source: trunk/CHANGES @ 522

Last change on this file since 522 was 522, checked in by MatthewWhiting, 15 years ago

Documentation of previous changes re the MASK file.

File size: 26.1 KB
Line 
1Duchamp version 1.1.7 (2009/01/12)
2----------------------------------
3
4Improvements:
5
6* The mask file that can be created with flagMask can now specify
7  which object a given detected pixel belongs to, by taking the object
8  ID as its value. This applies if you set flagMaskWithObjectNum=true
9  (it defaults to false, which means each detected pixel has the value
10  1). Non-detected pixels still have the value 0.
11
12* The Karma annotation file now specifies a font - previously it did
13  not and so was at the mercy of whatever was specified in other
14  annotation files being viewed at the same time. Please let me know
15  if the font I've chosen (lucidasans-12) is not suitable.
16
17* The default flag, used in the absence of 'E', 'S' or 'N', is now '-'
18  rather than blank. This will ensure that each column in the results
19  file has something in it.
20
21* The configure script is somewhat more robust to non-standard
22  systems, particularly when the X11 libraries are in unusual
23  places. It can also deal with the slightly different way that
24  wcslib-4.3 installs itself.
25
26* The installation part of the Makefile was altered so that the
27  symbolic link Duchamp that points to Duchamp-1.1.7 does not have the
28  absolute path encoded in it. This will enable the files to be moved
29  around at a later date.
30
31Bug Fixes:
32
33* Fixed a bug that caused problems when the flux units were less than
34  5 characters long (e.g. 'K')
35
36* The new velocity width values were not getting proper headers in the
37  VOTable output. This has been remedied.
38
39* Minor improvements to help non-pgplot use
40
41* Minor fix in WCS functionality.
42
43* Minor fixes to the FitsHeader class.
44
45* Improved FITS data reading, that doesn't require a nullarray
46  array. This will reduce memory usage.
47
48* Improved subsection parsing, particularly for non-standard WCS
49  systems.
50
51* Improving the memory allocation of the Cube class.
52
53* Fixed a bug that meant the growthThreshold values were sometimes
54  being lost.
55
56* Improving the way the growing and merging is done, particularly in
57  the case of non-adjacent merging.
58
59Other:
60
61* Numerous changes to the code that do not affect how Duchamp itself
62  runs, but were necessary for code development with the Duchamp
63  libraries (primarily as a part of the ASKAP code development).
64
65
66Duchamp version 1.1.6 (2008/09/08)
67----------------------------------
68
69New features:
70
71* The velocity widths can now be quoted in two additional ways: the
72  full width at 50% of the peak flux (ie. the FWHM) and the full width
73  at 20% of the peak flux (w_50 and w_20 respectively). The w_50
74  parameter is now quoted in the results printed to the screen
75  (instead of w_VEL), but all three are written to the results file.
76
77* The facility now exists to bypass the searching step and go straight
78  to the output stage using a list of previously detected objects. The
79  list is extracted from a previously-created log file. The user can
80  change the way the spectra are plotted (e.g. choose to plot
81  integrated rather than peak spectra), and select a subset of the
82  detected objects to be printed to individual postscript files. Use
83  the input parameter usePrevious (set to true) to use this facility,
84  and provide a list of objects using the objectList parameter
85  (eg. 1,2,4,7-10,15)
86
87* A new parameter "growthThreshold" has been created, that goes with
88  "threshold". If you manually specify a threshold, and you wish to
89  grow detections, you need to manually specify a growthThreshold (in
90  flux units).
91
92Bug fixes:
93
94* Cubes that do not have a spectral axis (such as Stokes cubes) were
95  causing memory leaks and crashing, due to some assumptions of the
96  existence of the spectral axis. These bugs have been fixed, so that
97  Duchamp will run on such cubes, although the WCS transforms may not
98  always work appropriately. Please let me know via bug reports of
99  difficulties you encounter!
100
101* The growing function has had a few bugs fixed and is now more
102  efficient.
103
104* The FDR method was previously overriding any manually-specified
105  threshold. This has been fixed so that if the user specifies
106  threshold=X, then the FDR method is not called.
107
108* Some undefined things were happening with textual output when no
109  objects were detected. This has been fixed.
110
111* Memory leaks caused by FITS WCS irregularities have been fixed
112  (specifically, if a FITS header had NAXIS=2 but more than two WCS
113  axes were defined).
