Build and Test

Building Instructions

Before trying to build the VIRCAM software, it is important to have CPL and esorex installed on your system. CPL versions 3 and below depend on a package called qfits for its low level image and table I/O. This can be obtained from ftp://ftp.hq.eso.org/pub/qfits . CPL version 4 (due out in the autumn 2007) will have CFITSIO as its image kernel. This is available from http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio . When copying over either of these it is important to note on the CPL web page (http://www.eso.org/observing/cpl/download.html) which version of the FITS packages CPL expects to have. Once the FITS package has been built and installed, you can obtain both CPL and esorex from ftp://ftp.hq.eso.org/pub/cpl .

In what follows we assume that you have qfits/CFITSIO, CPL and esorex installed on your system. The tar file you get from http://casu.ast.cam.ac.uk/surveys-projects/vista/software/vircam_manual/dist/ will be called something like vircam_X.Y.Z.tar.gz, where X.Y.Z represents a version number tag. The tar file will will create a top level directory called vircam_X.Y.Z. So first select a directory where you want this to go and then unpack the distribution:

% cd <path>
% gunzip -c <dir>/vircam-0.5.5.tar.gz | tar -xvf - 

Step into the VIRCAM directory and build the package. You start this by running the included configure script. There are many switches to this script, but the two most important ones in this context are:

• --prefix This is the directory prefix that will be appended to all files when the time comes to install them. This should be something outside of the source tree. When the time comes to run esorex this will be the value of --recipe-dir or of the environment variable ESOREX_PLUGIN_DIR.

• --with-cpl This is the top level directory where CPL has been installed. e.g.

% ./configure --with-cpl=/usr/local --prefix=/home/jim/test/recipes

Then build and install the package with make:

% cd vircam-0.5.5
% make
% make install

Testing

Introduction

The VIRCAM Data Reduction Library provides all of the calibration recipes designed to process VIRCAM data. There are also test recipes that can be used to assess the success of the software build.

Availability

Having followed the vircam installation instructions, you should be able to see a full list of the available recipes. Any recipes descriptions with '[test]' attatched are actually unit test rather than full reduction recipes.

% setenv ESOREX_PLUGIN_DIR /home/jim/test/recipes
% esorex --recipes

     ***** ESO Recipe Execution Tool, version 3.6.1  *****

List of Available Recipes :

  vircam_standard_process  : VIRCAM standard field processing recipe
  vircam_destripe       : VIRCAM destripe correction test recipe [test]
  vircam_getstds        : VIRCAM standard star extraction test recipe [test]
  vircam_reset_combine  : VIRCAM reset combination recipe
  vircam_matchxy        : VIRCAM catalogue matching test recipe [test]
  vircam_imcore         : VIRCAM recipe to extract objects from a frame [test]
  vircam_jitter_microstep_process  : VIRCAM jitter microstep recipe
  vircam_persistence_analyse  : VIRCAM persistence analysis routine
  vircam_lincor         : VIRCAM linearisation test recipe [test]
  vircam_detector_noise : VIRCAM recipe to determine readout noise and gain
  vircam_linearity_analyse  : VIRCAM linearity analysis recipe
  vircam_platesol       : VIRCAM plate solution test recipe [test]
  vircam_crosstalk_analyse  : VIRCAM crosstalk analysis routine
  vircam_dark_current   : VIRCAM recipe to determine detector dark current
  vircam_interleave     : VIRCAM interleaf test recipe [test]
  vircam_defringe       : VIRCAM fringe correction test recipe [test]
  vircam_flatcor        : VIRCAM flat field division test recipe [test]
  vircam_imcombine      : VIRCAM test image combination recipe [test]
  vircam_dark_combine   : VIRCAM dark combination recipe
  vircam_twilight_flat_combine  : VIRCAM twilight combination recipe
  vircam_mkconf         : VIRCAM confidence map test recipe [test]
  vircam_imdither       : VIRCAM jitter test recipe [test]
  vircam_mesostep_analyse  : VIRCAM mesostep analysis recipe
  vircam_dome_flat_combine  : VIRCAM dome flat combination recipe
  vircam_matchstds      : VIRCAM catalogue and standards matching test recipe
                          [test]
  vircam_darkcor        : VIRCAM dark correction test recipe [test]

The basic "man" page for each recipe can be viewed in the standard way e.g.:

% esorex --man-page vircam_reset_combine | less

Test Cascade

In this section we assume that you have set your enviroment variable ESOREX_PLUGIN_DIR to be the installation directory that you specified as the --prefix switch when building the package. This can also be specified on the esorex command line as --recipe-dir or in the file ~/.esorex/esorex.rc as esorex.caller.recipe-dir.

A set of test data can be obtained from Pete. The rest of this section will be filled in with a complete cascade of tests that can be done with the data. I won't write any more now since the test harness hasn't been completed yet.

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