README FOR SILICON GRAPHICS IRAF VERSION 2.12 Updated Mon July 15, 2002 Current Patch Level V2.12.1EXPORT ############################################################################## 15-July-2002 *** Initial V2.12.1 EXPORT Release *** (SGI IRIX 6.5 and later systems) IRAF V2.12 is a major update to the system and requires a FULL INSTALLATION of IRAF, even if you have an existing V2.11 system. The Installation Guide (irixiraf.ps.Z) contains a detailed description of the installation process for both first-time installations and updates to existing systems. Installation will require downloading the AS, IB, and NB distribution files from this directory. IRIX/IRAF V2.12 supports IRIX V10.20 and later systems. The IRAF distribution does not itself include graphics and image visualization tools; these are distributed separately. XGterm is required for any IRAF task which does vector graphics or which has a GUI. Any of the XImtool, SAOtng/SAOimage, and DS9 image display servers may be used for image interaction. See ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/x11iraf/ for the latest X11IRAF tools (XGterm/XImtool) and /contrib for additional display servers (DS9, SAOtng, and SAOimage). See also the post-distribution notes at the end of this file. These are continually updated after the release as any problems are encountered. ############################################################################## Contents -------- 1. Introduction 1.1 The IRIX/IRAF V2.12 Release 1.2 Who Should Upgrade? 2. Highlights of this Release 3. Installing IRIX/IRAF 3.1 Things to Watch Out For (IRAF) 4. X11/GUI Support 4.1 The GUIAPPS External Package 4.2 The X11 Desktop 4.3 Things to Watch Out For (X11IRAF) 5. Magtape Interface 6. Patch Instructions 7. Notes Added Since the Initial Release ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1. THE IRIX/IRAF V2.12 RELEASE SGI IRIX IRAF (IRIX/IRAF) V2.11 is a port of IRAF to Silicon Graphics platforms running IRIX V6.5 (we used V6.5 for our port). README This file as.irix.gen All-Sources (main IRAF distribution) (15 Mb) ib.irix.mip Core system binaries for IRIX (21 Mb) nb.irix.mip NOAO package binaries for IRIX (28 Mb) splits/* Split distribution files for the above distributions irixiraf.ps.Z IRIX/IRAF Installation Guide (Postscript) irixiraf.ms.Z IRIX/IRAF Installation Guide (source) unixsmg.ps.Z IRAF V2.12 Site Manager's Guide (Postscript) unixsmg.ms.Z IRAF V2.12 Site Manager's Guide (source) guiapps.readme GUIAPPS installation instructions ( 7 kb) guiapps.tar.Z GUI applications package (54 Mb) Beginning with V2.12 each of the AS, IB, and NB distribution files will be available as a single file for more convenient downloading over high-bandwidth Internet connections. For sites with slow or unreliable network connectivity where the transfer may not finish successfully, the "splits" directory contains copies of the distribution files which have been split into a number of modest size (e.g. 512KB) chunks. The Installation Guide provides detailed instructions on how to use these files to install IRAF. A complete installation requires that the user obtain the AS source distribution (in this case the 'as.irix.gen.Z' file or the contents of 'splits/as.irix.gen') and the IB and NB binary distributions. GUIAPPS. The guiapps.tar.gz file is an OPTIONAL external package containing prototype IRAF applications with GUIs. Use of these tasks requires that XGterm be used for the IRAF session. Unlike other external packages, guiapps is being distributed with prebuilt binaries to simplify the installation - all you have to do is unpack the distribution and edit the hlib$extern.pkg file. Please see below for detailed information on this package. 1.2 WHO SHOULD UPGRADE? IRAF V2.12 is a major IRAF release for all supported IRAF platforms. Support for older versions of IRAF is limited, so sites running earlier versions of IRAF should update to the new version of IRAF. There may be incompatibilities between V2.12 and earlier versions of IRAF, so updating in the middle of an analysis program might not be advisable. Mixing different versions of IRAF works in most cases, but there can be complications. Large installations may want to keep and older version of IRAF around to give users time to complete their programs before switching to the new version of IRAF (e.g. here at NOAO, "cl" or "iraf" runs V2.12, and "irafo" will bring up the older V2.11.3 release). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS RELEASE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- o Pixel Mask Support Added to FITS Kernel The FITS kernel was modified to add support for storing pixel masks in FITS extensions as compressed images using the binary table extension. These masks appear as images to the system and may be accessed like any other image. Storing the pixel masks directly in a FITS MEF file makes it possible to store all the data for one observation in a single file, simplifying data management. o New Pixel Mask Tasks 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 Shared Memory Limitations Eased 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 Image I/O Buffer Sizes Increased Image I/O performance for very large images