure times

   nproto.objmasks - detect and catalog objects in image
.fi

.nh 2
Existing Packages and Tasks with New Parameters or New Parameter Defaults
.nf
            apphot - new package parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
     apphot.center - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    apphot.daofind - new parameters wcsout, cache
     apphot.fitpsf - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
     apphot.fitsky - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
       apphot.phot - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
   apphot.polymark - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
   apphot.polyphot - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
      apphot.qphot - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    apphot.radprof - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
      apphot.wphot - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
     apphot.txdump - replaced by pdump, available as a hidden task

astutil.setairmass - new parameters ra, dec, equinox, st, ut, scale

           daophot - new package parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
   daophot.addstar - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
   daophot.allstar - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and wcspsf
   daophot.daoedit - new parameters cache
   daophot.daofind - new parameters wcsout, and cache
     daophot.group - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
     daophot.nstar - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
      daophot.peak - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
      daophot.phot - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
       daophot.psf - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
   daophot.substar - new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
.fi

.nh 2
Existing Tasks with New Capabilities
.nf
     apphot.center - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
    apphot.daofind - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
     apphot.fitpsf - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
     apphot.fitsky - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
       apphot.phot - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
   apphot.polymark - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
   apphot.polyphot - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
      apphot.qphot - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
    apphot.radprof - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
      apphot.wphot - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing

astutil.setairmass - ra, dec, equinox, st, ut, scale are no longer hardwired
 astutil.rvcorrect - more flexibility in setting ut

   daophot.addstar - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
   daophot.allstar - coordinate system support
   daophot.daoedit - optional image cacheing
   daophot.daofind - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
     daophot.group - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
     daophot.nstar - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
      daophot.peak - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
      daophot.phot - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
       daophot.psf - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
   daophot.substar - coordinate system support, optional image cacheing
.fi


.nh
General Package Changes

.nf
\fBNOAO\fR

  \fBONEDSPEC\fR
      More than 999 apertures are now allowed.

  \fBAPPHOT\fR
      Coordinate Support:
	  All the apphot tasks have been modified to accept input coordinates
	  in the logical, tv, physical, or world systems, and to write output
	  coordinates in the logical, tv, or physical coordinate systems. One
	  consequence of this is that the apphot tasks will now work correctly
	  on image sections in interactive mode. Another is that users can now
	  work directly on image sections while preserving the coordinate
	  system of the parent image.

      Image Cacheing Support:
    	  All the apphot tasks which accept image pixel input have been mod-
	  ified to optional cache the entire input image in memory. Cacheing
	  may significantly improve the performance of tasks where many random
	  access operations are performed.

      File and image name directory information removed from output files
    	  All the apphot tasks have been modified to strip directory infor-
	  mation from the image and coordinate file names written to the output
	  files, to the terminal, and to the plot headers. The colon commands
	  will still read and write full image and coordinate file path names.

      New PTOOLS Tasks Added
        The ptools package tasks pcalc, pconvert, pdump, prenumber, pselect
        and psort were added to the apphot package. The functionality of the
        old txdump task as been replaced by the pdump.  TXDUMP is still avail-
	able as a hidden task.

   \fBASTCAT\fR
      The astcat package is a set of tasks for extracting astrometric and
      photometric calibration data from remote or local catalogs, filtering
      the data, extracting FITS images from remote or local surveys, and adding
      standard keywords to the extracted images.  There is also a task for
      selecting images which contain catalog objects and locating the catalog
      objects in the image.

  \fBIMRED.CRUTIL\fR
      Cosmic ray detection and removal package.  This package includes new
      tasks and links to tasks from other package.  It replaces the CRUTIL
      external package.

  \fBIMRED.QUADRED\fR
      Reduction package for QUAD format data.  This replaces the ARED.QUAD
      and XCCDRED external packages for processing CTIO and ESO FORS1 multi-
      amplifier data.

  \fBDAOPHOT\fR
    Coordinate Support
    	All the daophot tasks have been modified to accept input coordinates
    	in the logical, tv, physical, or world systems, and to write the output
    	coordinates in the logical, tv, or physical coordinate systems. One
    	consequence of this is that the daophot tasks will now work correctly
    	on image sections in interactive mode. Another is that users can now
    	work directly on image sections while preserving the coordinate
    	system of the parent image.

