Conversion Software

Summary

The first software aspect of this project is to convert the survey data into a standard format that will be widely understandable. This will be the PSRFITS format, a variant of the FITS standard specialised for pulsar data structures but readable by anything that can read a FITS file. This stage has involved the creation of a number of programs:

• pvoconvert: Convert PKS format survey observations to PSRFITS format.
• pvosummary: Summarise the positions, observation date/time, frequency of PSRFITS files, with the ability to produce a csv file listing a range of useful metadata.
• pvoconesearch: A command-line tool to search for PSRFITS files that cover sky within a specified radius of a specified position.
• pvotapesummary: Summarise PKS format "tape" files (the first block, at least).

The source code for these programs is available in this repository: source:/trunk/src
It has also been installed in the pulsar file system, in /pulsar/psr/pvo/ and the binaries have been compiled under linux and installed in /psr/linux/bin/.

PVOCONVERT

pvoconvert operates on existing "tape" files, converting them into a set of PSRFITS format files with one sky position per fits file. The file will have extension ".sf" if it is a survey (search-mode) file, or a ".rf" extension otherwise. You can either provide one or more tape files as the argument, or a directory with the -D flag (in which case it will operate on all appropriate files in that directory). It recognises 70-cm survey data and PM survey data. If you have high-latitude (PH) survey data, you need to give the -H flag to get the settings right.
The -t option provides the ability to see what files pvoconvert would produce, without actually producing them. It also tells you if a file already exists (which would cause a problem).

Usage: pvoconvert [options] <survey file(s)> ...
  Options:
  -D <dir>          Run pvoconvert on all files in the stated directory.
  --directory <dir>
                     No <survey file> needs to be given in this case.
  -H                Use the PH (High Latitude) Survey settings, rather than
  --highlat          those for the PM/Multibeam Survey
  -t                Run through the input files as normal, but do not write
  --test             any new files, just list the filenames that would be
                     created and note whether they exist or not.
  -V                Verbose mode for error/warning messages.
  --verbose

  Other options:
  -h                Display this help page.
  --help
  -v                Display the version number.
  --version

PVOSUMMARY

pvosummary is designed to produce a summary list of metadata for either a given fits file, or all fits files in the current directory. It normally writes the information to the terminal, but can also produce a csv (comma-separated values) file.

The fields returned are: FILENAME, SRC_NAME, RAJ, DECJ, BEAM FWHM, OBSFREQ, SCANLEN, DATE-OBS
The full list of fields that are printed to the csv file are listed on the PvosummaryFields page.

Usage:
  1. pvosummary [options]
  2. pvosummary [options] <FILE>
Options:
 -c <file>    Write all parameters in csv format to the specified file.
 --csv <file>
 -p           List all parameters
 -q           Quiet mode -- nothing printed to screen
               (used in conjunction with -c)
 -h           Print this help message.
 --help 
 -v           Verbose mode for error/warning messages.
 --verbose

PVOCONESEARCH

pvoconesearch is a simple cone-search tool that searches around a given (RA,DEC) location, within a given radius, and returns the same metadata as pvosummary for all FITS files whose beams overlap the search area. The returned files are listed in order of increasing separation from the requested (RA,DEC) position. RA & DEC can be in hh:mm:ss.s format or decimal degrees, while the search radius is in degrees.

Usage:
  1. pvoconesearch ra dec radius
  2. pvoconesearch -h

PVOTAPESUMMARY

pvotapesummary is a tool to summarise some basic metadata of the first block of PKS survey tape files. This is designed to give you an overview of the contents and type of data of the tape files. It produces a list in a similar format to pvosummary, but with slightly different columns: FILENAME, RAJ, DECJ, OBSFREQ, SCANLEN, MOVE, DATE-OBS, where MOVE is the moving flag, indicating whether the telescope is scanning or doing a pointed (timing) observation. The main purpose is to provide discrimination between 70cm Survey files and timing observations that are not part of the survey. It works either a list of one or more files, or on all files in a given directory.

Usage:
  1. pvotapesummary [FILE] ...
  2. pvotapesummary -d <DIR>