Splitting out Calibrated UV data (split and mstransform)
The split task selects a subset of data from a MeasurementSet and creates a new MS with only those selected data. All of the usual selection criteria can be applied (field, spectral window, antenna, time range, etc.). Additionally the user can choose to select only a single column of data (typically CORRECTED); the user may also elect to export all data columns (DATA, MODEL, CORRECTED, FLOAT_DATA). If only a single column is selected, it will appear as the DATA column in the output MS, unless the input datacolumn is set to FLOAT_DATA. In this case the output column will also be FLOAT_DATA. This suite of capabilities is of great utility for creating smaller MeasurementSets for imaging and further analysis. It is also helpful in many circumstances to facilitate self-calibration, since the gaincal task operates from the DATA column.
The top-level inputs of split are:
split :: Create a visibility subset from an existing visibility set
vis = '' # Name of input MeasurementSet or Multi-MS
outputvis = '' # Name of output MeasurementSet or Multi-MS
keepmms = True # If the input is a Multi-MS the output will also be a Multi-MS
field = '' # Select field using ID(s) or name(s)
spw = '' # Select spectral window/channels
scan = '' # Select data by scan numbers
antenna = '' # Select data based on antenna/baseline
correlation = '' # Correlation: '' ==> all, correlation='XX,YY'
timerange = '' # Select data by time range
intent = '' # Select data by scan intent.
array = '' # Select (sub)array by array ID number(s)
uvrange = '' # Select data bt baseline length
observation = '' # Select data by observation ID(s).
feed = '' # Multi-feed numbers: Not yet implemented.
datacolumn = 'corrected' # Which data column(s) to process
keepflags = True # Keep *completely flagged rows* instead of dropping them
width = 1 # Number of channels to average to form one output channel
timebin = '0s' # Bin width for time averaging
Usually you will run split with datacolumn=’corrected’ as previous operations (e.g. applycal) will have placed the calibrated data in the CORRECTED_DATA column of the MS. This will produce a new MS with this CORRECTED_DATA in its DATA column. The modes available in datacolumn are:
corrected
data
model
data,model,corrected
float_data
lag_data
float_data,data
lag_data,data
all
#float_data is used for single dish processing
For example, to split out 46 channels (5-50) from spw 1 of our NGC5921 calibrated dataset:
split(vis='ngc5921.usecase.ms',
outputvis='ngc5921.split.ms',
field='2', # Output NGC5921 data (field 2)
spw='0:5~50', # Select 46 chans from spw 0
datacolumn='corrected') # Take the calibrated data column
Starting in CASA 4.6.0, split2 has been renamed to split and became the default in CASA. The previous implementation of split is still available under the name oldsplit. The interface of both implementations is the same, but the new split uses the MSTransform framework underneath. See the "Manipulating Visibilities with MSTransform" chapter for detailed information on mstransform.