• The starting point for GBTIDL documentation, bug reporting and tracking, and discussion is here: http://gbtidl.sourceforge.net/

• The starting point for GBTIDL documentation, bug reporting and tracking, and discussion is here: http://gbtidl.nrao.edu/

• You can do this on the GBTIDL web site. Our on-line registration form was apparently not working properly for an unknown amount of time, so even if you think you are already registered, please re-register when you download version 2.0.

• You can do this on the GBTIDL web site. Our on-line registration form was apparently not working properly for an unknown amount of time, so even if you think you are already registered, please re-register when you download version 2.0.

• To obtain GBTIDL, download the files here

• To obtain GBTIDL, download the files here

GBTIDL Release Notes Version 2.0

GBTIDL Release Notes Version 2.0

Running GBTIDL in Green Bank or Charlottesville:

Running GBTIDL in Green Bank, Socorro, or Charlottesville:

Register as a GBTIDL user

• You can do this on the GBTIDL web site. Our on-line registration form was apparently not working properly for an unknown amount of time, so even if you think you are already registered, please re-register when you download version 2.0.

• Tim Robishaw has contributed 3 new modules. Tim uses the DOC_LIBRARY syntax to document his code . This is a more common documentation syntax than that used by idldoc, which is what gbtidl uses. The drawback is that these routines do not appear in our online reference manual. Use Tim's DOC_LIBRARY wrapper, "doc" to view the documentation for these routines from inside IDL. For example: doc, "find_gbt_polcal".
  • find_gbt_polcal - To plot the parallactic angle as a function of LST for polarization calibrators obseved at the GBT.
  • parangle - function that returns the parallactic angle of a source in degrees.
  • doc - a wrapper for DOC_LIBRARY.

• • The crosshair, histogram, toggleovers, and zline commands, which act as toggles, now also take /on and /off keywords so that their state can be set explicitly.

• Using the /keepints keyword in the calibration routines (getfs, getps, etc) is now significantly faster.

• The Units field is now properly saved when using keep.
• Average Antenna positions now take into account the possibility of wrap around values in Sdfits.

• • There are 5 new procedure related to flagging: flag, flagrec. listflags, listids, and unflag

• • There are 5 new procedures related to flagging: flag, flagrec. listflags, listids, and unflag

• There is a new alternative way to add selected data records to the stack (an alternative to select. A set of selection parameter values is kept in the !g structure. These are used by find to add records that match the criteria to the stack. Individual parameters are set using setfind, cleared using clearfind, and listed using listfind.

• There is a new alternative way to add selected data records to the stack (an alternative to select). A set of selection parameter values is kept in the !g structure. These are used by find to add records that match the criteria to the stack. Individual parameters are set using setfind, cleared using clearfind, and listed using listfind.

• ginterp : Uses the IDL INTERPOL function to interpolated across blanked values.

• ginterp : Uses the IDL INTERPOL function to interpolate across blanked values.

• • astack can now return all set elements of the stack. * You can now save any data container using the new dc parameter in keep

• • astack can now return all set elements of the stack.
  • You can now save any data container using the new dc parameter in keep

• Flagging. See the Introduction to Blanking and Flagging in GBTIDL for more details.
  • There are 5 new procedure related to flagging: flag, flagrec. listflags, listids, and unflag
  • Each of the data retrieval procedures (e.g. get, kget, nget, getps, etc) have two new keywords related to flagging: useflag and skipflag. These allow you to selectively use or skip some or all of the flag rules (the default is to apply all flag rules when getting data).
  • Replace remains the primary procedure to blank data already in a data container. Clip can now also blank data instead of replacing data by the clipping level (use the new /blank keyword).
• There is a new alternative way to add selected data records to the stack (an alternative to select. A set of selection parameter values is kept in the !g structure. These are used by find to add records that match the criteria to the stack. Individual parameters are set using setfind, cleared using clearfind, and listed using listfind.
• The calibration code (getfs, getnod, getps, gettp, getsigref) has been substantially rewritten so that more code is shared and the routines are easier to read and understand. This should make it easier for users to use these as templates for routines that satisfy their particular calibration needs.
  • As part of this process, a tcal keyword was added to each of these routines. This allows you to specify a scalar value for the cal temperature (K) to override the value found in the data. Vector Tcal values are not yet supported.
  • getfs now has tsys and smthoff keywords that match the same keywords in the other calibration procedures.
• Duplicate scan numbers can now be handled by the standard data access and calibration routines.
  • scan_info now returns an array of structures, one for each matching scan. You can limit that to a specific file using the file keyword. The total number returned is available through the count keyword. Using the index_start and nrecords fields of the returned structure, you can get the data corresponding to any of the count returned array structures (each is an 'instance' of that scan).
  • The calibration procedures all have 3 new keywords: instance, file, and timestamp. * instance is an integer giving the number that the scan you desire occurs in that data (e.g. 0 is the first occurance, 1 is the next, etc). This is equivalent to the element number that that scan's information appears in the returned scan_info array for the given scan value. * file allows you to limit the search to a particular file * timestamp is a string giving the start time of the scan. It can be used as an alternative to the scan parameter.
• Data container additions (the SDFITS file must be remade using the latest sdfits for these to have meaningful values in them).
  • Weather information: tambient, pressure, humidity added to line and continuum data containers.
  • zerochan added to the line data container - only relevent for GBT spectrometer data.
• gstatus : New procedure to summarize the contants of the !g strucure. Use the /full keyword to see the color settings.
• gmeasure : Find parameters of a galaxy profile. This was moved from the contributed code and standardized to match other similar procedures.
• gmoment : Find moments of the data in the PDC.
• ginterp : Uses the IDL INTERPOL function to interpolated across blanked values.
• Baseline region boxes displayed on the plotter can be made persistent. When you use "setregion" a set of boxes (one for each region) is overlain on the plot showing where the baseline regions are and what the local sigma and mean are within each region. Previously, when you showed something else (e.g. after baseline) then the region boxes would go away. You can now make those persisten by setting !g.regionboxes to 1. The default value of 0 corresponds to the old behavior.
  • Use showregion to show the current region boxes at any time.
  • The plotter now has a "Toggle Region Boxes" item in the "Options" menu that you can turn these boxes on and off.
  • Use the new clearregion to clear all regions (the opposite of setregion).
• lastrec is a function that returns the record number of the last data container read from disk and lastscan returns the scan number of the last data container read from disk.
• The structure returned by scan_info has these new fields: bandwidth, timestamp, file, n_channels, index_start, nrecords.
• Other syntax changes and new keywords
  • A count keyword or parameter has been added to getdata, astack, select, get_scan_numbers, scan_info
  • astack can now return all set elements of the stack. * You can now save any data container using the new dc parameter in keep
  • New idstring keyword in two plotting procedures gbtoplot, vline and their corresponding clear procedures (clearoplots and clearvlines).
  • The show has two new, mutually-exclusive keywords for some control over how much header information is printed on each plot: /smallheader and /noheader
  • Stats has a new /quiet keyword.