    Image Cacheing Support
    	All the daophot tasks which accept image pixel input have been modified
	to optionally cache the entire input image in memory. Cacheing signif-
	icantly improves the performance of the tasks when many random access
	operations are performed.  The cacheing already performed by the
	ALLSTAR task is unchanged.

    File and image name directory information removed from output files
    	All the daophot tasks have been modified to strip directory information
    	from the image and coordinate file names written to the output files,
    	to the terminal, and to the plot headers. The colon commands will still
    	read and write full image and coordinate file path names.

  \fBOBSUTIL\fR
	New observing utilities package.  This collects tasks from the NMISC,
	SPECTIME, PROTO, and NLOCAL external package which are useful to
	plan or carry out observations.  The new tasks are:

               PSFMEASURE    STARFOCUS   SPECFOCUS    CCDTIME       
               PAIRMASS      SPTIME      BITCOUNT     FINDGAIN    
               SHUTCOR

  \fBOBSOLETE\fR
	o  Added tasks OIMCOMBINE and OIMSTATISTICS which are the previous
	   versions from V2.113b system
	o  Deleted the ODISPLAY task
.fi


.nh
General Task Changes

.nf
\fBNOAO\fR
  \fBONEDSPEC.SPLOT\fR
      Rather than refusing to evaluate errors when there is negative data,
      negative data is treated as zero.

  \fBASTUTIL.SETAIRMASS\fR
      Modified to have greater flexibility in selecting the keyword defining
      the universal time.  New parameters define the keywords for RA, dec,
      equinox, siderial time, universal time, and astrospheric scale height.

  \fBASTUTIL.RVCORRECT\fR
      Modified to have greater flexibility in selecting the keyword defining
      the universal time.

  \fBIMRED.ECHELLE.ECIDENTIFY\fR
      Help page describes how to externally evaluate the dispersion fcns.

  \fBIMRED.CCREDRED.COSMISRAYS\fR
      Task was removed (see CRUTIL)

  \fBNPROTO.FINDGAIN\fR
      Task was removed (see OBSUTIL)

  \fBNPROTO.OBJMASKS\fR
      This is a new task for detecting objects in an image and creating
      an output catalog or pixel mask of found objects.

  \fBTWODSPEC.LONGSLIT.FITCOORDS\fR
      - Help page describes the contents of the database and how to ext-
        ernally evaluate the fits.
      - The RMS is shown in the graph title and in the :show output.

  \fBTWODSPEC.APEXTRACT.APEDIT\fR
      When there is just one aperture the background regions are shown
      on the graph without needing to enter the 'b' background mode.


\fBIMAGES\fR

  \fBTV.DISPLAY\fR
      - The mask overlay feature when the displayed image is a reduction of
        mask (e.g. a block average) now uses the maximum of all mask pixels
        within the display pixel.
      - The task will now allow up to 16 frame buffers to be used for the
	display if allowed by the server. (Currently requires XIMtool V1.3).

  \fBTV.IMEXAMINE\fR
      - A new key 't' allows output of a region centered on the cursor as an
        image for further analysis by other programs.
      - The task will now allow up to 16 frame buffers to be used for the
	display if allowed by the server. (Currently requires XIMtool V1.3).
      - Cursor readback will now properly detect the correct image when more
	than one image is displayed per frame, e.g. in a mosaic.  (Currently
	requires XIMtool V1.3).

  \fBIMMATCH.IMCOMBINE\fR
      - New parameters "headers", "bpmasks", "rejmasks",  "nrejmasks", and
	"expmasks" provide additional types of output.  The old parameters
	"rejmask" and "plfile" were removed.  The new "nrejmasks" parameter
	corresponds to the old "plfile" and the new "rejmasks" parameter
	corresponds to the old "rejmask".
      - There is a new "combine" type "sum" for summing instead of averaging
	the final set of offset, scaled, and weighted pixels.
      - There is a new parameter "outlimits" to allow output of a subregion
	of the full output.  This is useful for raster surveys with large
	numbers of images.
      - Additional keywords may appear in the output headers.
      - Scaling is now done relative to the first image rather than an average
	over the images.  This is done so that flux related keywords such as
	exposure time and airmass remain representative.
      - A median calculation was made faster.
      - The previous version is available in the OBSOLETE package.

