These notes are a brief summary of the modifications and additions to IRAF V2.11BETA since the last public release of IRAF, V2.10.4. More detailed release notes will be available with the release of IRAF V2.11EXPORT.
V2.11BETA is a beta test release, meaning that it is complete and has undergone basic testing, but hasn't had the minimum of severals weeks of burn-in testing required for a normal export release. To save labor we are making the beta version available only for Sun platforms (this not because we wish to favor Sun, but because the major IRAF development sites use Suns internally as their main development platform). The V2.11EXPORT release, expected to be available in several weeks after testing is complete, will eventually be available for all IRAF platforms.
The automatic parameter file update/merge mechanism, which is used if you do not initialize your parameters with mkiraf, is based on file date comparisions. Tf you run IRAF V2.10 after V2.11 has been installed, the file dates on your uparm parameter files will be more recent than the V2.11 installation date. If you then try to run V2.11, 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.
The default value of the magzero parameter in IMEXAMINE was changed from 30.0 to 25.0 for consistency with the DIGIPHOT package.
The IMAGES package has been reorganized by function into the 7 subpackages
listed below.
This reorganization of the IMAGES package should be mostly transparent
to the user and not affect any existing scripts, unless you were using
any of the 6 deleted tasks. By default, the IMAGES subpackages are
automatically loaded when you log in to the CL. Old parameter files will
not be recognized since the package names have changed.
Besides support for classical FITS images, the new FITS kernel also
supports multi-extension FITS files: several FITS files packed into one
FITS image with a PHU (Primary Header Unit) that contains global header
information shared by the other files. Multi-extension FITS files are
0-indexed, with the PHU being 0 and the first image (or other data
extension) at index 1. If there is no PHU then the first FITS image
is 0 and there is no global header.
WFITS now has a new parameter called "fextn" and it is set to "fits".
This parameter only affects FITS files written by WFITS to disk - the
extension .fits will automatically be added to the filenames, so that
the files will be automatically recognized by the FITS image kernel.
WFITS also has two additional parameters called "extensions" and
"global_hdr" that deal with writing multi-extension FITS files.
But if RFITS is used to read FITS files on disk then users need to
be aware of a change to the behavior of the "file-list" parameter.
File-list is now used to define the list of files on the tape as well
as the list of extensions in a multi-extension FITS image. To read
single FITS images on disk use "" as the value for "file-list". Some
users have been using "1" for this value but now that value will try
to read the first extension which doesn't exist - use "0" if you wish
to put something there.
RFITS will unpack multi-extension FITS files upon a read. If you wish
to retain the multi-extension FITS format then use T2D and RENAME.
The meaning of the fields of the default "imextn" are as follows. Each
substring corresponds to a single kernel. The "xxx:" is the internal
name of the image kernel, i.e. "oif", "fxf", "plf", etc. A comma
delimited list of extensions, or extension patterns, follows the colon.
For example, for the FITS image kernel, the internal kernel name is "fxf"
and the system default file extensions are ".fits" and ".fit".
The value of "imextn" is only read once when a process starts up. Hence
it is advisable to do a "flpr" (flush process cache) after changing this
variable, to force all processes to re-read it.
The default value of imtype is "oif,noinherit" which means that the IRAF
native format is the default for all new images, regardless of the type
of the input image (i.e. do not "inherit" the input image type).
"inherit" was the default in V2.10 and earlier versions of IRAF.
For example, if you wish to use FITS as the default for new images you
can set imtype=fits as follows:
You can override the default output image type specified by imtype by
giving an image extension (as defined by imextn) explicitly in the
image name, e.g. "pix.imh", "pix.fits", "pix.pl" and so on.
At present IMHEADER does not use "imextn" to determine what is and is not
an image. The parameter "imlist" defines the valid imagefile extensions.
If imextn is modified "imlist" may need to be modified as well.
Support for two versions of the image and pixel file headers was added.
V2.11 will read both the old image format (V1) and the new image format
(V2). But the new image format is not readable by older versions of IRAF.
CUBE, DUMP, GSUBRAS, MAXMIN, MKIMAGE, MKTEST: These tasks have been superseded
by the equivalent tasks in the IMAGES or ARTDATA packages.
IMRED.VTEL: This package is no longer supported and has been replaced with
the NSO extern package.
REGISTER: This task has been renamed to GREGISTER.
IMALIGN, IMCENTROID, IMFUNCTION, IMREPLACE, WCSEDIT, WCSRESET: Moved to the
IMAGES package.
Major package changes:
imcoords - Image coordinates package
imfilter - Image filtering package
imfit - Image fitting package
imgeom - Image geometric transformation package
immatch - Image matching and combining package
imutil - Image utilities package
tv - Image display utilities package
The new IMAGES package contains a total of 82 tasks, including 26 new tasks
from the IMMATCH and VOL external addon packages, 6 existing PROTO package
tasks, and 1 existing NOAO.PROTO package task. The undocumented IMAGES
package IMDEBUG and its 6 tasks have been deleted from the IMAGES package.
Major system changes:
The help pages have been updated to reflect these changes.
imextn = "oif:imh fxf:fits,fit plf:pl qpf:qp stf:hhh,??h"
IRAF tasks will not recognize a file as an image unless it has an
extension (except RFITS which will read FITS files on disk that have no
extensions). The RENAME task can be used add extensions to image files
if needed. "imextn" can be redefined (use reset imextn = "new-value") to
modify the mapping of extensions to image types.
