PLUCK

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PLUCK

Plucks slices from an NDF at arbitrary positions

Description:

This application’s function is to extract data at scientifically relevant points such as the spatial location of a source or wavelength of a spectral feature, rather than at data sampling points (for which NDFCOPY is appropriate). This is achieved by the extraction of interpolated slices from an NDF . A slice is located at a supplied set of co-ordinates in the current WCS Frame for some but not all axes, and it possesses one fewer significant dimension per supplied co-ordinate. The slices run parallel to pixel axes of the NDF.

The interpolation uses one of a selection of resampling methods to effect the non-integer shifts along the fixed axes, applied to each output element along the retained axes (see the METHOD, PARAMS, and TOL parameters).

Three routes are available for obtaining the fixed positions, selected using Parameter MODE:

from the parameter system (see Parameter POS);
from a specified positions list (see Parameter INCAT); or
from a simple text file containing a list of co-ordinates (see Parameter COIN).

In the first mode the application loops, asking for new extraction co-ordinates until it is told to quit or encounters an error. However there is no looping if the position has been supplied on the command line.

Each extracted dataset is written to a new NDF, which however, may reside in a single container file (see the CONTAINER parameter).

Usage:

pluck in axes out method [mode]

$\{$

pos coin=? incat=?

mode

Parameters:

AXES( ) = _INTEGER (Read)

The WCS axis or axes to remain in the output NDF. The slice will therefore contain an array comprising all the elements along these axes. The maximum number of axes is one fewer than the number of WCS axes in the NDF.

Each axis can be specified using one of the following options.

Its integer index within the current Frame of the input NDF (in the range 1 to the number of axes in the current Frame).
Its Symbol string such as "RA" or "VRAD".
A generic option where "SPEC" requests the spectral axis, "TIME" selects the time axis, "SKYLON" and "SKYLAT" picks the sky longitude and latitude axes respectively. Only those axis domains present are available as options.

A list of acceptable values is displayed if an illegal value is supplied. If the axes of the current Frame are not parallel to the NDF pixel axes, then the pixel axis which is most nearly parallel to the specified current Frame axis will be used.

COIN = FILENAME (Read)

Name of a text file containing the co-ordinates of slices to be plucked. It is only accessed if Parameter MODE is given the value "File". Each line should contain the formatted axis values for a single position, in the current Frame of the NDF. Axis values can be separated by spaces, tabs or commas. The file may contain comment lines with the first character # or !.

CONTAINER = _LOGICAL (Read)

If TRUE, each slice extracted is written as an NDF component of the HDS container file specified by the OUT parameter. The

$n$ th component will be named PLUCK_

$n$ . If set FALSE, each extraction is written to a separate file. On-the-fly format conversion to foreign formats is not possible when CONTAINER=TRUE. [FALSE]

DESCRIBE = _LOGICAL (Read)

If TRUE, a detailed description of the co-ordinate Frame in which the fixed co-ordinates are to be supplied is displayed before the positions themselves. It is ignored if MODE="Catalogue". [current value]

INCAT = FILENAME (Read)

A catalogue containing a positions list giving the co-ordinates of the fixed positions, such as produced by applications CURSOR, LISTMAKE, etc. It is only accessed if Parameter MODE is given the value "Catalogue". The catalogue should have a WCS Frame common with the NDF, so that the NDF and catalogue FrameSets can be aligned.

MODE = LITERAL (Read)

The mode in which the initial co-ordinates are to be obtained. The supplied string can be one of the following values.

"Interface" –- positions are obtained using Parameter POS.
"Catalogue" –- positions are obtained from a positions list using Parameter INCAT.
"File" –- positions are obtained from a text file using Parameter COIN.

[current value]

IN = NDF (Read)

The NDF structure containing the data to be extracted. It must have at least two dimensions.

METHOD = LITERAL (Read)

The method to use when sampling the input pixel values. For details of these schemes, see the descriptions of routine AST_RESAMPLEx in SUN/210. METHOD can take the following values.

"Linear" –- When resampling, the output pixel values are calculated by linear interpolation in the input NDF among the two nearest pixel values along each axis chosen by AXES. This method produces smoother output NDFs than the nearest-neighbour scheme, but is marginally slower.
"Sinc" –- Uses the $sinc (π x)$ kernel, where $x$ is the pixel offset from the interpolation point and $sinc (z) = sin (z) / z$ . Use of this scheme is not recommended.
"SincSinc" –- Uses the $sinc (π x) sinc (k π x)$ kernel. A valuable general-purpose scheme, intermediate in its visual effect on NDFs between the linear option and using the nearest neighbour.
"SincCos" –- Uses the $sinc (π x) cos (k π x)$ kernel. Gives similar results to the "SincSinc" scheme.
"SincGauss" –- Uses the $sinc (π x) e^{- k x^{2}}$ kernel. Good results can be obtained by matching the FWHM of the envelope function to the point-spread function of the input data (see Parameter PARAMS).
"Somb" –- Uses the $somb (π x)$ kernel, where $x$ is the pixel offset from the interpolation point, and $somb (z) = 2 * J_{1} (z) / z$ . $J_{1}$ is the first-order Bessel function of the first kind. This scheme is similar to the "Sinc" scheme.
"SombCos" –- Uses the $somb (π x) cos (k π x)$ kernel. This scheme is similar to the "SincCos" scheme.
"BlockAve" –- Block averaging over all pixels in the surrounding $N$ -dimensional cube.

