source: trunk/CHANGES @ 438

Last change on this file since 438 was 438, checked in by MatthewWhiting, 16 years ago

Enabled the user to specify desired decimal precisions for the flux, velocity and SNR columns via new input parameters precFlux, precVel and precSNR (ticket #34).

File size: 20.2 KB
Line 
1Duchamp version 1.1.5 (2008/03/20)
2----------------------------------
3
4Bug fixes:
5* A major bug was discovered in the calculation of integrated
6  fluxes. The flux was incorrectly being weighted by the spatial size
7  of the detection, resulting in a (often considerable) overestimation
8  of the integrated flux. This has been corrected, as has the beam
9  size (which was out by a factor of 1/ln(2)).
10
11
12Duchamp version 1.1.4 (2008/02/15)
13----------------------------------
14
15Most of the changes incorporated in this update result from ASKAP code
16development (that makes use of some of the Duchamp functionality),
17but do not actually affect the way Duchamp runs (other than, in a
18couple of cases, making it a bit faster). Changes that are
19relevant for regular users of Duchamp are as follows:
20
21* A new option has been made available (thanks to Mary Putman et al
22  for the suggestion!) to save the spectra of all detected objects in
23  a text file. This has the form of one column for the spectral
24  coordinates and one column of fluxes for each object. This is
25  enabled by the input parameters flagTextSpectra and spectraTextFile.
26
27* Slight changes to the output include he formatting of the way the
28  detected objects are written to the log file. This meant the
29  verification files were also updated. Also the cube statistics are
30  not printed to the results file if a user threshold is specified (as
31  they are not calculated!).
32
33* The determination of beam size has been made more reliable, as has
34  the BUNIT determination.
35
36* Fixed a bug that meant source merging was not done for 2D images
37  (not usually a problem, as the source-finding takes care of this,
38  but came up in parallelisation development).
39
40Duchamp version 1.1.3 (2008/01/08)
41----------------------------------
42
43A minor update that just improves the build process. The location of
44the wcslib include files was not specified correctly, so that some
45machines were unable to find them. The configure script has been fixed
46so that the compilation should work in all cases.
47
48Some minor changes have also been made to the code in the PixelMap
49directory, and to param.cc, to fix warnings or errors that may appear
50in compilation.
51
52However, there are no changes to the actual workings of the code in
53this minor version, so if you have a working version of Duchamp 1.1.2
54there is probably no reason to update.
55
56Duchamp version 1.1.2 (2007/12/07)
57----------------------------------
58
59Compilation:
60
61* The compilation had problems working correctly when the cfitsio and
62  wcs libraries were not in standard locations. The configure script
63  has been tweaked to make sure the libraries are found.
64
65* Problems with compiling in the absence of pgplot have been fixed,
66  and it should now compile fine.
67
68* Improved the configure script for use with Mac OS X and gfortran.
69
70
71Bugfixing:
72
73* A major problem with the text-based output was fixed. The widths of
74  the columns were not being calculated correctly, and were running
75  together. This should no longer be the case.
76
77* There was a bug in the way Duchamp interpreted spectral axes,
78  particularly AIPS types such as FELO-HEL, leading to incorrect
79  scaling of the velocity axis. This has been fixed, so that
80  non-standard types are now dealt with appropriately and the velocity
81  scaling should be accurate.
82
83* Another bug meant the beam correction was always applied to the
84  integrated spectra, regardless of whether the flux units involved
85  the beam (e.g. Jy/beam). This has been fixed. Note that the values
86  of the integrated flux presented in the results table were always
87  calculated correctly.
88
89* Other minor changes to improve the speed and efficiency, especially
90  of the merging code.
91
92New user parameters:
93
94* There is now the possibility to save a FITS file that contains a
95  mask array, indicating where the detected objects are. This is
96  governed by the flagOutputMask parameter.
97
98* The header information that is printed at the start of the results
99  file -- that is, the list of parameters, the statistics of the cube,
100  and the number of detections -- can now be written to a separate
101  file. Set the flagSeparateHeader parameter to true or 1 and it will
102  go to the file indicated by the headerFile parameter (the default is
103  duchamp-Results.hdr).
104
105* A "scaleMax" parameter has been added, so that the wavelet
106  reconstruction can include only a specified range of scales (for
107  instance, if one wants to search just for narrow features such as
108  absorption lines).
109
110* A "flagRobustStats" parameter has been added. This allows the user
111  to elect to use robust statistics (median and median absolute
112  deviation from the median) to estimate the noise parameters. If set
113  to false, the mean and standard deviation will be used. The default
114  value is true.
115
116New Feature:
117
118* When Duchamp is run on a 2D image (i.e. with no spectral output), it
119  now produces a postscript file that shows information each
120  individual source plus the image cutout of the source. This is
121  similar to the spectral output file, but without the spectra. The
122  filename is given by the spectraFile parameter.