  \fBIMMATCH.IMCENTROID\fR
  \fBIMMATCH.IMALIGN\fR
      A new parameter maxshift has been added to the imcentroid and imalign
      tasks.  Maxshift defines the maximum permitted difference between the
      predicted and computed shifts. It is used to reject objects whose
      positions have wandered too far from the predicted positions.

  \fBIMMATCH.GEOMAP\fR
  \fBIMCOORDS.CCMAP\fR
      An iterative rejection capability has been added to the geomap and
      ccmap tasks. The new parameter maxiter in combination with the existing
      parameter reject define the rejection parameter. The default value of
      the reject parameter has been changed from INDEF to 3.0. 

      The colon command ":order <value>" has been added to the geomap and ccmap
      tasks. The new command enables the user to change all the order parameters
      simultaneously when experimenting with different fitting functions.

  \fBIMCOORDS.STARFIND\fR
      The starfind task background estimation algorithm has been modified so
      that it no longer depends on the value and density of the central pixel.

  \fBIMCOORDS.IMCCTRAN\fR
      Support for non-zenithal projections has been added to the imcctran task.
      The previous technique of rotating the cd matrix does not work properly
      for these functions. The new parameter longpole was added to imcctran.
      Longpole enables the user to select either the cd matrix or longpole /
      latpole method for transforming zenithal projections.

  \fBIMCOORDS.CCGET\fR
      The new task ccget was added to the imcoords package. Ccget extracts
      objects in a user specified region from a simple text file catalog.

  \fBIMCOORDS.CCSTD\fR
      The task ccstd was added to the imcoords package. Ccstd transforms pixel
      and celestial coordinates to standard coordinates and vice versa.

  \fBIMUTIL.HEDIT\fR
      The new parameter addonly was added to hedit task. The addonly switch
      is used to add a parameter to the image header only if it does not
      already exist. The addonly switch has a precedence intermediate between
      the add and delete switches.

  \fBIMUTIL.IMSTATISTICS\fR
      An interactive rejection capability has been added to the imstatistics
      task. The new parameters nclip, lsigma, and usigma define the rejection
      parameters. A memory cacheing option was also added to imstatistics in
      order to optionally speed up performance if iterative rejection is en-
      abled or the midpt/mode is computed.

  \fBIMUTIL.IMEXPR\fR
      Support for the bitwise operators or (|), and (&), exclusive or (^), and
      not (~) has been added to the imexpr task. The logical operators or (||)
      and and (&&) have been made truly logical i.e. they return 0's or 1's,
      rather than results of a bitwise or and and.


\fBPROTO\fR
  \fBMIMSTATISTICS\fR
      The new task mimstatistics has been added to the proto package.
      Mimstatistics does image statistics through a mask.

  \fBRSKYSUB\fR
      The new task rskysub was added to the proto package. Rskysub does a
      running mean or median sky subtraction on an ordered list of images
      using optional background scaling and object masking.

  \fBMSKEXPR\fR
      The new task mskexpr has been added to the proto package. Mskexpr
      creates a new mask from a user supplied expression, an optional
      reference image, and an optional reference mask.

  \fBMSKREGIONS\fR
      The new task mskregions has been added to the proto package. Mskregions
      creates a new mask or modifies an existing mask using a list of region
      definitions or region expressions.


\fBXTOOLS\fR
  \fBSKYWCS\fR
      A new library skywcs has been added to the xtools package. The skywcs
      library is a set of routines for managing image and catalog celestial
      coordinate systems and for transforming from one celestial coordinate
      system to another.  Skywcs is layered on the Starlink Positional
      Astronomy library slalib which is installed in the iraf math package.

  \fBCATQUERY\fR
      A new library catquery was added to the xtools package. The catquery
      library is a set of routines for doing local and remote catalog and
      image survey access.