All methods propagate variances from input to output, but the variance estimates produced by interpolation schemes need to be treated with care since the spatial smoothing produced by these methods introduces correlations variance estimates. The initial default is "SincSinc". [current value]

OUT = NDF (Write)

The name for the output NDF, or the name of the single container file if CONTAINER=TRUE.

PARAMS( 2 ) = _DOUBLE (Read)

An optional array which consists of additional parameters required by the Sinc, SincSinc, SincCos, SincGauss, Somb, SombCos, and Gauss methods.

PARAMS(1) is required by all the above schemes. It is used to specify how many pixels are to contribute to the interpolated result on either side of the interpolation in each dimension. Typically, a value of 2 is appropriate and the minimum allowed value is 1 (i.e. one pixel on each side). A value of zero or fewer indicates that a suitable number of pixels should be calculated automatically. [0]

PARAMS(2) is required only by the SombCos, Gauss, SincSinc, SincCos, and SincGauss schemes. For the SombCos, SincSinc, and SincCos schemes, it specifies the number of pixels at which the envelope of the function goes to zero. The minimum value is 1.0, and the run-time default value is 2.0. For the Gauss and SincGauss schemes, it specifies the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the Gaussian envelope. The minimum value is 0.1, and the run-time default is 1.0. On astronomical images and spectra, good results are often obtained by approximately matching the FWHM of the envelope function, given by PARAMS(2), to the point-spread function of the input data. []

POS( ) = LITERAL (Read)

An the co-ordinates of the next slice to be extracted, in the current co-ordinate Frame of the NDF (supplying a colon ":" will display details of the current co-ordinate Frame). The position should be supplied as a list of formatted axis values separated by spaces or commas. POS is only accessed if Parameter MODE is given the value "Interface". If the co-ordinates are supplied on the command line only one slice will be extracted; otherwise the application will ask for further positions which may be terminated by supplying the null value (!).

TITLE = LITERAL (Read)

A Title for every output NDF structure. A null value (!) propagates the title from the input NDF to all output NDFs. [!]

TOL = _DOUBLE (Read)

The maximum tolerable geometrical distortion that may be introduced as a result of approximating non-linear Mappings by a set of piece-wise linear transforms. Both algorithms approximate non-linear co-ordinate transformations in order to improve performance, and this parameter controls how inaccurate the resulting approximation is allowed to be, as a displacement in pixels of the input NDF. A value of zero will ensure that no such approximation is done, at the expense of increasing execution time. [0.05]

Examples:

pluck omc1 pos="5:35:13.7,-5:22:13.6" axes=FREQ method=sincgauss params=[3,5] out=omc1_trap

The NDF omc1 is a spectral-imaging cube with (Right ascension, declination, frequency) World Co-ordinate axes. This example extracts a spectrum at RA=5^h35^m13.7^s , Dec=−5°22′13.6′′ using the SincGauss interpolation method. Three pixels either side of the point are used to interpolate, the full-width half-maximum of the Gaussian is five pixels. The resultant spectrum called omc1_trap, is still a cube, but its spatial dimensions each only have one element.

pluck omc1 mode=cat incat=a axes=FREQ container out=omc1_spectra

This example reads the fixed positions from the positions list in file a.FIT. The selected spectra are stored in an HDS container file called omc1_spectra.sdf.

pluck omc1 mode=cat incat=a axes=SPEC container out=omc1_spectra

As the previous example, plucking spectra, this time by selecting the generic spectral axis.

pluck omc1 pos=3.45732E11 axes="RA,Dec" method=lin out=peakplane

This example extracts a plane from omc1 at frequency 3.45732E11 Hz using linear interpolation and stores it in NDF peakplane.

Notes:

In Interface or File modes all positions should be supplied in the current co-ordinate Frame of the NDF. A description of the co-ordinate Frame being used is given if Parameter DESCRIBE is set to a TRUE value. Application WCSFRAME can be used to change the current co-ordinate Frame of the NDF before running this application if required.
The output NDF has the same dimensionality as the input NDF, although the axes with fixed co-ordinates (those not specified by the AXES parameter) are degenerate, having bounds of 1:1. The retention of these insignificant axes enables the co-ordinates of where the slice originated to be recorded. Such fixed co-ordinates may be examined with say NDFTRACE. NDFCOPY may be used to trim the degenerate axes if their presence prevents some old non-KAPPA tasks from operating.
In Catalogue or File modes the table file need only contain columns supplying the fixed positions. In this case the co-ordinates along the retained axes are deemed to be independent, that is they do not affect the shifts required of the other axes. In practice this assumption only affects File mode, as catalogues made with CURSOR or LISTMAKE will contain WCS information.
In Interface mode representaive co-ordinates along retained axes are the midpoints of the bounds of an array that would contain the resampled copy of the whole input array.

Related Applications

KAPPA: NDFCOPY, REGRID.

Implementation Status:

The LABEL, UNITS, and HISTORY components, and all extensions are propagated. TITLE is controlled by the TITLE parameter. DATA, VARIANCE, AXIS, and WCS are propagated after appropriate modification. The QUALITY component is not propagated.
The processing of bad pixels and automatic quality masking are supported.
All non-complex numeric data types can be handled.
The minimum number of dimensions in the input NDF is two.
Processing a group of input NDFs is not supported unless CONTAINER=TRUE or when only one output NDF is created per input file.

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