123
124* Ability to save a FITS file containing a mask array, with pixel
125  values of 1 for pixels in a detected object, and 0 elsewhere.
126
127
128Duchamp version 1.1.1 (2007/07/20)
129------------------------------------
130
131Minor update to the release, with just a few changes:
132
133* The verification script was generating diffs due to differences in
134  the precision of some calculations when done on different machines.
135  One of these was the integrated flux, and this has been corrected so
136  that the same value should appear on all machines.
137  The verification script has also changed so that just the number of
138  sources and their positions are tested, as well as the
139  logfiles. This should avoid the reporting of spurious differences.
140
141* The grey-scale used in the image cutouts (in the spectral plots) has
142  been inverted. This makes it consistent with the scale used in the
143  maps, and hopefully easier to see when printing.
144
145* The configure/make system has been altered to make it easier to
146  install, and to specify different external libraries. In particular,
147  it is now not necessary to have PGPLOT installed on your system to
148  run Duchamp. In the absence of PGPLOT, Duchamp will run as normal,
149  just without any graphical output. Some source code needed to be
150  restructured to make this work. Please read the README file, or the
151  Installation appendix in the User's Guide, for complete details.
152
153* The time of completion is now written to the log file, so that the
154  user can have some idea of how long the program took.
155
156
157Duchamp version 1.1 (2007/05/17)
158------------------------------------
159
160Changes made since the last numbered release:
161
162EFFICIENCY OF EXECUTION:
163
164* Major change to the way detections are stored. They are now recorded
165  via run-length encoding in the x-y plane, and stored as collections
166  of channel-maps. This improves the memory usage and the speed of
167  execution (particularly for routines such as the merging
168  routines). The memory usage has also been improved by changing the
169  way the list of detected objects is stored.
170
171SMOOTHING:
172
173* Addition of ability to spatially smooth the cube before
174  searching. This is done with a Gaussian kernel, the size and shape
175  of which can be specified by the user, using the parameters kernMaj
176  & kernMin (which are the FWHM for the major & minor axes -- if
177  kernMin is not given it is assumed to match kernMaj) and kernPA (the
178  position angle of the major axis).  There is a new parameter
179  smoothType that distinguishes this method from the spectral (Hanning)
180  smoothing already in use.
181
182DETECTIONS:
183
184* Changed the way detection is done -- now only search in 2D images,
185  keeping all detections (ie. no minimum-pixel requirement). This
186  should be the same as doing both the 1D and 2D searches with the
187  minimum pixel requirement in, but simpler. The rejection is done at
188  the end after all the merging and growing has been done. This leads
189  to a larger number of intermediate detections (ie.  the number
190  before merging), which may increase the run-time slightly, although
191  this is offset by the changes to the efficiency (see above).
192
193* Increased the range over which objects can be grown to match the
194  threshSpatial & threshVelocity parameters, as well as rejecting new
195  pixels based on the BLANK and MW tests.
196
197INPUTS:
198
199* There has been a subtle change in the way BLANK pixels are dealt
200  with. To enable trimming of BLANK pixels, users should use the new
201  parameter flagTrim. The parameters flagBlankPix and blankPixVal are
202  no longer accessible via the parameter file -- warning messages are
203  given if they are provided in the parameter file.
204
205* Added ability to specify a statsec, so that the statistics are only
206  calculated from a given subsection of the cube, rather than the full
207  cube.
208
209* The subsections can also specify the ability to remove a border of n
210  pixels from the edges of an axis (ie. n from the start and from the
211  end) -- as requested in Trac ticket #5.
212
213* Changed the default value of the reconDim parameter from 3 to 1, and
214  the default value of the flagATrous parameter to false.
215
216OUTPUTS:
217
218* The output now includes three different estimates of the "centre" of
219  the detection: peak location, centroid (flux-weighted), or average.
220
221* Some slight improvements to the user feedback during execution.
222
223* Spectral output now includes the baseline, if one was fitted. The
224  format of the plot headers is slightly changed, to stop information
225  falling off the edge of the page.
226
227* Added command-line option -x to directly disable the PGPLOT X-window
228  map plotting. This overrides the setting of flagXOutput in the
229  parameter file.
230
231* Fallback spectral units (in case the FITS header fails to record
232  them) changed to SPC, but code has been fixed so that any problem
233  should be caught before this becomes an issue.
234
235BUGFIXES:
236
237* Fixed bug (Trac ticket #4) that meant the velocity units were not
238  correctly dealt with. Duchamp should be more robust for different
239  velocity axis setups now.
240
241* Fixed bug (ticket #9) with the VOTable output, where the tags were
242  not closing.
