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diff --git a/doc/v212revs.hlp b/doc/v212revs.hlp new file mode 100644 index 00000000..17f0db89 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/v212revs.hlp @@ -0,0 +1,1152 @@ +.help IRAF Mar02 "V2.12EXPORT Release Notes" +.sp 1 +.ce +IRAF V2.12EXPORT Release Notes +.ce +January 25, 2002 +.ce +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 |