CIAO 4.0 and CALDB 3.4.2 released 14 December 2007
==================================================
The Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) is pleased to announce that version
4.0 of CIAO ("Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations") and
version 3.4.2 of CALDB are now available for download from:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/
CALDB 3.4.2 may be used with both CIAO 3.4 and CIAO 4.0.
-----------------------------------
CIAO 4.0 includes updates to tools, support (beta) for ASCII file
formats in the Data Model library, a *new* more powerful version of
ChIPS - the CIAO plotting package - and an experimental (beta) version
of the *new* Sherpa - the CIAO modeling and fitting package.
CIAO 4.0 includes for the first time *Python* along with the veteran
S-Lang as a user scripting environment, and CRATES, a software package
which provides a high level I/O interface for use within various
scripting environments (i.e. ChIPS and Sherpa use CRATES for I/O).
Since CIAO4.0 is a major release with several new packages and
applications, we plan to support CIAO3.4 for the near future.
We suggest that users who install CIAO 4.0 keep the CIAO 3.4
installation available as well.
The CIAO3.4 web site is now accessible at:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao3.4
-----------------------------------
TOOLS:
The most notable tool change in CIAO 4.0 is that the ACIS
dead area correction is turned on by default. There is a new version of
tgextract - named tgextract2 - which provides similar functionality, but
allows large and asymmetric regions for better determination of
background counts. Significant work has been done on the tool wavdetect.
The sso_freeze tool has been enhanced so that it can create an
object-centered aspect solution which, among other uses, allows an
object-centered exposure map to be generated.
The Data Model library now supports (in beta version) an ASCII kernel
which allows users to generate ASCII format files for use within Data
Model enabled tools (e.g. dmlist, dmcopy) and apply the suite of Data
Model capabilities to those files.
CHIPS:
CIAO4.0 includes a new, more powerful version of ChIPS, the CIAO
plotting package. It can be used during data analysis and to create
publication-quality figures. Details and documentation on the new system
are available from the new ChIPS website at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/chips/
SHERPA:
CIAO4.0 features an experimental (beta) version of the new Sherpa, the
CIAO modeling and fitting package.
Details and documentation on the new system are available from the
Sherpa website at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/sherpabeta/
This is the initial phase of the Sherpa redesign and not all of the
functionality of the CIAO 3.4 version is implemented yet.
We anticipate additional releases in 2008 to provide this functionality.
The "About the Sherpa Beta Release" page at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/sherpabeta/about.html
outlines new features and provides a summary of missing functionality.
OBSVIS:
CIAO 4.0 includes an new implementation of the ObsVis (Observation
Visualizer) application for planning Chandra observations.
Major improvements include corrected aimpoints, support for multiple
fields of view, and support for multiple background images.
Read the complete CIAO 4.0 release notes, including the section "How
CIAO 4.0 and CALDB 3.4.2 Affect Your Analysis" at:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/ciao_4.0_release.html
-----------------------------
In tandem with CIAO 4.0 is the release of the Chandra Calibration
Database version 3.4.2. This release includes
- ACIS time-dependent gain files for Epoch 31 (Aug-Oct 2007) and
- the Chandra Proposal Cycle 10 "PIMMS" effective area files.
CALDB 3.4.2 may be used with both CIAO 3.4 and CIAO 4.0.
Detailed information about CALDB 3.4.2 can be found in the Chandra
Calibration Database website at http://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/
---------------------------------
CIAO 4.0 is the first release of CIAO to be fully GPL
compliant. OTS (off-the-shelf) software has been updated to current
versions. A new test script ("smoke test") is included to aid users
in verifying installation of the release.
CIAO 4.0 is distributed for the following platforms:
* Solaris 8
* Fedora Core 4
* Fedora Core 7
* Mac OS X PowerPC 10.4
* Mac OS X Intel 10.4
More details at http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/platforms.html
-----------------------------------
As always please send questions and requests for enhancements to the CXC
HELPDESK (http://cxc.harvard.edu/helpdesk/).
CIAO 4.0 is a collaborative effort between the SAO/CXC Science Data
Systems, the SAO/CXC Data Systems, and MIT/CXC personnel.
Antonella Fruscione (for the CIAO development team)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 12 2013 - 01:00:12 EST