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Last modified: 4 March 2024

URL: https://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/ciao_4.9_release.html

CIAO 4.9 Release Notes


CIAO 4.9 is distributed for the following platforms:

Users can install CIAO with either Python 2.7 or with Python 3.5. Both Python 2.7 and Python 3.5 versions can be installed but must be installed into separate directories.

CIAO is no longer available for 32bit Linux operating systems or for older 64bit Linux machines (CentOS 5 era). CIAO is also no longer available for older versions of OSX (notably 10.6, 10.7, nor 10.8). CIAO 4.7 is still available for users who are unable to upgrade. More details on the Platform Support page.

Notable changes and improvements in CIAO 4.9:



How CALDB 4.7.8 Affects Your Analysis

CALDB 4.7.8 Release Notes (release 19 March 2018)

ACIS Imaging and Grating Data

HRC-S Data


How CALDB 4.7.7 Affects Your Analysis

CALDB 4.7.7 Release Notes (release 14 December 2017)

HRC Imaging Data


How CALDB 4.7.6 Affects Your Analysis

CALDB 4.7.6 Release Notes (release 18 August 2017)

ACIS Imaging and Grating Data


How CALDB 4.7.5.1 Affects Your Analysis

CALDB 4.7.5.1 Release Notes (release 20 July 2017)

ACIS Imaging and Grating Data


How CALDB 4.7.4 Affects Your Analysis

CALDB 4.7.4 Release Notes (release 4 May 2017)

ACIS Imaging and Grating Data

HRC Grating and Imaging Data


How CALDB 4.7.3 Affects Your Analysis

CALDB 4.7.3 Release Notes (release 15 December 2016)

ACIS Imaging and Grating Data

HRC Imaging Data


Installation

Users should be aware of these installation items before installing CIAO 4.9. Additional problems which are seen less frequently are listed on the Installation & Smoke Tests bug page.

Supported Platforms

Updates to the ciao-install Installation Script

IPython Settings

Remove old parameter files

Changes to Dynamic/Shared Libraries


Python 3

CIAO 4.9 includes changes that allow the CIAO packages and scripts to run with Python 2.7 and Python 3.5. Users can install either or both versions of CIAO for the specific platform. If installing both, then they must be installed into separate directories.

Most of the Python packages and scripts have been modified to accommodate this upgrade.

The list of applications updated includes

The list of libraries and modules updated includes


Tools

acis_find_afterglow

acis_process_events

acis_streak_map

axbary

dates

dmdiff

dmellipse

dmextract

dmhistory

dmhedit

dmimgcalc

dmmakereg

dmtype2split

glvary

mkwarf

tgextract2

wcs_update


Parameter Files

A summary of parameter files changes is provided in this section. Refer to the Tools and Analysis Scripts sections of these release notes for complete details.

We recommend deleting all the old parameter files or renaming the parameter-file directory before running any new version of CIAO to avoid conflicts. More information is available in the FAQ.

acis_streak_map

dmellipse


ChIPS

The following changes are in addition to changes to support Python 3.5:

Bugs


Sherpa

Sherpa is developed as a community project, and is available on GitHub. Comments, fixes, and additions from the community are welcomed. There are additional releases for this version throughout the year, and can be installed either directly from GitHub or using the conda package manager, as described on the standalone Sherpa page.

Statistics

Documentation

XSpec

Python 3.5 support

Bug fixes


Graphical User Interfaces

There are no changes to prism, peg, nor to taskmonitor in this release beyond those needed to support Python 3.5.

Analysis Scripts

Many of the scripts have been updated to work with Python 3.5. The list includes

Also included in this list are new scripts added to the contributed package after the release of CIAO 4.8.

specextract

blanksky

blanksky_image

correct_periscope_drift

simulate_psf


Python Modules

CIAO modules are now compabile with both Python v 2.7.11 and v3.5. Additional updates are noted below.

crates

pypixlib

pyTransform


Libraries

cxcparam

datamodel

mtllib

pixlib

region


Environment

Off-the-Shelf (OTS) Package Versions

Compiler versions


Documentation

Many pages have been updated to reflect the changes in this release. Several analysis threads are still under review.