114
115
116
117Duchamp version 1.1.5 (2008/03/20)
118----------------------------------
119
120Bug fixes:
121* A major bug was discovered in the calculation of integrated
122  fluxes. The flux was incorrectly being weighted by the spatial size
123  of the detection, resulting in a (often considerable) overestimation
124  of the integrated flux. This has been corrected.
125
126* The beam size calculation was also incorrect, being out by a factor
127  of 1/ln(2).
128
129* The "make install" command previously failed to work properly if the
130  library had not been created. This has been fixed so that the
131  installation works even if there is no library file.
132
133New Features:
134* You can now provide a new flux unit string, so that the pixel fluxes
135  will be converted to these new fluxes before any calculations are
136  done. This is done with the newFluxUnits input parameter. The new
137  units should be directly convertible from the old ones (given by the
138  BUNIT header -- e.g. if BUNIT = Jy/beam, you can give newFluxUnits
139  as mJy/beam, but not mJy).
140
141* You can now specify the precision used in the output files for flux,
142  velocity and S/N ratio columns, via new input parameters precFlux,
143  precVel and precSNR. These will apply to the VOTable output as well
144  as the text table and information on the spectral plots.
145
146* The Karma annotation files previously provided just a circle at the
147  spatial location of the detected object. You now have the option to
148  draw a border around the detected pixels (in a similar manner to the
149  PGPLOT moment maps). Karma does not do this perfectly, so the lines
150  may not line up exactly with the pixel borders, so the option
151  remains to keep using the circles. This is controlled by the
152  parameter "annotationType", with possible options being "borders"
153  (the default) or "circles".
154
155* There is a new function getMetadata() that loads the header and WCS
156  data, but no pixel information. This is only of interest if you are
157  doing code development with the Duchamp library -- it does not
158  affect the running of Duchamp itself.
159
160Duchamp version 1.1.4 (2008/02/15)
161----------------------------------
162
163Most of the changes incorporated in this update result from ASKAP code
164development (that makes use of some of the Duchamp functionality),
165but do not actually affect the way Duchamp runs (other than, in a
166couple of cases, making it a bit faster). Changes that are
167relevant for regular users of Duchamp are as follows:
168
169* A new option has been made available (thanks to Mary Putman et al
170  for the suggestion!) to save the spectra of all detected objects in
171  a text file. This has the form of one column for the spectral
172  coordinates and one column of fluxes for each object. This is
173  enabled by the input parameters flagTextSpectra and spectraTextFile.
174
175* Slight changes to the output include he formatting of the way the
176  detected objects are written to the log file. This meant the
177  verification files were also updated. Also the cube statistics are
178  not printed to the results file if a user threshold is specified (as
179  they are not calculated!).
180
181* The determination of beam size has been made more reliable, as has
182  the BUNIT determination.
183
184* Fixed a bug that meant source merging was not done for 2D images
185  (not usually a problem, as the source-finding takes care of this,
186  but came up in parallelisation development).
187
188Duchamp version 1.1.3 (2008/01/08)
189----------------------------------
190
191A minor update that just improves the build process. The location of
192the wcslib include files was not specified correctly, so that some
193machines were unable to find them. The configure script has been fixed
194so that the compilation should work in all cases.
195
196Some minor changes have also been made to the code in the PixelMap
197directory, and to param.cc, to fix warnings or errors that may appear
198in compilation.
199
200However, there are no changes to the actual workings of the code in
201this minor version, so if you have a working version of Duchamp 1.1.2
202there is probably no reason to update.
203
204Duchamp version 1.1.2 (2007/12/07)
205----------------------------------
206
207Compilation:
208
209* The compilation had problems working correctly when the cfitsio and
210  wcs libraries were not in standard locations. The configure script
211  has been tweaked to make sure the libraries are found.
212
213* Problems with compiling in the absence of pgplot have been fixed,
214  and it should now compile fine.
215
216* Improved the configure script for use with Mac OS X and gfortran.
217
218
219Bugfixing:
220
221* A major problem with the text-based output was fixed. The widths of
222  the columns were not being calculated correctly, and were running
223  together. This should no longer be the case.
224
225* There was a bug in the way Duchamp interpreted spectral axes,
226  particularly AIPS types such as FELO-HEL, leading to incorrect
227  scaling of the velocity axis. This has been fixed, so that
228  non-standard types are now dealt with appropriately and the velocity
229  scaling should be accurate.