243
244* Fixed a bug that meant the integrated fluxes were not calculated
245  properly -- no allowance was made for the number of spatial
246  pixels. This should also work properly for 2D images now as well.
247
248* Fixed minor bug in calculating the flux threshold from the p-value
249  threshold when the FDR method is used. This did not affect the
250  actual thresholding, merely the quoted flux threshold in the results
251  file. Also, the MW channels are kept out of the p-value threshold
252  determination if they are being flagged.
253
254
255
256Duchamp version 1.0.7 (2006/11/22)
257----------------------------------
258
259One new feature, and some improvements and bug-fixes.
260
261* The user can now elect to Hanning-smooth the spectral direction of
262  the cube before the searching is done. This can be done instead of the
263  wavelet reconstruction (although if both are selected, the
264  reconstruction takes precendence). This functionality is switched on
265  and off by the flagSmooth parameter, and the width of the Hanning
266  kernel is governed by the hanningWidth parameter.
267
268* The smoothed array can also be written to a FITS file and read in at
269  the start in the same manner as the reconstructed array.
270
271* Several improvements have been made to the memory
272  management. Several memory leaks were fixed, and the memory usage of
273  Duchamp is considerably less, which will be a help for running it on
274  large cubes. The speed of some routines has also been improved, by
275  removing unnecessarily repetitive loops.
276
277* The sorting routines have been changed, and should now be slightly quicker
278  (and a bit more robust).
279
280* Enabled the scale bar (plotted on the 0th moment map in the spectral
281  output file) to be able to deal with much finer spatial scales (as
282  may be expected from VLBI data).
283
284* Other minor changes to code and presentation.
285
286
287Duchamp version 1.0.6 (2006/11/01)
288----------------------------------
289
290Some incremental improvements and changes to the code:
291
292* The statistics used for the detection are now calculated once for
293  the entire cube, rather than being calculated separately for each
294  channel map and spectrum. This results in a uniform threshold value
295  across the entire cube. The way the statistics calculations are
296  implemented in the code was changed, using a new statistics class.
297
298* This means we can report a peak signal-to-noise value for each
299  detection. This is given in the text-based output, as well as in the
300  summary information above the spectral output for each source.
301
302* The user can now elect not to have the moment map displayed in a
303  PGPlot window, through the use of the new flagXOutput
304  parameter. This should help in cases of running Duchamp on a dumb
305  terminal (with no X-display capabilities), or as part of a batch
306  script where the continual popping-up of the PGPlot window might
307  become annoying.
308
309* There are different Flags reported for the case of an object lying on
310  the spatial edge and spectral edge of the cube (E and S respectively).
311
312* A few minor bug fixes:
313  - When providing a subsection, any axes with the range given by *
314    had the pixel values offset incorrectly. This has been fixed.
315  - Negative searches now correctly invert the reconstructed array
316    when it is read in from a file.
317
318* Other minor changes to the code, to improve memory handling and
319  remove redundant arrays and variables.
320
321
322Duchamp version 1.0.5 (2006/09/06)
323----------------------------------
324
325Since version 1.0, there have been a range of mostly minor
326changes. These are generally bug-fixes, thanks to feedback from a
327number of users, as well as a few extra features.
328
329Here is a summary of the changes since version 1.0:
330
331USER INTERFACE:
332
333* The user is now able to enter the value of flag parameters in the
334  parameter file as strings, as well as integers (so one can enter
335  true or 1 to give the same result).
336
337GRAPHICAL OUTPUT:
338
339* Added a new function that draws the edge of the blank region on the
340  maps and image cutouts. There is a new flag parameter --
341  drawBlankEdges -- that controls the use of this function (the
342  default is true).
343  Also, the edge of the field is plotted on the image cutouts as a
344  yellow line. This distinguishes it from the purple blank pixel
345  dividing line.
346
347* The size of the tick mark in the image cutout (indicating the
348  spatial scale of the image) is now adaptable, so that it shows the
349  scale that best fits the image (ranging from 1 arcsec to 15
350  degrees). (This is a change from the previous standard length of 15
351  arcmin.)
352
353* The zoomed spectrum had its flux scale determined by all points in
354  the zoom box,including those flagged by the Milky Way (MW)
355  range. This has been fixed so that any MW channels will not affect
356  the flux scaling, potentially improving the appearance of objects
357  detected close in velocity to strong MW emission or absorption.
358
359* Improved Karma Annotation file output, so that files without good
360  WCS are dealt with appropriately.
361
362TEXT-BASED OUTPUT:
363
364* The position resolution in the IAU-format names has been increased,
365  so that distinct objects close to one another are more readily
366  distinguished.  Overlapping sources at different velocities may
367  still have the same name, but this is a more general problem.