\fBSYSTEM\fR
  \fBHELP\fR
      Task was modified to call the XHELP code to run the GUI version of
      the task if requested.  Task output is the same if the device
      remains the default 'terminal' value, however resetting the 'device'
      parameter to one of 'gui', 'html', or 'ps' will either spawn the GUI
      task under xgterm or print the converted help page to the stdout.

  \fBLROFF\fR
      The task was enhanced with a new 'format' parameter that allows the
      text to be formatted as one of: plain-text, HTML, or Postscript. 
.fi


.nh
Parameter File Changes

In the tables below each parameter change is identified with one of the
following codes followed by task name and the description of the change.
.nf
   * n = new parameter
   * c = changed/modified parameter
   * d = deleted parameter


\fBCL\fR
  n cl 			    Added the new CL parameter "release".  This
			    is a string valued parameter with values such
			    as "2.11.3a", "2.12", "3.0" etc.  This differs
			    from "version" which is a descriptive string
			    such as "NOAO/IRAF V2.11.3 EXPORT".  There can
			    be multiple releases of one version of the
			    software, and "release" specifies exactly what
			    build the software is.  The release strings are
			    composed in such a way that they can be used
			    in expressions, e.g. (release >= 2.11.3) would
			    be true for IRAF V2.11.3 and all subsequent
			    releases.

\fBDATAIO\fR
  c dataio.export 	    Made the 'format' parameter automatic mode
  c dataio.import 	    Made the 'format' parameter automatic mode

\fBIMAGES\fR
  n imcoords.imcctran 	    Added a new parameter longpole to the imcctran
			    task. If longpole=yes then coordinate transfor-
			    mations with zenithal projections will be rot-
			    ated using longpole rather than the CD matrix.

  c immatch.wregister 	    Fixed boundary option typo, "refect" to "reflect".
  c immatch.sregister 	    Fixed boundary option typo, "refect" to "reflect".

  n immatch.imcentroid 	    Added a new parameter maxshift to the imcentroid
    immatch.imalign	    and imalign tasks.  Maxshift is the maximum perm-
			    itted difference between the computed and predicted
			    shifts. Maxshift can be used to reject objects whose
			    centers have wandered too far from the expected
			    center. By default maxshift is undefined.

  n immatch.geomap 	    Added a new parameter maxiter to the geomap and
    immatch.ccmap 	    ccmap tasks. Maxiter defines the maximum number of
			    rejection iterations and has a default value of 0
			    for no rejection.  

  c immatch.geomap 	    Changed the default value of the ccmap and geomap
  c immatch.ccmap 	    parameter reject from INDEF to 3.0.

  c immatch.imcombine 	    Numerous changes, see details above

  c imgeom.imlintran	    Changed the nrows argument names to nlines 


  n imutil.hedit 	    Added a new addonly parameter to the hedit task. If
			    addonly is set a new field will only be added to
			    the image header if it does not already exist.

  n tv.imexamine	    Added new parameters 'output', 'ncoutput', and
			    'nloutput' used by the new 't' keystroke when
			    outputting an image section centered on the cursor.

\fBSYSTEM\fR
  n help 		    New parameters required for GUI options, output
			    formats for HTML/PS, printer, etc.
  n lroff		    Added new 'format' parameter for HTML/PS output 

\fBUTILITIES\fR

  c utilities.surfit 	    Added support for the half cross-terms option to
			    the surfit task.  This involved changing the type
			    of the xterms parameter from boolean (yes/no) to
			    string (none,half,full).

\fBNOAO\fR

  \fBASTUTIL\fR
    n astutil.setairmass    new parameters ra, dec, equinox, st, ut, scale

  \fBDIGIPHOT\fR
    n apphot 		    new package parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
    n apphot.center 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.daofind 	    new parameters wcsout, cache
    n apphot.fitpsf 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.fitsky 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.phot 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.polymark 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.polyphot 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.qphot 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.radprof 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache
    n apphot.wphot 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, cache

    n daophot 		    new package params wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
    n daophot.addstar 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
    n daophot.allstar 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and wcspsf
    n daophot.daoedit 	    new parameters cache
    n daophot.daofind 	    new parameters wcsout, and cache
    n daophot.group 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
    n daophot.nstar 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
    n daophot.peak 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, wcspsf, and cache
    n daophot.phot 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
    n daophot.psf 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache
    n daophot.substar 	    new parameters wcsin, wcsout, and cache


