NRAO AIPS++ Users Group Meeting - PRELIMINARY AGENDA

Date: 2003-9-10 (Wednesday)
Time: 1300 MDT
Video Hub: CV-conf
Rooms: SOC317/CV311/GB241/TUCN505

AIPS++ Threat Level is: Yellow = Elevated
  [We have some breathing space, but the pressure is on.]

Agenda:

1. NAUG News
   o The highest priority is for pre-testing of ALMA deliverables for
     Release 1.0 (Oct03).  An action item for Joe and me is to get the 
     testing targets for September ready asap.

     *Action Item: There are some things ready to test and we (Joe and Steve)
      will get these to testers when Steve returns from GB.

2. AIPS++/ISD Status Report (Joe)
   o Benchmarking - the target is to be within a factor of 2 of equivalent
     packages (AIPS & GILDAS) by R1.1.  Sanjay, George, Kumar and the team have been making
     good progress.  Even more improvements have been made since last meeting, see the
     ASAC report below, and Sanjay's discussion item #5 below.

   o Discussions have continued with the former consortium partner ATNF
     regarding mutual development of AIPS++.  We are close to an agreement.

   o The new stable snapshot is v1.9 Build 047, see
     http://aips2.nrao.edu/docs/reference/updates.html
     (Note - we have uprev'd from 1.8 to 1.9.)

     There is also a new stable v1.9 b075 as of Tuesday 26 Aug.

3. ALMA (Kumar, Joe, Debra, Brian)
   o The ALMA Science Advisory Committee (ASAC) was held this past weekend in 
     Hamilton, Ontario with Debra and Brian attending.  We will try to get a
     report from them on the happenings there and at the ANASAC held earlier.
     By all accounts, our performance improvements have been very well recieved
     even by the AIPS++ skeptics, and also it looks like we wont have to hit
     a moving target this year, so the team can get back to development soon.

4. EVLA (George, Steve, Joe)
   o The EVLA Advisory Committee meeting was held this Monday/Tuesday Sep 8-9 in
     Socorro, Joe and Bryan will summarize the deliberations there.  Joe presented
     the AIPS++ reorganization and development plans (e.g. ALMA driven development)
     there.

5. Main Event - Presentations and Discussion Items
   o Imager performance - Sanjay and Kumar will lead a discussion of the improvements
     made to imager, and where we can go from here (e.g. how close can we get to
     MIRIAD and should we?).

     Also, as part of this:

   o FFTs in AIPS++ - Sanjay will lead a discussion of an issue regarding FFTs
     for imaging.  In particular "With current changes, the AIPS++ CS-Clean is
     less than a factor of 2 slower than AIPS.  The difference now is largely
     coming from our use of full polarization formulation of the emission which
     requires use of Complex->Complex FFTs at places where a specialization
     can use Real->Complex FFTs.  Whether we want to make this specialization
     now is a scientific discussion and needs to be discussed more seriously."

   o Upcoming discussion items:

     - Visualization (Brisken, 24Sep?)

6. AIPS++ Developments (Joe, Kumar, George, David, Sanjay)
   o Project Office - see latest targets and info at:
     http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu/

   o Specific development items (from minutes of last 2 meetings):

     *Viewer - Dave King has added more MS editing functionality, such as
      statistical editing (RMS, deviation vs. mean), zoom fixes, and prototype
      image blinking.  See the viewer docs for viewerdisplaypanel option
      records: http://aips2.nrao.edu/docs/user/Display/node182.html e.g. under
      "MS and Visibility selection" for RMS and running mean difference.
      Blinking demo was completed, and a usable version is forthcoming
      shortly.

     *uv-plane continuum subtraction (ms.uvlsf) - George has checked in
      this new function.  See the daily URM entry for ms.uvlsf, currently
      http://aips2.nrao.edu/daily/docs/user/General/node355.html

     *image-plane continuum subtraction (image.continuumsub) - George has
      checked this in, see the daily URM entry for image.continuumsub, 
      currently
      http://aips2.nrao.edu/daily/docs/user/General/node44.html

     *calibrater scan-based time gridding (calibrater.setsolve) - George 
      has added this capability to calibrater, along with some critical
      performance improvements.  From the URM:

      "The solution interval t, if > 0.0, specifies the duration of data used
      for each calibration solution. In general, the solution intervals are 
      measured from the beginning of data segments for each field and spectral
      window. If t is large enough, a single solution may encompass data from
      more than one scan (as long as the field and spectral window are the
      same). The solution interval represents a coherence time, not an
      integration time w.r.t. gaps in the time series; in effect, such gaps
      are ignored, and the lastest time in the solution is never more than t
      seconds after the earliest time. If t = 0.0, one solution per scan will
      be performed and delivered, regardless of the (variable) scan 
      durations." 

      See the daily URM entry for calibrater.setsolve, currently
      http://aips2.nrao.edu/daily/docs/user/SynthesisRef/node24.html

   Comments on any of these are welcome.

7. Upcoming meetings and deadlines:
   o 2003 Oct 1          ALMA Release 1.0
   o 2004 Apr 1          ALMA Release 1.1
   o 2004 Jun 1          ALMA CDR2 = Judgement Day!

   The agendas for past NAUG meetings are archived at:
   http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/aips++/agenda/

   The minutes for past NAUG meetings are archived at:
   http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/aips++/minutes/