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Beta 2 Release FAQ

Beta 2 Cookbook

Getting Started

 

Toolkit Reference Manual

CASA Training

 

Previous Releases:

 		CASA Beta Release Notes:

Valid for Beta patch 2.0 (CASA Version 2.0 Rev 5653, 07-Jul-2008) and later. The most recent updates are: Beta Patch 2.2 for Linux (CASA Version 2.0 Rev 5655, 26-Aug-2008) and Beta Patch 2.1 for MacOSX (CASA Version 2.0 Rev 5654, 28-Jul-2008 for MacOSX).

Fixes in Beta Patch 2.2

The updated Beta Release Patch 2.2 for Linux includes the following fixes to Patch 2.1:

Fixes in Beta Patch 2.1

The updated Beta Release Patch 2.1 includes the following fixes to Patch 2.0:

What's New in Beta Patch 2.0

There are a number of new and/or improved features available in Patch 2.0:

  • Support for additional Linux architectures (see below), including: SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian;
  • Significant interface changes (see Cookbook Chapter 1), including:
    • tasks no longer set global variables (e.g. on execution),
    • global CASA parameters are not used when tasks are called with arguments (e.g. plotxy('ngc5921.ms')), only when invoked with go or without arguments (e.g. plotxy()),
    • removal of output parameters from those that used them (imhead, imstat, sdstat), these now use return values, e.g. xstat=imstat();
  • Improvements to Data I/O tasks and data handling (see Cookbook Chapter 2), including:
    • Improvements in the ASDM filler importasdm (e.g. updated to latest ASDM format and code),
    • ATA, BIMA, and SMA observatory (e.g. primary beam) info in system repository;
  • Improvements to plotxy (see Cookbook Chapter 3), including:
    • Various bugs fixes (e.g. bogus points no longer plotted, showflags, antenna iteration, some of the averaging issues),
    • Can now plot xaxis='velocity',
    • Vector averaging across baselines (crossbls=T);
  • Improvements to Synthesis Calibration tasks (see Cookbook Chapter 4), including:
    • Addition of a combine parameter to many calibration tasks, allowing calibration solutions to cross scan, field and spw boundaries (not currently used for GSPLINE and BPOLY solutions);
    • The behavior of the solint parameter has changed such that solint=0 gives per-integration solutions (used to give per-scan solutions). It now also takes a string, which can be a time quantity or the special values 'inf' (all times) or 'int' (per integration). To get scan-based solutions, set solint='inf' and combine='' (to not cross scans). WARNING: your scripts from Patch1 and earlier may need to be changed.
    • The uvcontsub task now uses the new solint parameter changes (see above).
  • Improvements to Synthesis Imaging tasks (see Cookbook Chapter 5), including:
    • Major rework of clean task, which now contains the functionality of mosaic and invert as well (see in-line help clean for parameters and options),
    • clean now produces .psf and .flux images by default,
    • Interactive cleaning improved (e.g more values persistent, default is to apply the mask to the current plane instead of not all),
    • The PSF at the center of the nearest field to the phase center is now used,
    • Bug in mosaic flux scaling when a PB was not at the phase center was fixed,
    • Output image is now fully masked outside the PB cutoff;
  • Additions and improvements to Image Analysis tasks (see Cookbook Chapter 6), including:
    • new task imfit - fit a single Gaussian to an image;
    • improved imhead - list option now returns a record;
    • improved immath - options for spectral index, intensity and angle;
    • the Lattice Expression Language (LEL) in the image analysis tasks and tools is now fully 0-based, while previously it was partly 1-based. This is most noticeable in the immoments task with the planes parameter, and in using the INDEXIN LEL function;
  • Viewer improvements (see Cookbook Chapter 7), including:
    • Pixel and World coordinates always both displayed in the Position Tracking panel,
    • The abiity for MS raster plotting to sort baselines by baseline length,
    • "On the fly" image mathematics are available in the Open panel as a box for LEL. This can be used to avoid running immath and leaving lots of temporary images on disk),
    • The ability to write the single most recent polygon/box region to a file. for easier use in image tasks (e.g. immath)
  • Single dish improvements (see Cookbook Appendix A), including:
    • polarization support, parameter consistency;
  • An improved ALMA simulator almasimmos (see Cookbook Appendix B), and ALMA Simulator Wiki), including:
    • much better display, noise generation;
  • Other task improvements, including:
    • concat now makes new dataset, takes in many input datasets,
    • listcal and listvis improvements (e.g. crosses channels and spectral windows, lists all bandpass channels),
    • new plotter available in browsetable;
  • more comprehensive history information from task processing included in MS history table;
  • Toolkit documentation in the User Reference Manual is in the process of being re-edited and brought up to date, (e.g. Glish references removed from most pages);
  • sundry bug fixes.

Supported Platforms

Note that the Beta Release is only available for a limited number of supported platforms and OS:

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5 (32 and 64 bit)
  • Red Hat Fedora Core 6, 7 and 8 (32 bit only)
  • Macintosh OSX (for Intel Macs, versions 10.4.7 and later, 32 bit only)
  • openSuSE 10.0, 11.0 (32 and 64 bit)
  • Ubuntu 8.0.4 (32 and 64 bit)
  • Debian 4.0 (32 and 64 bit)

Science Scope

The Beta Release is aimed at supporting basic interferometric data reduction. It will support the import of data in a limited number of formats, and a reasonably full set of processing capabilities for only a limited number of observing modes. These are:

For more information, see the Beta Release Known Issues and FAQ page.