  \fBONEDSPEC\fR
    n standard		    new parameter mag, magband, and teff.  These 
    n splot		    params can be use to specify calibration files
    n lcalib	            as blackbody curves scale to a specified magnitude

  \fBTWODSPEC\fR
    c apextract.apall1	    Reduced the 'polysep' parameter.
    c apextract.apdebug	    Reduced the 'polysep' parameter.
    c apextract.apfit1	    Reduced the 'polysep' parameter.
    c apextract.apnoise1    Reduced the 'polysep' parameter.
    c apextract.apnorm1	    Reduced the 'polysep' parameter.
    c apextract.apparams    Reduced the 'polysep' parameter.
.fi



.nh
Details of Major System Changes

.nh 2
FITS kernel changes
.nf
        The FITS kernel was modified to add support for storing images in
    extensions as compressed pixel masks.  The mask is stored as a binary
    table using the "ZIMAGE" (compressed image) convention proposed by White,
    Greenfield, Pence, and Tody in 1999:

            http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov
            /docs/software/fitsio/compression/compress_image.html

        In the current implementation only the "PLIO_1" compression
    algorithm is implemented.  Mask extensions may be read or written directly
    by the kernel.  When writing a new extension it will be appended to the
    MEF file.  To append an image to a MEF file as a mask, include "type=mask"
    in the image kernel section when the output image is opened.

        Masks are interfaced to the system as images and may be read and
    written like any other image via IMIO.  They have a normal image header
    and can be manipulated with any program that deals with images.  The pixel
    type is INT.

        It is also possible to access a mask image as a PLIO mask.  An
    IMSTATI query for IM_PLDES parameter will return the PLIO mask descriptor.
    While a mask extension is opened under IMIO it is represented as a PLIO
    mask and may be accessed in this form like any other mask.

        The mask image is stored in the FITS binary table (BINTABLE)
    extension when the image is closed, and is loaded from the extension when
    the image is opened.  The compression representation used to store the
    mask in the binary table is the same as is used within PLIO.  The new
    (V2.12) encoding is used, allowing very large masks to be stored.
    Currently masks up to 3D are supported.  Data on each 2D mask plane
    will be compressed in both X and Y as with PLIO.  The depth of the mask
    is preserved.

        Although a mask is stored as a binary table the format of the
    table is not completely general.  In the current implementation there
    can be only one column in the table (COMPRESSED_DATA).  This is an
    integer-valued variable length array column containing, for each line of
    the N-dimensional image, the PLIO compressed version of that image line.
    The actual compressed data is stored in the heap area of the table.
    Multiple image lines may point to the same compressed line list, e.g.,
    to store the empty line or to compression in Y.
.fi


.nh 2
Large Image Support

	The following changes were made to enable IMIO to use larger buffer
sizes to optimize i/o for large images:

.nf
        The default file buffer size set by IMIO is unchanged: it is still
    about 512 MB, the value set for V2.11.2.  However, a new parameter
    IM_BUFFRAC was added.  Both IM_BUFSIZE and IM_BUFFRAC are used to help
    determine the FIO buffer size set when an image is opened.  The logic
    for this is implemented in imsetbuf.x.

        Backwards compatibility.  If you do nothing about IMIO/FIO buffers
    in your program, the system may transparently use a larger buffer for
    larger images.  If you set BUFSIZE in your program, the system will
    by default use the value you give, or possibly a larger value, if the
    image you are accessing is very large.  If you set BUFSIZE and you want
    to guarantee that the value you set is used (even for very large images)
    then you should also set BUFFRAC=0 to ensure that only BUFSIZE is used.

