NRAO Home  >  Green Bank  |  Wiki Topic:    GB > Data > SoftwareReportCentral_ReleaseNotes > GbtFitsMonitorReleaseNotes5_1

Changes | Index | Contents | Search | Statistics | Jump to Topic

Release Notes for GFM Version 5.1 - Released on February 16, 2005

New Features

General

• GFM uses the value recorded in the Antenna FITS file for track beam. This cannot be overridden by the user.
• GFM has a status bar across the bottom of the plotting panel which contains the receiver name, the feeds used in data acquisition, the processing strategy currently being employed to reduce the data in GFM, and the polarization(s) currently being plotted. Here is a picture of GFM with the new status bar.
• GFM uses the strategies described in GbtFitsMonitorBeamSwitching in order to process continuum observations. GbtFitsMonitorBeamSwitching contains may improvements for dual-beam receiver data processing in GFM.
• GFM will always report local pointing/focus correction values if at all possible.
• GFM now handles short focus scans where there is little or no baseline present.
• GFM handles the Ka Band receiver just as any other receiver. It is no longer a special case.
• GFM presents a dialog to the user upon startup which gives the user the option to go online and make updates to the telescope. This is the same dialog that is (and was) accessed via "File->Work Online". This feature is meant to remind the user that GFM must be in online mode when observing.
• GFM now consults the security gateway before making updates to the local pointing/focus corrections.

Fitting Acceptance Criteria

• GFM recognizes the following fitting acceptance criterion only when in on-line mode AND making updates to the telescope:
  • Do not apply corrections: Local pointing/focus corrections are never applied, even when the fit is good.
  • Automatically accept good fits, automatically reject bad fits: This strategy would be appropriate for an automated all-sky pointing run, where we would wish a queue of observations to execute without intervention, but not to have failed fits accepted.
  • Automatically accept good fits, interactively accept bad fits: This strategy would be appropriate for interactive operation, allowing the observer to make their own judgement for observations which failed to pass the heuristics.
  • Interactively accept good and bad fits: This strategy would be appropriate for a conscientious interactive observer.
  • Accept all automatically: Local pointing/focus corrections are always applied, even when the fit is bad.
• GFM uses the "Automatically accept good fits, automatically reject bad fits" criteria as the default upon initialization.
• The user may change fitting acceptance criteria by accessing the Options menu via Tools->Options and selecting the "Fitting Acceptance Criteria" tab. This options dialog is available only to the Pointing and Focus plugins. Please note that the values are set independently in each plugin. Therefore, the Pointing and Focus plugins can have different option values.

Heuristics

• GFM allows the observer to switch between "standard", "relaxed", and "user-defined" heuristics. An explaination of what heuristics are available and their "standard" and "relaxed" values are in GbtFitsMonitorHeuristics. The "standard" and "relaxed" heuristic values are predefined and cannot be changed by the user. The "user-defined" heuristic values can be specified in the user's .sparrow file under the [GfmRelaxedHeuristics] section. Here is an example of how a [GFMRelaxedHeuristic] section might look:

[GfmUserDefinedHeuristics]
ApplyMedianFilter:   Initial
MedianFilterWidth:   6
PeakBaselineOrder:   3
DBPeakBaselineOrder: 3
FocusBaselineOrder:  3
BaselineRegion:      1.33
GaussFittingRegion:  1.0
MinBaselineLength:   0.2
MinFocusFitFWHM:     0.5
DualBeamGaussian:    1.2
FittedWidthTest:     0.5
FittedOffsetTest:    3.0
BothScansPassTest:   False
RelativeHeightTest:  0.5
RelativeWidthTest:   0.5
RelativeOffsetTest:  0.5

• GFM uses "standard" heuristics as the default upon initialization.
• The user may change the heuristics employed by GFM by accessing the Options menu via Tools->Options and selecting the "Heuristics" tab. This options dialog is available only to the Pointing and Focus plugins. Please note that the values are set independently in each plugin. Therefore, the Pointing and Focus plugins can have different option values.

Data Processing Options

• The user may change the data processing strategy and/or polarizations used by GFM by accessing the Options menu via Tools->Options and selecting the "Data Processing" tab. This options dialog is available only to the Pointing and Focus plugins. Please note that the values are set independently in each plugin. Therefore, the Pointing and Focus plugins can have different option values.