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Last modified: 8 December 2023

URL: https://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/sherpa/news.html

What's New for Sherpa

Date

Item

December 2023

Sherpa 4.16 for Python 3.9-3.11 and CIAO 4.16 was released on December 12, 2023. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

December 2022

Sherpa 4.15 for Python 3.8-3.10 and CIAO 4.15 was released on December 13, 2022. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

December 2021

Sherpa 4.14 for Python 3.7-3.9 and CIAO 4.14 was released on December 14, 2021. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

July 2020

Sherpa 4.12.1 for Python 3.5-3.8 and CIAO 4.12.1 was released on July 14, 2020. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

December 2019

Sherpa version for CIAO 4.12 was released on December 17, 2019. Plotting is now handled by Matplotlib and ChIPS has been deprecated. Here is Matplotlib Conversion Guide . See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

January 2017

Sherpa 4.9 for Python 2.7 and Python 3.5 was released on January 30, 2017. The @sherpa version for CIAO 4.9 was released on December 16, 2016. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

April 2015

On April 20, 2015 Sherpa became an Open Source project with the Sherpa 4.7 source code repository placed on GitHub The complete tar files are available for download as well as the full project repository which can be 'cloned'. The Sherpa Project welcomes contributions from the users via GitHub. Check the details on the Sherpa for Python web page.

December 2014

Sherpa version 1 for CIAO 4.7 was released on December 16, 2014. This is primarily a maintenance release with several bug fixes and upgrade to the newer 12.8.2e XSPEC model library (and under the hood making use of more robust library interfaces). Sherpa now supports stacks of datasets: package for manipulating a stack of related datasets and simultaneously fitting a model to them. It provides stack-enabled (i.e. vectorized) versions of the key Sherpa commands used to load data, set source models, get and set parameters, fit, and plot. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

December 2013

Version 1 of the Sherpa package for CIAO 4.6 was released in December 12, 2013. Sherpa v1 includes upgrades to the use of template models, allowing for interpolation between template parameters; improvements to the save functions; and many bug fixes. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

June 2012

Version 2 of the Sherpa package for CIAO 4.4 was released in June 2012. Sherpa v2 includes important bug fixes to its interface to PyCRATES 4.4, and provides access to seven new additive XSpec models. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for more information.

15 Dec 2011

The latest Python version of Sherpa was released for CIAO 4.4 on 15 December 2011. For the most up-to-date changes and additions to Sherpa functionality, see the Latest Updates page.

15 Dec 2010

The latest Python-only version of Sherpa was released for CIAO 4.3 on 15 December 2010. For the most up-to-date changes and additions to Sherpa functionality, see the Latest Updates page.

19 July 2010

CIAO 4.2 Sherpa version 2 has been released. CIAO 4.2 Sherpa v2 may be downloaded from the Downloading CIAO 4.2 page of the CIAO 4.2 website. This is a Python-only version of Sherpa with NO S-lang support. See the Sherpa Latest Updates page for detailed information about this Sherpa release.

11 June 2010

The CIAO Sherpa extension package Datastack is now available for manipulating and fitting a stack of related data sets.

5 May 2010

A new Sherpa blog is available to allow users to learn useful tips and tricks in Sherpa, as well as stay current on the most recent additions to its functionality.

02 February 2010

The February 2010 release of the CIAO contributed-scripts package includes a version of SherpaCL that works with CIAO 4.2.

15 December 2009

CIAO 4.2 has been released. CIAO 4.2 Sherpa has greatly improved infrastructure, capabilities to run parallel processing, a set of new UI functions matching Sherpa 3.4 capabilities, and a new algorithm for estimating confidence bounds on best-fit parameters (conf()); read the CIAO release notes or Sherpa "Latest Updates" page for detailed information.

A new contributed Sherpa script, sherpa_contrib.primini, became available with the release, which may be downloaded from the CIAO 4.2 Contributed Scripts and Modules page. This routine makes available the Primini fit statistic which was known as "CHI PRIMINI" in Sherpa 3.4. Refer to the Sherpa Statistics page for details.

See the About Sherpa page for the full list of Sherpa 4.2 items matched to 3.4 functionality.

03 November 2009

The November 2009 release of the CIAO contributed scripts and modules package includes the experimental sherpacl application, which:

  1. provides users with an interactive environment which supports a subset of the Sherpa and ChIPS command languages from CIAO 3.4,

  2. converts the CIAO 3.4 commands into their CIAO 4 versions (where possible).

    This application is provided with limited support and testing; please check your results carefully.

20 October 2009

The Sherpa Gallery of Examples has become available; it contains eighteen example scripts which illustrate the various plotting and fitting capabilities of Sherpa, as well as assist in the transition from the Sherpa 3.4 to 4.1 syntax.

20 April 2009

CIAO 4.1 has been patched to CIAO 4.1.2. The CIAO 4.1.2 release includes many enhancements to Sherpa; read the release notes for detailed information.

Several new contributed Sherpa scripts became available with the release (listed below), which may be downloaded from the CIAO 4.1 Contributed Scripts and Modules page.

sherpa_contrib.profiles - Allows users to create radial (or elliptical) profiles of 2D imaging data, including model fits, from within Sherpa to allow users to visually inspect the quality of the results; see sherpa_profiles.

Associated thread - Radial and elliptical profiles of Image Data

sherpa_contrib.flux_dist - Create and plot the distribution of flux values due to the uncertainties on model parameters; see sherpa_flux_dist.

Associated thread - Calculating Uncertainties by Simulating Flux Distributions

sherpa_contrib.utils - Utility routines for Sherpa users; see sherpa_utils.

Associated thread - Radial and elliptic al profiles of Image Data