        How it works.  BUFFRAC specifies the default FIO buffer size used to
    access an image, expressed as a percentage of the size of the image.
    For example, the builtin default value of BUFFRAC=10 will try to make a
    FIO buffer 10% of the size of the image.  The actual value used will be
    given by BUFFRAC, but will be at least BUFSIZE, and no more than a builtin
    default maximum value, currently 32 MB.  Given the builtin defaults,
    the buffer size will range from 0.5 to 32 MB depending upon the size of
    the image being accessed.  As noted above, BUFSIZE and BUFFRAC can be
    set to force the buffer size to a specific value if desired.

        Environment variables for both parameters are provided.  The names
    are "IMIO_BUFSIZE" (specified as bytes) and "IMIO_BUFFRAC" (specified
    as a decimal fraction).  If defined, these override (at image open time)
    the builtin default values for both parameters.  An IMSET call by the
    application will override all such defaults.

        The FIO buffer allocated will not be larger than the size of the
    image.  The FIO buffer will also not exceed the maximum size set by
    the file driver being accessed.  For example, for PLIO images the file
    buffer will not exceed about 2KB, even for a very large mask.  This is
    because the "pixel file" for a PLIO image is dev$null, the driver for
    which specifies a maximum i/o buffer size of 2K (the real file to load
    or save the mask will use a different descriptor).

        The intent here is to provide an adaptive mechanism for setting the
    FIO buffer size used to access an image, which automatically adapts to
    the size of the image being accessed.  If you access a lot of small
    images you will get smaller buffers - everything will be as before.
    If you access very large images, you may get large buffers up to the
    builtin maximum value of (currently) 32 MB.

        Using large buffers could cause a machine to run out of memory.
    However, it is likely that if someone is working on 300 MB images
    that they are using a machine which has a memory at least that large
    - probably larger.  If there are problems, the environment variable
    overrides can be used to tune IMIO.

        The reason for large file buffers is to limit the number of disk
    data transfers, and hence the number of disk seeks.  Using buffers larger
    than a certain amount (32 MB is generous) is probably counterproductive.
    If the i/o system provides 20 MB/sec i/o transfers, 32 MB will take
    1.6 seconds.  This should be more than a large enough granularity to
    provide efficient i/o, hence is a reasonable limit (at this point paging
    effects are likely to dominate).
.fi

.nh 2
Virtual Memory Cache

	The VMcache client interface and daemon provide a method by which
data-intensive IRAF tasks (or non-IRAF tasks for that matter) can manage
how files/images are maintained in virtual memory to avoid excessive system
paging.  In essence it's a way to "lock" a specific image in memory to
improve performance.  As of this release no tasks in the system have been
modified to make use of the VMcache daemon, however installing it in the
system at this point provides a framework for future applications and
systems development.

	The following notes summarize the changes made for this feature
and describe it's function in more detail.  A more complete description of
the interface, environment variables which control it, etc can be found in
the main systems revisions file iraf$local/notes.v211.

.nf
	The source for the developmental version of the VMcache library
    and the VMcache daemon (vmcached) have been installed in the
    unix$boot tree and the HSI binary file driver was modified to add VMcache
    client support.  This adds two new capabilities to the driver: 1)
    built-in support for direct i/o (on systems that support it), and 2)
    a client interface to the VMcache daemon to permit the daemon to
    optimally manage binary file i/o if a VMcache daemon is present.

    The vmcached code is complete but only enough debug/testing was done to
    support development of the VMcache client interface for IRAF (the vmcached
    code is debugged but the new version of the vmcache library code has
    not been tested).  Since the daemon can be utilized outside the normal
    IRAF release we do not have to fully develop it for the release.

    It should be stressed that VMcache is only useful or warranted for
    systems that are very data intensive.  The standard host operating
    system file access heuristics are best for "normal" processing where
    either the system is not really busy, or the datafiles are not
    excessively large.  On systems with very large physical memories
    where massive amounts of data are being processed, VMcache can make
    a significant difference in overall system performance.

    VMcache is too complex to document here.  Without going into the
    details, its function is to manage a cache of files in system
    virtual memory.  Files can be explicitly cached or uncached, or they
    can be "accessed", and VMcache will decide whether or not to cache
    the file in virtual memory.  This is what the VMcache client
    interface does: every time it accesses (opens or extends) a file
    larger then the VM threshold it sends an "access" directive to the
    VMcache daemon.  The daemon sends back a response of 0 (file not
    cached; use direct i/o to access the file), or 1 (file cached in VM;
    use normal VM-buffered i/o to access the file).  Even if a file is
    not cached the daemon keeps track of all accesses.  Files which are
    frequently accessed will have a higher priority and are more likely
    to be cached in memory.