230
231* Another bug meant the beam correction was always applied to the
232  integrated spectra, regardless of whether the flux units involved
233  the beam (e.g. Jy/beam). This has been fixed. Note that the values
234  of the integrated flux presented in the results table were always
235  calculated correctly.
236
237* Other minor changes to improve the speed and efficiency, especially
238  of the merging code.
239
240New user parameters:
241
242* There is now the possibility to save a FITS file that contains a
243  mask array, indicating where the detected objects are. This is
244  governed by the flagOutputMask parameter.
245
246* The header information that is printed at the start of the results
247  file -- that is, the list of parameters, the statistics of the cube,
248  and the number of detections -- can now be written to a separate
249  file. Set the flagSeparateHeader parameter to true or 1 and it will
250  go to the file indicated by the headerFile parameter (the default is
251  duchamp-Results.hdr).
252
253* A "scaleMax" parameter has been added, so that the wavelet
254  reconstruction can include only a specified range of scales (for
255  instance, if one wants to search just for narrow features such as
256  absorption lines).
257
258* A "flagRobustStats" parameter has been added. This allows the user
259  to elect to use robust statistics (median and median absolute
260  deviation from the median) to estimate the noise parameters. If set
261  to false, the mean and standard deviation will be used. The default
262  value is true.
263
264New Feature:
265
266* When Duchamp is run on a 2D image (i.e. with no spectral output), it
267  now produces a postscript file that shows information each
268  individual source plus the image cutout of the source. This is
269  similar to the spectral output file, but without the spectra. The
270  filename is given by the spectraFile parameter.
271
272* Ability to save a FITS file containing a mask array, with pixel
273  values of 1 for pixels in a detected object, and 0 elsewhere.
274
275
276Duchamp version 1.1.1 (2007/07/20)
277------------------------------------
278
279Minor update to the release, with just a few changes:
280
281* The verification script was generating diffs due to differences in
282  the precision of some calculations when done on different machines.
283  One of these was the integrated flux, and this has been corrected so
284  that the same value should appear on all machines.
285  The verification script has also changed so that just the number of
286  sources and their positions are tested, as well as the
287  logfiles. This should avoid the reporting of spurious differences.
288
289* The grey-scale used in the image cutouts (in the spectral plots) has
290  been inverted. This makes it consistent with the scale used in the
291  maps, and hopefully easier to see when printing.
292
293* The configure/make system has been altered to make it easier to
294  install, and to specify different external libraries. In particular,
295  it is now not necessary to have PGPLOT installed on your system to
296  run Duchamp. In the absence of PGPLOT, Duchamp will run as normal,
297  just without any graphical output. Some source code needed to be
298  restructured to make this work. Please read the README file, or the
299  Installation appendix in the User's Guide, for complete details.
300
301* The time of completion is now written to the log file, so that the
302  user can have some idea of how long the program took.
303
304
305Duchamp version 1.1 (2007/05/17)
306------------------------------------
307
308Changes made since the last numbered release:
309
310EFFICIENCY OF EXECUTION:
311
312* Major change to the way detections are stored. They are now recorded
313  via run-length encoding in the x-y plane, and stored as collections
314  of channel-maps. This improves the memory usage and the speed of
315  execution (particularly for routines such as the merging
316  routines). The memory usage has also been improved by changing the
317  way the list of detected objects is stored.
318
319SMOOTHING:
320
321* Addition of ability to spatially smooth the cube before
322  searching. This is done with a Gaussian kernel, the size and shape
323  of which can be specified by the user, using the parameters kernMaj
324  & kernMin (which are the FWHM for the major & minor axes -- if
325  kernMin is not given it is assumed to match kernMaj) and kernPA (the
326  position angle of the major axis).  There is a new parameter
327  smoothType that distinguishes this method from the spectral (Hanning)
328  smoothing already in use.
329
330DETECTIONS:
331
332* Changed the way detection is done -- now only search in 2D images,
333  keeping all detections (ie. no minimum-pixel requirement). This
334  should be the same as doing both the 1D and 2D searches with the
335  minimum pixel requirement in, but simpler. The rejection is done at
336  the end after all the merging and growing has been done. This leads
337  to a larger number of intermediate detections (ie.  the number
338  before merging), which may increase the run-time slightly, although
339  this is offset by the changes to the efficiency (see above).
340
341* Increased the range over which objects can be grown to match the
342  threshSpatial & threshVelocity parameters, as well as rejecting new
343  pixels based on the BLANK and MW tests.
