L Notes from Previous Few Releases
L.1 Release Notes–-V2.0
L.1.1 General Changes
- Now supports 64-bit integer data.
L.1.2 New Commands
The following new applications have been added:
-
CONFIGECHO
- This is intended as a scripting tool. It displays the value of a
named entry in a group of configuration parameters.
-
NDFECHO
- This is intended as a scripting tool. It expands a given group
expression into a list of explicit NDF names, and displays a specified
subset of the expanded names.
L.1.3 Modified Commands
The following applications have been modified:
-
CHANMAP
-
- Four new estimators are available: FBAD, FGOOD, NBAD and NGOOD, which
produce the fraction/count of good/bad pixel values.
-
COLLAPSE
-
- Four new estimators are available: FBAD, FGOOD, NBAD and NGOOD, which
produce the fraction/count of good/bad pixel values.
-
MSTATS
-
- Four new estimators are available: FBAD, FGOOD, NBAD and NGOOD, which
produce the fraction/count of good/bad pixel values.
-
NORMALIZE
-
- A new boolean parameter called LOOP permits normalisation against a
single row or column when comparing two-dimensional NDFs.
-
PARGET
-
- A new boolean parameter called VECTOR specifies the output format to
use for vector-valued parameters.
-
ROTATE
-
- Now estimates north at the centre of the image rather than at the
bottom left corner, and uses a more accurate method.
-
WCSADD
-
- The transfer of set attribute values from basis Frame to new Frame can
now be controlled using a new boolean parameter called TRANSFER
(previously, set attributes were always transferred). The new default
is to transfer attributes only if the two Frames have the same class
and Domain.
-
WCSREMOVE
-
- The Frames to remove can now be specified by name as well as by index.
L.2 Release Notes–-V2.1
L.2.1 New Commands
The following new applications have been added:
-
EXCLUDEBAD
- This will copy a two-dimensional NDF, excluding any rows or
columns that contain too many bad values. Good rows or columns are shuffled
down to lower indices to fill the gaps left by the excluded rows or
columns, thus causing the output NDF to be smaller than the input NDF.
L.2.2 Modified Commands
The following applications have been modified:
-
ARDPLOT
-
- Can now display the outline of a Region even if no picture has been
displayed previously on the graphics device. The size of the plot is
controlled by the new SIZE parameter. Any existing picture can be
ignored by setting the new CLEAR parameter to
TRUE
.
-
BEAMFIT
-
- There is now more control of the initial or fixed sizes and shapes
of the beams. Note that this has involved a change of the type and function of
Parameter FIXFWHM. FIXFWHM like other FIX- parameters is _LOGICAL; it
just constrains whether the FWHM values should be fixed. A new
parameter called FWHM allows you to set either initial values, or when
FIXFWHM is also set
TRUE
, it sets fixed FWHM values. The interpretation
of FWHM values depends on a new CIRCULAR parameter, which constrains
the fit to be circular thus there is no minor axis and orientation
derived. In combination it is possible to give a list of circular or
elliptical FWHMs.
- The output parameters now store the statistics of every fitted beam,
not just those of the primary beam.
-
CENTROID
-
- The centroid’s formatted co-ordinates, such as right ascension and
declination, are now normalised into the usual ranges. This aplies both
to the reported positions and the output parameters.
-
COPYBAD
-
- Now writes the number of good and bad pixels in the output NDF to
output parameters NGOOD and NBAD.
- No longer sets the BAD_PIXEL flag for the DATA and VARIANCE components.
-
DISPLAY
-
- The MODE parameter can now be set to
"Current"
to force the current
upper and lower limits to be re-used.
-
ERASE
-
- Now has a parameter called REPORT that indicates if an error should be
reported if the specified object does not exist.
-
GDCLEAR
-
- Will now remove any unused space from the graphics-database file, thus
keeping its size to a minimum.
-
HISTOGRAM
-
- The new WIDTH parameter offers the option to specify the bin width
instead of the number of bins.
-
MFITTREND
-
- Now has a parameter called PROPBAD, which controls whether to propagate
bad input values to the returned fit.
-
NDFECHO
-
- A new parameter called EXISTS has been added that allows the list of
displayed NDF paths to be filtered by removing the paths for NDFs that
do not exist.
-
NORMALIZE
-
- This will loop if the first NDF is one-dimensional and the second is
two-dimensional, provided LOOP=
TRUE
. It previously only worked if the
dimensionalities were in the reverse sense.
-
OUTSET
-
- The USEAXIS parameter now works, needed when the supplied NDF has more
than two axes.
-
PROVADD
-
- The inoperative parameter MORE has been removed.
-
SCATTER
-
- Now writes the number of pixels used to form the correlation
coefficient to output parameter NPIX.
-
SETQUAL
-
- It is now possible to copy all quality information from one NDF to
another using a new parameter called LIKE.
-
WCSALIGN
-
- The Gaussian kernel may now be applied in resampling mode as well as
rebinning mode.
L.3 Release Notes–-V2.2
L.3.1 Documentation Changes
- SUN/95 has been upgraded to the new style of documentation. Some residual
collateral damage to the typesetting is likely to be present.
- Most of the old release notes have been removed from SUN/95, with just the
few most-recent sets of notes retained in a separate appendix.
- The detailed descriptions of plotting and AST attributes are now in
appendices.
L.3.2 Modified Commands
The following applications have been modified:
-
COLLAPSE
-
- Fixed bug in the calculation of the variance for the Sum estimator.
Note that this applies to other collapsing commands such as MSTATS.
