saord 1.7.2 public release
Eric Mandel wrote on Jun 04, 1998
******************************************************************************* The SAO R&D Software Suite Public Release 1.7.2 4 June 1998 containing: SAOimage: The Next Generation (SAOtng) The X Public Access mechanism (XPA) as well as: The ASSIST Graphical User Interface The XDir directory browser The IRAF ncl with tcsh line editing Contributors to this software include: Eric Mandel Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory William Joye Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Saleem Mukhtar Jet Propulsion Laboratory Doug Tody National Optical Astronomy Observatories with important assistance from: Alberto Accomazzi Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Mark S. Ackerman University of California, Irvine Doug Mink Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory John Roll Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Dennis Schmidt Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Ralph Swick The Web Consortium What's New and Significant in this release? ------------------------------------------- This release of the SAO R&D package contains support for new types of FITS data. SAOtng 1.7.2 can display FITS image extensions, FITS binary tables, n-D FITS images, compressed FITS data, and FITS files that are found on the Web. In addition, SAOtng can display raw event lists (i.e., binary files containing events with a known record structure) -- useful for X-ray lab data. For X-ray astronomers, the ability to image FITS binary tables is particularly significant. Our new support for FITS binary tables includes a technique for filtering photon events in FITS tables. This filtering scheme is seferal times faster than previous schemes (such as IRAF QPOE filtering) and also supports full C-syntax in the filter specification. In addition to standard filtering using QPOE-style range lists, you now can filter one attribute against another (e.g., "pi==pha+1") or use arithmetic functions (e.g., "pha%2==1" to get odd pha values). Full boolean algebra is supported, as is spatial region filtering (e.g., "circle(400,450,50) && pie(400,450,90)"). New support for manipulating region marker attributes has been added. It now is possible to fix attributes such as position, size, etc. on one or more markers to prevent accidental resize or movement. This is especially useful when performing catalog marking. Finally, a number of bug fixes and other relatively minor improvements have been made, most notably to the internal memory management scheme. Introduction ------------ We are pleased to announce the availability of a minor public release (version 1.7.2) of the SAO R&D software tree containing, among other things, a new and improved version of SAOtng. We invite you to retrieve the software and use it for your astronomical analysis (and other?) needs. SAOimage: The Next Generation (SAOtng) -------------------------------------- SAOtng is a new version of the popular SAOimage display program. It is a superset of the ximtool program developed at NOAO for IRAF and as such, utilizes the NOAO widget server (included in this package). It also incorporates the X Public Access mechanism to allow external processes to access and control its data, GUI functions, and algorithms. SAOtng supports direct display of IRAF images and FITS images (and easily can support other file formats), multiple frame buffers, region/cursor manipulation, several scale algorithms, many colormaps, and easy communication with external analysis tasks. It is highly configurable and extensible to meet the evolving needs of the astronomical community. The X Public Access Mechanism ---------------------------- To add 'open software' functionality to programs such as SAOtng, we have developed the 'X Public Access' mechanism (XPA). Built on top of the existing Xt selection interface, XPA allows an Xt program to define points of public access through which data and commands can be exchanged with external programs. Its simple programming and command-line interface is designed so that arbitrarily large amounts of data can be transferred to and from Xt programs using XPA. Also, the data associated with a given access point can be read and written simultaneously. XPA is the precursor to a more generalized message bus system that will be built as collaboration between SAO and NOAO. Platforms --------- The SAO R&D software has been built on the following platforms: Sun Sparc Solaris 2.5, 2.6 OpenWindows 3.x Sun Sparc SunOs 4.1.3, 4.1.4 X11R5/R6.3 HP9000/735 HP/UX A.09.01 X11R5 SGI IRIX 5.2, 5.3, 6.2 X11R5/R6 DEC Alpha OSF1 4.0 X11R6 Gateway P5-90 Slackware 2.2.5 X11R6 We develop and run the software mainly on Suns, but time has been spent with the other (borrowed) platforms, especially 64-bit Alphas. Ports to other systems should be relatively easy at this stage. If you do a port (or try to and have problems), please let us know. Information and Availability --------------------------- Please visit the SAO R&D Group Home Page for news, updates, and downloads: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ Our home page will help you to download the source code distribution and/or binary distributions for various platforms. We also have available a source code patch file for sites that already have the source code distribution of version 1.7; you can download the relatively small patch file, apply the patch, and rebuild. Alternatively, the SAO R&D software suite can be retrieved directly via anonymous ftp from sao-ftp.harvard.edu in the pub/rd directory. The source tree is contained in a compressed tar file called saord.tar.Z. The source code patch and the binary distributions also are available at this site. We recommend using the binary distributions where possible. The unpacked tar file requires approximately 20 Mb of disk space. The build will require approximately double that amount, depending on the platform. SAOtng Mailing List ------------------- An saord mailing list (saord-announce) have been set up using Brent Chapman's "Majordomo" mailing list manager. Subscribers to this list will receive periodic status reports, release notices, and other useful information concerning SAORD software. If you wish to become a subscriber, please send an e-mail message to: majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu The mail should contain the following command in the body of the message: subscribe saord-announce If either you or your mailer add a signature to your mail message, please add the following command after the "subscribe" command(s): end (Note that we have combined the old saotng-announce and assist-announce lists into this saord-announce list, so it is not necessary to join the new list if you subscribed to one of the old lists.) Acknowledgments ---------------- Much of this software was developed at SAO by the HEAD Software R&D group with the significant help of collaborators across the country. The work at SAO was performed in large part under a grant from NASA's Applied Information System Research Program (NAG5-3996), with support from the AXAF Science Center (NAS8-39073). SAOtng, ASSIST, and XPA are embodiments of an evolving software cooperation philosophy and practice we hope to bring to astronomy and other disciplines. They reflect our efforts to understand how software systems (and people) can act in concert without sacrificing their independence. For more information (or to complain or encourage!) --------------------------------------------------- Please send mail to: saord@cfa.harvard.edu. We respond to questions, bug reports, suggestions, gripes ... Eric Mandel eric@cfa.harvard.edu
Last post on Jun 04, 1998