Functionality
  • A set of tasks are available for basic reduction/analysis needs: 
    Available tasks: 

Import/Export    Information  Data Editing  Display/Plot
-------------    -----------  ------------  ------------
importvla        listcal      flagautocorr  clearplot
(importasdm)     listhistory  flagdata      plotants 
importfits       listobs      flagmanager   plotcal
importuvfits     listvis      plotxy        plotxy
exportfits       imhead                     viewer
exportuvfits     imstat

Calibration      Imaging      Modelling     Utility
-----------      -------      ---------     -------
accum            clean        setjy         help task
applycal         deconvolve   uvcontsub     help par.parameter
bandpass         feather      uvmodelfit    taskhelp
(blcal)          ft                         tasklist
gaincal          invert                     browsetable
fluxscale        makemask                   clearplot
(fringecal)      mosaic                     clearstat
clearcal                                    concat
listcal                                     filecatalog
smoothcal                                   startup
polcal                                      split
hanningsmooth                                  
                                                 

Image Analysis   Simulation   Single Dish
--------------   ----------   -----------
imcontsub        (almasimmos) sdaverage
imhead                        sdbaseline
immath                        sdcal
immoments                     sdcoadd
imregrid                      sdfit
imstat                        sdflag
specfit                       sdlist
                              sdplot
                              sdsave
                              sdscale
                              sdsmooth
                              sdsdtat
  • accum : Accumulate incremental calibration solutions into a calibration table
  • almasimmos : ALMA mosaic simulation task (prototype):
  • applycal : Apply calibrations solutions(s) to data
  • bandpass : Calculates a bandpass calibration solution
  • blcal : Calculate a baseline-based calibration solution (gain or bandpass)
  • browsetable : Browse a table (MS, calibration table, image)
  • clean : Deconvolve an image with selected algorithm
  • clearcal : Re-initializes the calibration for a visibility data set
  • clearplot : Clear the matplotlib plotter and all layers
  • clearstat : Clear all read/write locks
  • concat : Concatenate two visibility data sets.
  • deconvolve : Image based deconvolver
  • exportfits : Convert a CASA image to a FITS file
  • exportuvfits : Convert a CASA visibility data set to a UVFITS file:
  • feather : Feathering: Combine two images using the Fourier Addition
  • find : Find string in tasks, task names, parameter names:
  • flagautocorr : Flag autocorrelations
  • flagdata : All purpose flagging task based on selections
  • flagmanager : Enable list, save, restore and delete flag version files.
  • fluxscale : Bootstrap the flux density scale from standard calibrators
  • fringecal : Calculate a baseline-based fringe-fitting solution (phase, delay, delay-rate); Note: currently this is limited to delays and delay-rates in the central ambiguity
  • ft : Insert a source model into the MODEL_DATA column of a visibility set:
  • gaincal : Determine temporal gains from calibrator observations
  • hanningsmooth : Hanning smooth frequency channel data to remove Gibbs ringing
  • imcontsub : Subtracts specified continuum channels from a spectral line data set
  • imfit : Fit One Elliptical Gaussian Component on an image region(s)
  • imhead : List, get and put image header parameters
  • immath : Perform math operations on images
  • immoments : Compute moments from an image
  • importasdm : Convert an ALMA Science Data Model observation into a CASA visibility file
  • importfits : Convert an image FITS file into a CASA image
  • importuvfits : Convert a UVFITS file to a CASA visibility data set
  • importvla : Import VLA archive file(s) to a measurement set
  • imregrid : regrid an image onto a template image
  • imstat : Displays statistical information from an image or image region
  • listcal : List calibrated antenna gain solutions
  • listhistory : List the processing history of a dataset:
  • listobs : List data set summary in the logger
  • listvis : List measurement set visibilities.
  • makemask : Derive a mask image from a cleanbox blc, trc regions
  • plotants : Plot the antenna distribution in the local reference frame:
  • plotcal : An all-purpose plotter for calibration results
  • plotxy :
  • polcal : Determine instrumental polarization calibrations
  • sdaverage : ASAP SD task: do data selection, calibration, and averaging
  • sdbaseline : ASAP SD task: fit/remove a spectral baseline
  • sdcal : ASAP SD task: do sdaverage, sdsmooth, and sdbaseline in one task
  • sdcoadd : ASAP SD task: coadd multiple scantables into one
  • sdfit : ASAP SD task: fit a spectral line
  • sdflag : ASAP SD spectral flagging task
  • sdlist : ASAP SD task: list summary of single dish data
  • sdplot : ASAP SD plotting task
  • sdsave : ASAP SD task: save the sd spectra in various format
  • sdscale : ASAP SD task: scale the sd spectra
  • sdsmooth : ASAP SD task: do smoothing of spectra
  • sdstat : ASAP SD task: list statistics of spectral region
  • setjy :
  • smoothcal : Smooth calibration solution(s) derived from one or more sources:
  • specfit : Fit 1-dimentional profile(s) or polynomial(s) to an image or image region
  • split :
  • uvcontsub : Continuum fitting and subtraction in the uv plane
  • uvmodelfit : Fit a single component source model to the uv data
  • uvsub : Subtract/add model from/to the corrected visibility data.
  • viewer : View an image or visibility data set:
  • widefield : Wide-field imaging and deconvolution with selected algorithm

Please send any comments or questions about CASA to casa-request@nrao.edu

Copyright © 1995-2007 Associated Universities Inc., Washington, D.C.

This code is available under the terms of the GNU General Public Lincense

Modified on Wednesday, 24-Jun-2009 10:08:18 MDT