Users can define extensions for the fxf and stf kernels. For example, if
you have FITS files on disk that have a .ft extension then you can reset
imextn so that IRAF will recognize these image extensions:
cl> reset imextn="fxf:ft"
The new .ft extension for the FITS kernel images will now override the
default values - the other kernels remain unchanged. ".fits" will no
longer be recognized as a FITS file unless you include it in the list
of extensions for the ""fxf" kernel.
cl> reset imtype="fits"
cl> flpr % needed before the next task execution
Assuming "imextn" defines ".fits" as a valid file extension for FITS
imagefiles (kernel "fxf"), all new images produced by IRAF will be FITS
files with the extension .fits unless some other extension is given
explicitly when creating a new image.
cl> reset imtype = "imh,inherit"
This example sets the default type for new images to ".imh" for native
format images, but enables image type inheritance. By default new
images will be of the same type as the input image. For example if a
FITS image is being read another FITS image will be output, or if a pixel
mask is being read an pixel mask will be created.
cl> imhead
pix4.imh[512,512][short]: m51 B 600s
boc.fits: FXF: must specify which FITS extension (boc.fits)
fits.fits[512,512][short]: m51 B 600s
pix.fits[512,512][short]: m51 B 600s
pix3.fits[512,512][short]: m51 B 600s
pix5.fits: FXF: must specify which FITS extension (pix5.fits)
zero.fits: FXF: must specify which FITS extension (zero.fits)
mask.pl[512,512][int]: m51 B 600s
foo.qp[1024,811][int]:
The multi-extensions FITS files show up in the list with the message
"FXF: must specify which FITS extension", since these files contain
multiple images and the task does not know which image to open to get
header information.
cl> graph dev$pix xlabel="Wavelength\\fG(A)"
would produce an Angstrom symbol in parenthesis. The double backslash
is necessary to pass the escape string thru the CL. A file containing
the mappings for the greek fonts and other special characters can be
found at http://iraf.noao.edu/greek.ps.
New tasks, or old tasks moved to new packages:
Task Name Package Function
CCXYMATCH IMCOORDS Four new tasks for computing and evaluating
CCMAP simple astrometric plate solutions and storing
CCSETWC them in the image headers in fits-compatible
CCTRAN format.
CCFIND IMCOORDS CCFIND locate objects in an image given a
celestial coordinate list and the image wcs.
STARFIND IMCOORDS STARFIND automatically detects stellar objects
in a list of images.
IMCCTRAN IMCOORDS Two new tasks for transforming celestial
SKYCTRAN coordinate lists and image celestial
coordinate systems from one celestial
coordinate system to another.
WCSCTRAN IMCOORDS A new task for transforming between IRAF image
coordinate systems.
WCSEDIT IMCOORDS Two unaltered former PROTO package tasks for
WCSRESET editing IRAF image coordinate systems.
FRMEDIAN IMFILTER Four new tasks for doing circular/elliptical/
FRMODE ring image median filtering.
RMEDIAN
RMODE
IM3DTRAN IMGEOM The former addon VOL package task IM3DTRAN for
doing 3D image transposes.
GEOXYTRAN IMMATCH A new task for transforming coordinate lists
using the results of the GEOMAP task.
IMCENTROID IMMATCH Four new tasks for computing matched pixel
SKYXYMATCH lists. IMCENTROID is a modified version of the
WCSXYMATCH PROTO package task of the same name.
XYXYMATCH
SKYMAP IMMATCH Two new tasks for computing geometric
WCSMAP transforms using the image coordinate system
information.
IMALIGN IMMATCH Three new tasks for doing automated image
SREGISTER registration. IMALIGN is a modified version
WREGISTER of the PROTO package task of the same name.
WCSCOPY IMMATCH A new task for copying the coordinate system
of a reference image to a set of input images.
PSFMATCH IMMATCH A new task for matching the PSFs of a set of
input images to the PSF of a reference image
using Fourier techniques.
LINMATCH IMMATCH A new task for matching the linear intensity a
scale of a set of input images to the
intensity scale of a reference image.
IMFUNCTION IMUTIL The former PROTO package task for applying a
single argument function to an image.
IMJOIN IMUTIL The former addon VOL package task for joining
same-dimensioned images along a specified
dimension.
IMREPLACE IMUTIL The former PROTO package task IMREPLACE for
replacing bad pixels based on their value.
IMTILE IMUTIL A modified version of the NOAO.PROTO IRMOSAIC
task for tiling same sized 2D images into a
single mosaiced image.
EXPORT DATAIO Two new tasks from the external IMCNV package
for exporting IRAF images to binary formats
IMPORT and for importing binary files into IRAF
images.
TEXT2MASK PROTO This new task appears in conjunction with a
new pixel mask based version of FIXPIX.
CCDMASK CCDRED This new task creates a pixel mask from a
CCD image.
AIDPAR ONEDSPEC New parameter set for automatic line
identification for the tasks AUTOIDENTIFY,
IDENTIFY and REIDENTIFY.
AUTOIDENTIFY ONEDSPEC A new task to automatically identify lines
and fit the dispersion function.
SKYTWEAK ONEDSPEC Sky spectra are shifted and scaled to best
subtract sky features from data spectra.
TELLURIC ONEDSPEC Telluric calibration spectra are shifted and
scaled to best divide out telluric features
from data spectra.
ASTCALC ASTUTIL An astronomical calculator.
ASTRADIUS ASTUTIL Finds images within a circle on the sky.
Task and package deletions: