NRAO AIPS++ Users Group Meeting - DRAFT MINUTES Date: 2005-12-14 (Wednesday) Time: 1300 MST Video Hub: SOC-conf (CV should call in to Socorro) Rooms: SOC317/CV311 Minutes: Send additions or corrections to smyers 1. NAUG News o general news (Steve) 2. AIPS++/ISD Status Report Standard items: o CASA status (Joe) o stable status (Joe) o defect status (Joe) o development targets (Joe) - See also project office page: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu 3. ALMA Standard items: o ALMA Test 4 plans (Joe, Steve, Debra) - casapy implementation has been slow, so full NAUG testing is delayed until January. Walter is starting testing under glish this week in the meantime. It was noted that the official test datasets (single baselines drawn from previous tests (bima and vla) are too "clean", ie. no significant delays and rates. We are investigating finding a more challenging dataset such as a single VLBA baseline. The test page is not yet complete, should be ready the end of December: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu/ALMA2006.01/ALMA2006.01.html o ALMA development targets (Joe, Steve) - see schedule at http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu 4. EVLA Standard items: o EVLA Test 2 plans (Joe, Steve, Sanjay, Bryan) - when Rick returns (next week) a meeting between Joe, Steve, Bryan, Frazer, Rick, Michael and possibly others (Ed?) will be held to flesh out testing plans and also align development targets (e.g. in imaging). o EVLA development plan & requirements (Steve, Sanjay) - see schedule at http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu 5. Main Event - Presentations and Discussion Items *************************************************************** - Joe McMullin : A demonstration of the Python interface to the CASA toolkit - Part Deux Link to this demo: http://casa.nrao.edu/demo2.shtml Things of note: o casapy starts up a number of default tools (e.g. im for imager) so constructors are not necessary for these tools. Eventually a simple way of launching new tools (like for multiple datasets concurrently) will be available (currently this is possible but more complicated. o on startup you get a list of tools and tasks available o you can invoke "explain" to get help. Note that use of "exp" should be reserved for the exponential function! Also, is this really "inputs" or will it be more like AIPS EXPLAIN? o smaller memory footprint (27M) than aips++, with only +1M for the default tools, 2s startup, fewer memory leaks (still some being sorted out) o as Python is inherently 0-based for array indexing, casa will uniformly use 0-based indexing internally (e.g. channels, antenna indexes, field indexes). o glish records (including return values) are handled as python dictionaries o use of tools from casapy is straightforward, if want to use python scripting see tutorials. To run script, use run -i o matplotlib now being used (instead of pgplot) for "x-y" line plots. viewer is still being ported (will take a while). QUERY: Should simple raster/contour plots be done using matplotlib rather than full viewer? E.g. mapplot in difmap. Plots are publication quality (TeX labels, good annotation, symbol control, output formats, probably CMYK). Can be plotted directly from python interface. There is a Matlab style interactive plotting interface (pylab). By default plots don't update as you add things (to avoid unnecessary work) but upon "show", but there is an interactive mode (see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/interactive.html). o parameter setting will be availble with upcoming Tasking Interface. Currently, as in aips++, parameters must be specified as arguments (or defaulted) at time of function calls. QUERY: Should the parameter setting in the underlying tools be rationalized and allow incremental setting? E.g. all methods "set*" set values for later execution, setting only specified args (with methods for "default*"). Example is imager.setimage (imager.setdata is really a .selectdata method!). Note - this would go along way to making use of the toolkit more like the tasking interface and more intuitive for users. o the Focus Group in March 2006 should have a few key "tasks" to try out (not available for Jan 2006 ALMA test). This should include autoflag as well as imagr and calib -like tasks. Later notes from Joe: "Kumar found the means of turning on and off the interactive mode from *within* the shell using "ion", e.g. > ion > plot([1,2,3,4,5],'bs') > draw > plot([1,2,3,4,5],'--') > draw --- type 'draw' after each plot command to see how things put together interactively. CMYK does not seem to be natively supported in matplotlib though there are a few individuals who have extensions to do this. I expect it will be added relatively soon." *************************************************************** *** Link to CASA page: *** http://casa.nrao.edu/ *** NOTE: this page is a prototype and still contains incomplete *** links. Info on the features described below can be found at: *** http://casa.nrao.edu/gettingstarted.shtml *** *** Link to first demo: *** http://casa.nrao.edu/demo1.shtml *** Link to second demo: *** http://casa.nrao.edu/demo2.shtml *************************************************************** Joe purchased a number of basic python books for the NAUG. These were distributed at the meeting (let him know if we need more). Should check that the AOC Library has copies. Note that these get out of date quickly as Python develops, and the best references are online: *************************************************************** *** PYTHON LINKS http://python.org/ *** *** Tutorial: *** http://python.org/doc/2.4.2/tut/tut.html *** Reference: *** http://python.org/doc/2.4.2/ref/ref.html *** IPython: *** http://ipython.scipy.org/ *** Matplotlib: *** http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/ *** *************************************************************** Future Topics o Flagging (ms) implementation plan (George) o Tasking demo (Joe) o suggestions welcome 6. AIPS++ Developments - see latest targets and info at Project Office: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu/ 7. Upcoming meetings and deadlines: o 2006 Jan 1 ALMA test ALMA2006.01-4 NAUG pre-testing o 2006 Jan 15 ALMA test ALMA2006.01-4 external testing o 2006 Mar Interface Focus/Working Group (ALMA/EVLA) o 2006 ? EVLA Software PDR (followed by CDRs) 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/