ASTIMP

Imports coordinate system information into images.

Description:

This task reads coordinate system information from an AST file and uses it to modify the World Coordinate System (WCS) components of the given images. A new coordinate system is added (the same for each image) within which a set of images can be aligned. The newly added coordinate system becomes the Current one.

If a coordinate system with the same Domain (name) already exists it will be overwritten, and a warning message issued.

AST files for use by this program will normally be those written by the ASTEXP program, and may either be standard ones designed for use with a particular instrument, or prepared by the user.

Usage:

ASTIMP in astfile indomain

Parameters:

A file containing a sequence of framesets describing the relative coordinate systems of images from different sources.

It is intended that this file should be one written by the ASTEXP application when a successful registration is made, and the user need not be aware of its internal structure. The files are readable text however, and can in principle be written by other applications or doctored by hand, if this is done with care, and with knowledge of AST objects (SUN/210). The format of the file is explained in the Notes section.

The name of a FITS header keyword whose value gives a number of degrees to rotate the coordinate system by when it is imported. This rotation is done after the mappings given in the AST file itself have been applied. If any lower case characters are given, they are converted to upper case. This may be a compound name to handle hierarchical keywords, in which case it has the form keyword1.keyword2 etc. Each keyword must be no longer than 8 characters.

It will normally not be necessary to supply this keyword, since it can be given instead within the AST file. If it is supplied however, it overrides any value given there. [!]

A list of image names whose WCS components are to be modified according to ASTFILE. The image names may be specified using wildcards, or may be specified using an indirection file (the indirection character is "^").
INDICES( $\ast$ ) = _INTEGER (Read)
This parameter is a list of integers with as many elements as there are images accessed by the IN parameter. If the frameset identifiers are of the type "INDEX" then it indicates, for each image, what its index number is. Thus if only one image is given in the IN list, and the value of INDICES is [3], then the frameset with the identifier "INDEX 3" will be chosen. If set null (!) the images will be considered in the order 1,2,3,…which will be appropriate unless the images are being presented in a different order from that in which they were presented to ASTEXP when generating the AST file. [!]
The Domain name to be used for the Current frames of the framesets which are imported. If a null (!) value is given, the frames will assume the same name as in the AST file. [!]
Name of the CCDPACK logfile. If a null (!) value is given for this parameter, then no logfile will be written, regardless of the value of the LOGTO parameter.

If the logging system has been initialised using CCDSETUP, then the value specified there will be used. Otherwise, the default is "CCDPACK.LOG". [CCDPACK.LOG]

Every CCDPACK application has the ability to log its output for future reference as well as for display on the terminal. This parameter controls this process, and may be set to any unique abbreviation of the following:
• TERMINAL – Send output to the terminal only

• LOGFILE – Send output to the logfile only (see the LOGFILE parameter)

• BOTH – Send output to both the terminal and the logfile

• NEITHER – Produce no output at all

If the logging system has been initialised using CCDSETUP then the value specified there will be used. Otherwise, the default is "BOTH". [BOTH]

An angle through which all the imported frames should be rotated. This rotation is done after the mappings in the AST file itself have been applied. [0]

Examples:

astimp data$\ast$ camera.ast obs1
This will apply the AST file "camera.ast" to all the images in the current directory with names beginning "data". The file "camera.ast" has previously been written using ASTEXP with the parameter ASTFILE=camera.ast. A new frame with a Domain called "OBS1" is added to the WCS component of each image.
astimp "data3,data4" instrum.ast obs1 indices=[3,4]
This imports frameset information from the AST file instrum.ast which was written by ASTEXP with the IDTYPE parameter set to INDEX. In this case images of only the third and fourth types described in that file are being modified. The name of the new coordinate system will be OBS1, overriding the name used when the AST file was written.
astimp astfile=instrum.ast in=! logto=terminal accept
This will simply report on the framesets contained within the AST file "instrum.ast", writing the ID of each to the terminal only.

AST file format

The AST file is designed to be written by ASTEXP and read by ASTIMP or MAKESET, and the user does not need to understand its format. It is however a text file, and if care is taken it may be edited by hand. Removing entire framesets and modifying ID values or domain names may be done fairly easily, but care should be taken (see SUN/210) if any more involved changes are to be undertaken. The format of the file is explained here.

The AST file consists of the following, in order:

$<$global modifiers$>$
(blank line)
$<$frameset 1$>$
$<$frameset 1 modifiers$>$
(blank line)
$<$frameset 2$>$
$<$frameset 2 modifiers$>$
(blank line)
...
(end of file)

Characters after a ’#’ character are normally ignored. The constituent parts are composed as follows:

Blank line:
A single blank line, which may contain spaces but no comments.

Frameset:
The framesets are written in AST native format, as explained in SUN/210.

Each frameset has an ID, and contains two frames (a Base frame and a Current frame) and a mapping between them. The domains of all the Base frames should normally be the same, and likewise for all the Current frames. For the images to which the file will be applied by ASTIMP, their WCS components should contain frames in the same domain as the AST file’s Base frame.

The ID of each frameset is used to determine, for each image, which of the framesets in the file should be applied to it. This ID is a string which can assume one of the following forms:

• "FITSID KEY VALUE" — This will match an image if the first FITS header card with the keyword KEY has the value VALUE. If the value is of type CHARACTER it must be in single quotes. KEY may be compound (of the form keyword1.keyword2 etc) to permit reading of hierarchical keywords.

• "INDEX N" — This associates a frameset with an integer N. Usually N will take the values 1,2,3,... for the framesets in the file. Typically the N’th image in a list will match the one with an ID of "INDEX N".

• "SET N" — This will match an image if the Set Index attribute iin its CCDPACK Set header is equal to the integer N.

Modifiers:
Modifiers describe additional modifications to be made to the framesets on import. They are of the form

USE keyword arguments

Currently the only modifier defined is FITSROT, which defines the name of a FITS header which specifies how many degrees to rotate the image before use. This rotation is carried out after the mapping defined by the frameset itself.

Global modifiers affect all images processed with the AST file. Frameset modifiers affect only those images which correspond to their frameset.

Rigorous error checking of the AST file is not performed, so that unhelpful modifications to the WCS components of the target images may occur if it is not in accordance with these requirements.

Behaviour of parameters

Most parameters retain their current value as default. The "current" value is the value assigned on the last run of the application. If the application has not been run then the "intrinsic" defaults, as shown in the parameter help, apply.

Retaining parameter values has the advantage of allowing you to define the default behaviour of the application but does mean that additional care needs to be taken when re-using the application after a break of sometime. The intrinsic default behaviour of the application may be restored by using the RESET keyword on the command line.

Certain parameters (LOGTO, LOGFILE and NDFNAMES) have global values. These global values will always take precedence, except when an assignment is made on the command line. Global values may be set and reset using the CCDSETUP and CCDCLEAR commands.