-
CONFIGECHO
-
- A new parameter called LOGFILE has been added that allows the list of
displayed configuration parameters to be written to a text file.
-
COPYBAD
-
- Restore setting the BAD_PIXEL flag for the DATA and VARIANCE
components, only setting it false if no bad pixels were copied and none
existed in the input NDF.
-
SEGMENT
-
- A bug that caused a crash for NDFs with degenerate axes has been fixed.
-
SETQUAL
-
- A new parameter QVALUE can be used to store a constant integer value in
the range 0 to 255 in the QUALITY component for all pixels.
-
WCSALIGN
-
- A new parameter ALIGNREF can be used to control the co-ordinate system
in which the input NDFs are aligned.
-
WCSMOSAIC
-
- A new parameter ALIGNREF can be used to control the co-ordinate system
in which the input NDFs are aligned.
L.4 Release Notes–-V2.3
L.4.1 New Commands
The following new applications have been added:
-
NDFCOMPARE
- Compares two NDFs and reports whether they are equivalent, based
on a range of different tests.
L.4.2 Modified Commands
The following applications have been modified:
-
BEAMFIT
-
- Now works for HEALPix maps with its apparently non-square pixels.
- A long-standing issue of occasional nonsense WCS errors has been
rectified by using a better-conditioned algorithm.
-
FITSMOD
-
- A missing END header may be appended using the Write mode. Any
associated value and/or comment are ignored. The easiest way to append
an END header is with the wrapper FITSWRITE.
-
NORMALIZE
-
- Now calculates and displays Pearson’s coefficient of linear correlation
on the remaining data at every iteration.
- New Parameter CORR added to hold the last displayed correlation
coefficient.
- New Parameters OUTSLOPE, OUTOFFSET and OUTCORR added. These are
one-dimensional NDFs in which the slopes, offsets and correlation
coefficients respectively are stored when operating in looping mode
(i.e. LOOP=
TRUE
).
-
ROTATE
-
- Now writes out the rotation angle actually used to an output parameter
(ANGLEUSED).
-
SQORST
-
- Propagates UNITS as it used to in the IMAGE-format version.
L.5 Release Notes–-V2.4
L.5.1 New Commands
The following new application have been added:
-
ALIGN2D
- Aligns a pair of two-dimensional NDFs by minimising the residuals
between them.
L.5.2 Modified Commands
The following applications have been modified:
-
APERADD
-
- Has a new parameter MASK, which can be used to save an NDF containing a
mask showing which pixels were included in the aperture.
-
COLLAPSE
-
- A warning that suggested that WLIM should b lowered even when it had
the minmum of zero no longer appears.
-
LINPLOT
-
- Parameter TEMPSTYLE is withdrawn. The
+
syntax should be used to set
temporary style changes.
-
LUCY
-
- A bug that prevented correct background removal when Parameter BACK was
null was excised.
-
MFITTREND
-
- Has a new FOREST parameter, which improves spectral-line masking in
line forests using a smoothed mode rather than the mean and a better
estimate of the baseline noise.
- A bug has been fixed preventing fits in the rare combination of neither
variance nor bad values being present, and without masking of lines.
Bad variances are also now checked before spline fitting.
-
NDFCOPY
-
- A bug has been fixed that prevented excess WCS axes from being removed.
-
NORMALIZE
-
- Has two new parameters DRAWMARK and DRAWWIDTH that can be used to
exclude central markers and width indicator from the plot.
-
PROVSHOW
-
- Has a new option SHOW=
"TREE"
, which allows the family tree to be
stepped through in an interactive manner, with the user choosing which
parent is to be displayed next.
-
WCSADD
-
- Has a new option MAPTYPE=
"REFNDF"
, which causes a copy of a co-ordinate
Frame read from a reference NDF to be added into the modified NDF.
- New Parameter RETAIN allows control over whether or not the new Frame
becomes the current Frame in the modified NDF on exit.
L.6 Release Notes–-V2.5
L.6.1 General Changes
- A log of Kappa commands can now be written to a text file specified by the
environment variable
KAPPA_LOG
. The log lists the application name and
parameter values in separate headed lines. Note that the format of the log
may change to simple command lines that could be replayed in a script.
L.6.2 Modified Commands
The following applications have been modified:
-
ALIGN2D
-
- Parameter TR may also include the scale and offset in its seventh and
eight elements.
- The RMS residual between the aligned and the reference arrays is now
written to an output parameter called “RMS”.
-
CONFIGECHO
-
- This now reports all elements in an array, not just the first element.
-
CONTOUR
-
- The dynamic default for Parameter LABPOS is now
!
(i.e. a null value),
so no label is now drawn in "Bounds"
or "
Good" mode unless a value is
supplied explicitly for LABPOS.
-
DISPLAY
-
- Has a new Parameter PENRANGE, which can be used to restrict the range
of pens (i.e. colour indices) used. The default is to use the full
range of available pens.
- The vertical position of the key can now be controlled through
Parameter KEYPOS.
-
HISCOM
-
- Has a new Parameter APPNAME, which can be used to change the
application name stored in the new history record from the default of
“HISCOM”. Scripts that generate NDFs can use this facility to record
the details of the invocation of the script in the form of a history
record in the output NDF.
-
MFITTREND
-
- The auto method uses the median rather than the mean to clip outliers.
This permits better masking of strong and extended emission.
-
SQORTST
-
- Permit an axis scale to be retained by using an asterisk in Parameter
PIXSCALE.
-
TRANDAT
-
- Will now recognise the string
"BAD"
(case insensitive) within the input
text file and generate appropriate bad values in the output NDF.