    The VMcache daemon is a separate system-level program outside of
    IRAF.  This is necessary to provide a central system-wide cache
    controller.  It also provides flexibility, allowing multiple
    versions of the daemon to exist, e.g., to allow experimentation with
    different types of caching algorithms.  It also allows easy
    customization of the daemon independently of the IRAF applications
    using the VMcache client interface.
.fi


.nh 2
New Developer Libraries

.nf
    o Several new libraries are now available for developers:

      \fBPSIO\fR	New Postscript text generation library installed in the
		sys$psio.  The PSIO interface is used to format a block of
		text as Postscript output on a page of a given size (Letter,
		Legal, A4 or B5).  See the psio$README file for details.

      \fBCATQUERY\fR	Remote astrometric/photometric catalog access lib installed
		in the XTOOLS utility library.  
		  The catquery package provides a set of routines for local
		and remote catalog and image survey server access.  The sup-
		ported catalogs and image surveys are described in records
		stored in a catalog and image survey configuration file
		respectively. The catalog and image survey records specify
		the network address, the query format, and the output format
		for each supported catalog or image display server.  See
		"help catalogs" and "help surveys" for details.

      \fBSKYWCS\fR	Sky coordinate transformation library installed in the XTOOLS
		utility library.
		  The skywcs package contains a simple set of routines for
		managing sky coordinate information and for transforming from
		one sky coordinate system to another. The sky coordinate
		system is defined either by a system name, e.g.  "J2000",
		"galactic", etc., or by an image system name, e.g. "dev$ypix"
		or "dev$ypix world".
.fi


.nh 
System Changes Which May Affect You

.nf
   * \fBSHARED LIBRARY VERSION INCREMENTED\fR (Sun/IRAF only)
	The IRAF shared library for SunOS and Solaris platforms has been
	incremented with this release due to the nature of various system
	changes.  Existing IRAF binaries (e.g. locally written software
	or external packages) will continue to run using the old shared 
	image, however they will need to be recompiled against V2.12 in order
	to pick up the numerous system bug fixes and features in this release.
	In particular, pixel masks produced by V2.12 IRAF tasks may be 
	incompatible with external packages which have not been recompiled.

   * \fBEXTERNAL PACKAGE RECOMPILATION\fR
	The V2.12 release contains changes to the FIO and PLIO/PMIO interface
	header files used by numerous applications.  Relinking of an external
	package may fail to pick up these changes and not recompile a source
	file which uses one of these header files if the mkpkg file doesn't
	correctly list all of the dependencies (nearly all packages have one
	or more mkpkg files which have this problem).  In the worst cases 
	this could lead to a runtime error due to the incompatibilities.

	For this reason we recommend that all packages and local tasks be
	recompiled (completely from source* (rather than simply relinked
	against the new version) to assure that all changes and new features
	will be included.  Recompilation also guarantees that packages can
	take advantage of some of the larger buffer sizes and optimizations
	in this release.  Site support can supply a list of missing mkpkg
	dependencies for most external packages being developed outside NOAO
	that wish to fix these files for a future release.  

   * \fBPARAMETER FILE CHANGES\fR
	As with all major releases, we recommend that you do a MKIRAF and
	delete all your old parameter files after the IRAF upgrade. You may
	choose not to do this if you are in the midst of a project and have
	setups that may be difficult to reproduce. 

	The automatic parameter file update/merge mechanism, which is used
	if you do not initialize your parameters with MKIRAF, is based on
	file date comparisons.  If you run IRAF V2.11 after V2.12 has been
	installed, the file dates on your uparm parameter files will be
	more recent than the V2.12 installation date.  If you then try to
	run V2.12, the automatic parameter file merge/update will fail due
	to the file dates.  The system only updates personal parameter
	files which are older than the update date of the system.  A
	MKIRAF avoids the problem if you delete your parameter files,
	causing them to be updated from the system default versions.