368
369* The presentation of the results in tabular format has been improved,
370  so that the precision of faint sources is sufficient to show their
371  flux, for instance, is not 0. This also applies to the information
372  presented above the spectral plots.
373
374* Improved error and warning reporting, so that the formatting and
375  presentation of information is clearer.
376
377FITS I/O RELATED:
378
379* The previous version was did not deal well with 4 (or greater)
380  dimensions in the FITS file -- the memory allocation was badly done,
381  and the axes needed to be in a particular order. This has been
382  fixed, so that the FITS I/O routines can now handle any sized FITS
383  file, with axes in any order (as long as there are two spatial and one
384  spectral axes).
385
386* When the FITS file does not have a rest frequency defined, there is
387  no way to transform the frequency axis into velocity. In this case,
388  the spectral axis is left as frequency, and put into units of MHz.
389
390* If the beam size is not indicated by the FITS header (through the
391  BMAJ and BMIN keywords), the user can manually specify the size
392  through the parameter file (using parameter beamSize).
393
394* The FITS I/O routines make use of the command fits_file_exists. This
395  was introduced into the CFITSIO package from version 2.5, so Duchamp
396  will only work with this version or higher. Version 3+ is preferred.
397
398OTHER BUG-FIXING:
399
400* Several bugs related to the blank-pixels were dealt with.
401  The correct values were not propagating through correctly, meaning
402  that the default values were being used. Also, there was the
403  potential for blank pixels to be detected when the FDR method was
404  used. Finally, the image cutout displays occasionally did not
405  obscure the blank pixels. All these problems should be fixed now.
406
407* The FDR setup routine was occasionally failing with a segmentation
408  fault, due to it accessing unallocated memory. This has been fixed.
409
410* Fixed bugs that affected the way 2D images (rather than 3D cubes)
411  were dealt with. The minChannels test failed when minChannels=0.
412
413* If there is no beam information in the FITS header, the user can now
414  enter a beam size as a parameter.
415
416* Other minor fixes to the code, to improve its structure and
417  robustness.
418
419
420Duchamp version 1.0 (2006/06/30)
421--------------------------------
422
423The first full release version.
424
425Several major changes compared to previous version:
426
427* Incorporated a FitsHeader class, to keep track of header information
428  (including WCS) from the FITS file. All units-related calculations
429  are done with this class, such as conversion to velocity, and
430  pixel-to-WCS conversion.  The main advantage of this is improved
431  speed of execution, more adaptable to different units, and improved
432  code (easier for me!).
433
434* Able to select the dimensionality of the reconstruction, rather than
435  just doing it in 3-D.
436
437* Robust text output, so that the columns are sized correctly given
438  the data being written, and the relevant units (derived from the
439  FITS header) are included in the output table.
440
441* Improved the way the reconstructed image is saved and read back in,
442  with a better naming scheme and a better set of new FITS header
443  keywords. The MW headers are now not written.
444
445Other, more minor changes include:
446
447* MW channels now not set to 0, but just ignored for searching
448  purposes (and for the scaling of the spectral output -- they are
449  plotted though and highlighted with a hashed box).
450
451* The scale bar in the moment map in the spectral output file has its
452  length indicated.
453
454* Improved VOTable output, with more information about the way Duchamp
455  was run.
456
457* Made sure all statistics calculations in the reconstruction are
458  based on robust (ie. median) methods.
459
460Also moved to an autoconf based configure/make compilation, for ease of use.
461
462
463Duchamp version 0.9.2 (2006/06/27)
464--------------------------------
465
466* Added the use of warning flags for detections: for either edge
467  location or negative enclosed flux.
468
469* A new command line option added so that the user can specify a FITS
470  file to be searched with the default parameters, rather than giving
471  a full parameter file.
472
473* The scale bar on the moment cutout now works in general case, using
474  an iterative process to get to the correct length.
475
476* RA axes are now done correctly on the full-scale maps.
477
478* Various coding fixes, improving the readability of the code,
479  particularly regarding the declaration of temporary variables.
480
481* Changed the way the time of execution is called : now using time.h
482  functions, rather than a system call.
483
484* Changed output in Detection/outputDetection.cc for the pixel
485  information of detected objects (the info printed above the spectral
486  plots) -- now print out number of voxels in object, and have
487  improved the formatting a little.
488
489* Improved the functionality of saving the FITS file containing the
490  reconstructed array. Added ability to save and read back in the MW
491  parameters when saving a reconstructed cube (if a reconstructed cube
492  has different MW range to that being considered, it would cause
493  problems). ReadRecon now just returns a FAILURE and will reconstruct
494  the cube anew.
495
496* Changed default value of flagGrowth to 0.
497
498
499
500Duchamp version 0.9 (2006/05/05)
501--------------------------------
502
503First public release version.
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