was improved by changes to the internal buffer sizes. By default the system will now automatically adjust the size of the image buffers to optimize i/o for the size of the image being accessed. Additional control over i/o is possibly by tuning environment variables. In addition, some applications will now (memory permitting) adjust the IMIO buffers to hold the entire image in memory, where usage warrants it. o Simplified Installation Script The IRAF install script was rewritten to clarify the output, provide more extensive 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 more 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 New HELP GUI and Output Options The HELP task was enhanced to provide a new GUI option (XGterm is required). This is essentially the XHELP task which has been available in the GUIAPPS external package for some time, however this version of the task is fully backwards compatible with old HELP task, and text-mode output is still the default. In addition, help pages may now be output in either HTML or Postscript format for Web presentation or pretty-printing to a hardcopy device. The LROFF task was similarly modified to provide direct conversion of Lroff format text. o DISPLAY Task Changes 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 up to 16 frame buffers (increased from 4 in previous versions), and enhanced real-time 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 with IRAF V2.12. While IRAF V2.12 is fully compatible with older versions of X11IRAF, users will need to upgrade both systems to the latest versions to take full advantage of all the new features. Please see the X11IRAF Release Notes for details on what has changed. o New Packages 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 New Developer Libraries. 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. INSTALLING IRIX/IRAF ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The procedure for installing IRIX/IRAF is unchanged from earlier versions of IRIX/IRAF. Refer to the IRIX/IRAF Installation Guide (irixiraf.ps.Z) for detailed installation instructions. A full installation, as for any major release, will be required. The installation guide contains the full installation instructions (see also the notes below) but one thing is worth emphasizing here: the installation will be simplified if you set up the iraf directories as follows: /iraf root of iraf related files /iraf/iraf root iraf directory (AS dist) /iraf/irafbin iraf bin dirs go here /iraf/irafbin/bin.irix IRIX binaries for core system /iraf/irafbin/noao.bin.irix IRIX binaries for noao packages /iraf/extern external packages (tables etc.) Here "" is the path where all this is located, e.g., "/u3/iraf" on the IRAF development system here at NOAO. The path can be anything, although it is best to keep it short. You might want to also set up a symbolic link "/iraf" pointing to the "/iraf" directory. This allows all iraf files to be referred to relative to /iraf, regardless of where the files actually are located, and agrees with the default configuration used in the distribution files. Having such a link when IRAF is served from a central NFS system also allows all clients in the network to use a common "/iraf/iraf" root directory regardless of the NFS mount points. Graphically such a tree would look something like: /iraf / \ (AS) /iraf /irafbin / \ (IB) bin.irix noao.bin.irix (NB) The graph indicates where each of the three distribution sets should be unpacked. The "iraf root directory" in this case is /iraf/iraf, this is the value you enter to the install script. See the installation guide for details, specifically the Appendices which gives a complete examples. 3.1 THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR (IRAF) Please see the release notes (iraf$doc/v212revs.hlp or just type 'news' when you first log into the system) for information on what has changed in V2.12, and things to watch out for. As with any major release we STRONGLY recommend that each user reinitialize their 'uparm' directory to pick up the numerous task and package parameter changes in this release. IRAF V2.12 does not require this if you are upgrading from V2.11, but it is still strongly recommended. The uparm directory may be reinitialized by issuing a new MKIRAF command prior to logging into the system. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. X11/GUI SUPPORT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- IRAF V2.12 includes full support for the X11IRAF utilities - these include xgterm for xterm-compatible terminal emulation and graphics, and ximtool for image display under X. The X11IRAF package is not included in IRAF; you need to get it and install it separately, as you would any other X software. X11IRAF is available in /iraf/x11iraf on the main IRAF network server (iraf.noao.edu). This software is continually under development and new versions appear on a timetable independent of that for the main IRAF distribution. Note that a major new X11IRAF V1.3 release is timed to coincide with the IRAF V2.12 system. XImtool users especially should upgrade to take advantage of the many new features and bug fixes. See the README file in the /iraf/x11iraf archive directory and the X11IRAF V1.3 release notes for details on what has changed. Other IRAF-compatible GUIs can also be used with IRAF, e.g. DS9, SAOtng, and SAOimage. This software is available from the archive /contrib directory as a convenience but may not always be the most recent release. 