   * \fBINSTALLATION SCRIPT CHANGES\fR
	As the first step of an ongoing effort to simplify the installation
	and system configuration, the IRAF install script was rewritten to
	do some error-checking of the iraf setup, present a simplified and
	easier to read output, and do some common post-install configuration
	of the system.  Additionally, the SYSINFO diagnostic script for
	finding system errors and reporting on the configuration, and a new
	UNINSTALL script for removing IRAF files/links from the system have
	also been installed.  The old install script is still available as
	a fallback in case problems with the new script are found.

   * \fBHELP SYSTEM CHANGES\fR
	The HELP task was modified with several new parameters controlling
	the display and formatting of the help pages.  Help may now be
	presented as formatted text (as before), HTML, or fully formatted
	Postscript.  Additionally, users running under an XGterm window can
	use the task in a new GUI mode.  The help GUI allows users to browse
	the help system and easily search for tasks/topics using a familiar
	web-like interface.  The GUI mode is not the default, but can be
	enabled easily using the 'device' parameter.

   * \fBIMAGE DISPLAY CHANGES\fR
	Tasks which display images or interact with the image display were
	modified to take advantage of new features added to XImtool V1.3
	(e.g. the multiple WCS and pixel-value readouts and 16 display frame
	buffers).  These changes were done in a backwards compatible way so
	interaction with display servers such as SAOimage, SAOtng, DS9, or
	older XImtool versions should be unaffected.  If problems are dis-
	covered a CL environment variable 'disable_wcs_maps' can be defined
	to force all of the old behaviors.  These changes do not add any new
	functionality to the tasks themselves, only the underlying display
	protocols.

  * \fBPLIO Changes\fR
        The LEN and BLEN fields of the encoded line list (LL) descriptor
        would limit the length of a pixel area (and hence the size of a
        pixel mask) to the max size of a signed short, 32768.  This was due
        to the use of a simple array of type short to encode the line list
        (which simplifies handling considerably).  Nonetheless the limit to
        32K was unacceptable.  The fix adopted was to increase the LL header
        from 3 to 7 words.  Two 16 bit words are now used to encode each of
        LEN and BLEN.  A "version" word was added to allow the old, new, and
        future encodings to be distinguished.  A "hdrlen" word was added to
        parameterize the length of the LL header, rather than fix it at
        compile time as in the initial version.  With this change, the
        maximum length of an image line under PLIO is increased from 32768
        to 1073741824 (32768*32768).  All the higher level PLIO code is
        integer, so should already support larger masks.

        This was done in such a way that old line lists can still be read,
        although PLIO will always write out new format line lists (pixel
        mask files and images, QPOE, and MWCS all store encoded line lists
        in external storage, so backwards compatibility is important; also
        existing complied programs will continue to generate the old
        format).  The cost is 8 bytes per encoded line list.  For most masks
        this should only increase the size of the mask by a few percent at
        most.

   * \fBNEW ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES\fR
	The following new environment variables may be defined to tune the
	size of the system file i/o buffers used by the image i/o system.
	The system will automatically adjust to use larger buffers when
	accessing larger images, these variables may be set to further
	optimize the buffers

	  \fBIMIO_BUFSIZE\fR      Size of the FIO buffer size in bytes.

	  \fBIMIO_BUFFRAC\fR      FIO buffer size expressed as a percentage of 
			    the image size.  Actual value will be at least
			    BUFSIZE and no more than BUFMAX.

	  \fBIMIO_BUFMAX\fR	    Max size of FIO buffer which will override the
			    32Mb default.


	Other miscellaneous environment variables:

	  \fBdisable_wcs_maps\fR  If defined or set to 'yes', this variable will
			    force any tasks which interact with the image
			    display to use the old protocols.

	  \fBpspage\fR 	    Variable which is used by the PSIO interface to
			    set the default page size.  Acceptable values
			    include "letter" (the default) for US Letter,
			    "legal" for US Legal, and "a4" and "b5" for the
			    most common European sizes.  Pspage can be used
		 	    by the new HELP and LROFF tasks to automatically
			    set the desired Postscript page size. 
.fi

.endhelp