• A bug in molecule that caused it to over-run the internal buffer used to hold marked lines has been fixed.
• select now does some type checking on the selection parameter values.

• Suggestions are welcome for higher-level flagging tools to be built on the command line flagging available in this version.

%META:TOPICINFO{author="BobGarwood" date="1144954860" format="1.0" version="1.1"}% %META:TOPICPARENT{name="IDLContents"}%

GBTIDL Release Notes Version 2.0

• GBTIDL Release Notes Version 2.0
  • Introduction
  • Getting Started
  • Running GBTIDL in Green Bank or Charlottesville:
  • Running your own copy of GBTIDL
    • IDL License
    • Download and Installation of GBTIDL
  • New Features
  • Bug Fixes
  • New User Contributed Code
  • Known Issues
  • Future Plans

Introduction

We are pleased to announce the release of GBTIDL, version 2.0. GBTIDL is an interactive package for reduction and analysis of spectral line data taken with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. The package consists of a set of straightforward yet flexible calibration, averaging, and analysis procedures (the "GUIDE layer") modeled after the UniPOPS and CLASS data reduction philosophies, a customized plotter with many built-in visualization features, and Data I/O and toolbox functionality that can be used for more advanced tasks. The entire package is written in IDL.

GBTIDL version 2.0 contains numerous new features and bug fixes, as described in these release notes.

Getting Started

• The starting point for GBTIDL documentation, bug reporting and tracking, and discussion is here: http://gbtidl.sourceforge.net/

Running GBTIDL in Green Bank or Charlottesville:

• At the unix prompt, simply type 'gbtidl'

Running your own copy of GBTIDL

IDL License

• You must have an IDL license to run GBTIDL. IDL version 6.0 and later is supported. If you don't have a license you can run GBTIDL remotely, using the computers in CV or GB. See the GBTIDL homepage for details.

Download and Installation of GBTIDL

• To obtain GBTIDL, download the files here
• Create a directory for the installation and unzip the tar ball:

    mkdir mygbtidl
    mv gbtidl-2.0.tar.gz mygbtidl/.
    cd mygbtidl
    gzip -d gbtidl-2.0.tar.gz
    tar -xvf gbtidl-2.0.tar

• go to the top level directory, 'gbtidl':

    cd gbtidl

• copy 'run_gbtidl' to 'gbtidl':

    cp run_gbtidl gbtidl

• edit the 'gbtidl' script to replace "PLACE_INSTALLATION_DIR_HERE" with the full path to the gbtidl executable script. It should then look something like this:

    export GBT_IDL_DIR=/home/mygbtidl/gbtidl

• start the package by calling the script 'gbtidl':

    ./gbtidl

• You may wish to add the installation directory to your unix path.

New Features

Bug Fixes

New User Contributed Code

Known Issues

Future Plans

• We encourage you to provide feedback. Comments and requests from users of GBTIDL version 2.0 will be incorporated into future versions.

-- BobGarwood - 13 Apr 2006 %META:TOPICMOVED{by="BobGarwood" date="1144955974" from="Data.GbtidlReleaseNotes_2" to="Data.GbtidlReleaseNotes_2_0"}%