4.1 THE GUIAPPS EXTERNAL PACKAGE Some time ago we started a project to develop prototype IRAF applications with integral GUIs (graphical user interfaces). These applications have since served their purpose in prototyping new technology for science GUIs and component-based applications in IRAF. The GUI applications are much more than just technology prototypes however: these are very useful science applications with many new features, with a nice graphical user interface to boot. With the release of IRAF V2.11.3 and X11IRAF V1.2 several years ago, it became possible to wrap up work on the GUI prototypes and get them out for people to use. The prototype GUI applications are contained in the package GUIAPPS available from the /iraf/extern directory of the IRAF archive, and contain the following tasks: demo - GUI Demo Task spt - SPECTOOL Package xhelp - GUI Help Browser Task xrv - GUI Version of the RV Package xapphot - GUI Aperture Photometry Package Note that with V2.12 the XHELP task is included as part of the core system as a special device type (e.g. "help implot dev=gui" will run HELP as a GUI task). The GUI tasks require that the user be running an XGterm graphics window (from X11IRAF) in order to display the GUI: Xterm users WILL NOT be able to use the GUIs presently. To install the package users should download the 'guiapps.tar.Z' file from the IRAF archive directory and uncompress/untar it in the local external package directory (typically /iraf/extern). Detailed installation inst- ructions are 'guiapps.readme' file in the same directory. More information of the GUIAPPS package is available from the project page at http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/web/projects/guiapps/. 4.2 THE X11 DESKTOP The X11IRAF utilities will run under any X desktop. Most people will probably use the native IRIX desktop, but Motif/mwm, twm, fvwm, and so on may be used as well. As of the time of this writing, the X11IRAF utilities do not run on 24 bit truecolor screens, only 8 bit pseudocolor. Support for 24 bit screens is planned. New users of X11 who are not sure how to configure the window system might want to look at the .Xdefaults, .xinitrc, etc. files in the IRAF system manager login directory ($iraf/local, or ~iraf). These files will set up a working IRAF desktop using the default windowing environment and should serve as an example or starting point for an IRAF desktop. 4.3 THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR (X11IRAF) Please see the documentation included with X11IRAF V1.2 or later releases for information on running these utilities, including common problems and how to deal with them. One thing we would like to emphasize here is that we STRONGLY suggest that you use "xgterm", not the standard "xterm" to run IRAF. XGterm, which is included in X11IRAF, has advanced graphics capabilities developed for use with IRAF. Xterm graphics work, but not terribly well. When you start up the cl in an xgterm window, type "stty xgterm" after the CL starts up to tell it you are using an xgterm window. The default terminal type may be set with the MKIRAF command to make the change more permanent. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. MAGTAPE INTERFACE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The DEV directory contains a default template tapecap file for the system with several predefined tape device entries. If a server is configured to run IRAF for multiple network clients, you can now have multiple tapecap files, one for each host, e.g. "tapecap.foobar" for host "foobar". If a node-specific tapecap file is not found the fallback will be to use the 'dev$tapecap' file. Installers should copy the template tapecap file provided to a "tapecap." file for use on a particular , however the new install script in V2.12 will do this automatically if you proceed with the post-install configuration. See the release notes for further information on this capability, and the IRAF Site Manager's Guide for more information on configuring tape devices. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. PATCH INSTRUCTIONS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are no patches as of July 15, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. NOTES ADDED SINCE THE INITIAL RELEASE. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.1 hlib$cl.csh script replaced -- 28 July 2002 It was discovered following the initial release that the hlib$cl.csh script used to start IRAF wasn't properly modified for the IRIX architecture. Since this is a critical part of the system the change was made to the file and the AS distribution regenerated to avoid future confusion. A modified version of the script can also be found in this directory as 'cl.csh'. If you downloaded and installed the V2.12.1 release prior to this date you can fix the problem by replacing the existing hlib$cl.csh script with this new version and making it executable.