[fitsbits] Funtools/XPA public release

[Eric Mandel]

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		    Funtools: minimal buy-in FITS support
		 	 Public Release 1.2.0
		
		    XPA: minimal buy-in messaging
		 	 Patch Release 2.1.4

		            24 March 2003

	                 SAO/HEAD R&D Group
		    http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord


Summary
-------

We are pleased to announce the availability of new public releases of
Funtools (1.2.0) and XPA (2.1.4).  More information about these
packages (including download links) is available at our Web site:

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord

Funtools Description
--------------------

Funtools, is a "minimal buy-in" FITS library and utility package from
the SAO/HEAD R&D group.  The Funtools library provides simplified
access to FITS images and binary tables, as well as to raw array and
binary event lists. The Funtools utilities provide high-level support
for processing astronomical data.

The main goal of the Funtools project has been to develop a minimal buy-in
FITS library for researchers who are occasional (but serious) coders.  In
this case, "minimal buy-in" means "easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to
re-learn next month". We have tried to achieve this goal by emphasizing two
essential capabilities.  The first is the ability to develop FITS programs
without knowing much about FITS, i.e., without having to deal with the
arcane rules for generating a properly formatted FITS file.  The second is
to support the use of already-familiar C/Unix facilities, especially C
structs and Unix stdio. Taken together, these two capabilities should allow
researchers to leverage their existing programming expertise while
minimizing the need to learn new and complex coding rules.

The most important new feature in this release is the addition of
several new regions for event and image filtering. In particular, we
added the following accelerators to region filtering:

shape:    arguments:
-----	  ---------
BOX	  xcenter ycenter xw1 yh1 xw2 yh2 ... xwn yhn (angle)
BOX	  xcenter ycenter xwlo yhin xwout yhhi n=[number] (angle)
CIRCLE	  xcenter ycenter r1 r2 ... rn              # same as annulus
CIRCLE	  xcenter ycenter rinner router n=[number]  # same as annulus
ELLIPSE	  xcenter ycenter xw1 yh1 xw2 yh2 ... xwn yhn (angle)
ELLIPSE	  xcenter ycenter xwlo yhin xwout yhhi n=[number] (angle)

We also added the following new pandas (Pie AND Annulus) to region filtering:

shape:    arguments:
-----	  ---------
CPANDA	  xcen ycen ang1 ang2 nang irad orad nrad               # same as panda
BPANDA	  xcen ycen ang1 ang2 nang ixlo iylo ixhi iyhi nrad (ang) # box
EPANDA	  xcen ycen ang1 ang2 nang ixlo iylo ixhi iyhi nrad (ang) # ellipse

These new composite regions are especially useful in programs such as
funcnts, which counts photons in each separate region using only a single
pass through the data. For more information about regions, see:

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/funtools/regions.html

Other new features in this release include:

* Added support for filtering images using simple FITS image masks,
  i.e. 8-bit or 16-bit FITS images where the value of a pixel is the
  region id number for that pixel.

* Added support for sorting binary tables by column name using:
  funtable -s "col1 col2 ... coln ...".

* Added support for reading gzip'ed files via stdin.

For a list of changes in this release, see:

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/funtools/changelog.html

XPA Description
---------------

The XPA messaging system provides seamless communication between many
kinds of Unix programs, including X programs and Tcl/Tk programs.  It
also provides an easy way for users to communicate with these
XPA-enabled programs by executing XPA client commands in the shell or
by utilizing such commands in scripts.  Because XPA works both at the
programming level and the shell level, it is a powerful tool for
unifying any analysis environment: users and programmers have great
flexibility in choosing the best level or levels at which to access
XPA services, and client access can be extended or modified at any time.

A program such as DS9 becomes an XPA-enabled server by defining named
points of public access through which data and commands can be
exchanged with other client programs (and users).  Using standard TCP
sockets as a transport mechanism, XPA supports both single-point and
broadcast messaging to and from these servers.  It supports direct
communication between XPA clients and servers, or indirect communication
via an intermediate message bus emulation program. Host-based access
control is implemented, as is as the ability to communicate with XPA
servers across a network.

This is a minor patch release of XPA.  XPA developers are encouraged
to upgrade soon, but users of 2.x client programs (xpaset, xpaget, etc.)
can upgrade at their convenience.

New features in this release include:

* The initial connection from an XPA server to xpans now is controlled
  by a timeout (default 10 sec., based on the XPA_CONNECT_TIMEOUT
  variable). This will prevent hangs on connect() if the network
  is not configured correctly.

* Fixed a rare race condition when an XPA server callback performed its
  own XPAGet or XPASet call to another XPA server.

* Made inet method unique, even when hosts are behind a firewall using
  the same ports (on different local machines).

For a list of changes in this and previous patch releases, see:

        http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/xpa/changelog.html

Platforms and Availability
--------------------------

XPA and Funtools both consist of a library and a set of user programs.
Therefore, they are most appropriately built from source.  They have
been ported to Solaris, Linux, LinuxPPC, SGI, Alpha OSF1, Mac OSX (darwin)
and Windows 95/98/NT/2000. Once the source code tar file is retrieved,
XPA or Funtools can be built and installed easily using standard commands:

	./configure --prefix=<installdir> 	# configuration
	make					# build the software
	make install				# install in <installdir>

Both packages are available for download from our Web site:

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord

Alternatively, they can be retrieved directly via anonymous ftp from
sao-ftp.harvard.edu in the pub/rd directory.

Acknowledgments
----------------

Work on these projects was performed with support from the Chandra
X-ray Science Center (NAS8-39073), the Chandra High Resolution Camera
(NAS8-38248), and the Chandra Telescope Scientist (NAG8-1607).

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---------------------------------------------------

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						Eric Mandel
						eric at cfa.harvard.edu

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