344
345INPUTS:
346
347* There has been a subtle change in the way BLANK pixels are dealt
348  with. To enable trimming of BLANK pixels, users should use the new
349  parameter flagTrim. The parameters flagBlankPix and blankPixVal are
350  no longer accessible via the parameter file -- warning messages are
351  given if they are provided in the parameter file.
352
353* Added ability to specify a statsec, so that the statistics are only
354  calculated from a given subsection of the cube, rather than the full
355  cube.
356
357* The subsections can also specify the ability to remove a border of n
358  pixels from the edges of an axis (ie. n from the start and from the
359  end) -- as requested in Trac ticket #5.
360
361* Changed the default value of the reconDim parameter from 3 to 1, and
362  the default value of the flagATrous parameter to false.
363
364OUTPUTS:
365
366* The output now includes three different estimates of the "centre" of
367  the detection: peak location, centroid (flux-weighted), or average.
368
369* Some slight improvements to the user feedback during execution.
370
371* Spectral output now includes the baseline, if one was fitted. The
372  format of the plot headers is slightly changed, to stop information
373  falling off the edge of the page.
374
375* Added command-line option -x to directly disable the PGPLOT X-window
376  map plotting. This overrides the setting of flagXOutput in the
377  parameter file.
378
379* Fallback spectral units (in case the FITS header fails to record
380  them) changed to SPC, but code has been fixed so that any problem
381  should be caught before this becomes an issue.
382
383BUGFIXES:
384
385* Fixed bug (Trac ticket #4) that meant the velocity units were not
386  correctly dealt with. Duchamp should be more robust for different
387  velocity axis setups now.
388
389* Fixed bug (ticket #9) with the VOTable output, where the tags were
390  not closing.
391
392* Fixed a bug that meant the integrated fluxes were not calculated
393  properly -- no allowance was made for the number of spatial
394  pixels. This should also work properly for 2D images now as well.
395
396* Fixed minor bug in calculating the flux threshold from the p-value
397  threshold when the FDR method is used. This did not affect the
398  actual thresholding, merely the quoted flux threshold in the results
399  file. Also, the MW channels are kept out of the p-value threshold
400  determination if they are being flagged.
401
402
403
404Duchamp version 1.0.7 (2006/11/22)
405----------------------------------
406
407One new feature, and some improvements and bug-fixes.
408
409* The user can now elect to Hanning-smooth the spectral direction of
410  the cube before the searching is done. This can be done instead of the
411  wavelet reconstruction (although if both are selected, the
412  reconstruction takes precendence). This functionality is switched on
413  and off by the flagSmooth parameter, and the width of the Hanning
414  kernel is governed by the hanningWidth parameter.
415
416* The smoothed array can also be written to a FITS file and read in at
417  the start in the same manner as the reconstructed array.
418
419* Several improvements have been made to the memory
420  management. Several memory leaks were fixed, and the memory usage of
421  Duchamp is considerably less, which will be a help for running it on
422  large cubes. The speed of some routines has also been improved, by
423  removing unnecessarily repetitive loops.
424
425* The sorting routines have been changed, and should now be slightly quicker
426  (and a bit more robust).
427
428* Enabled the scale bar (plotted on the 0th moment map in the spectral
429  output file) to be able to deal with much finer spatial scales (as
430  may be expected from VLBI data).
431
432* Other minor changes to code and presentation.
433
434
435Duchamp version 1.0.6 (2006/11/01)
436----------------------------------
437
438Some incremental improvements and changes to the code:
439
440* The statistics used for the detection are now calculated once for
441  the entire cube, rather than being calculated separately for each
442  channel map and spectrum. This results in a uniform threshold value
443  across the entire cube. The way the statistics calculations are
444  implemented in the code was changed, using a new statistics class.
445
446* This means we can report a peak signal-to-noise value for each
447  detection. This is given in the text-based output, as well as in the
448  summary information above the spectral output for each source.
449
450* The user can now elect not to have the moment map displayed in a
451  PGPlot window, through the use of the new flagXOutput
452  parameter. This should help in cases of running Duchamp on a dumb
453  terminal (with no X-display capabilities), or as part of a batch
454  script where the continual popping-up of the PGPlot window might
455  become annoying.
456
457* There are different Flags reported for the case of an object lying on
458  the spatial edge and spectral edge of the cube (E and S respectively).
459
460* A few minor bug fixes:
461  - When providing a subsection, any axes with the range given by *
462    had the pixel values offset incorrectly. This has been fixed.
463  - Negative searches now correctly invert the reconstructed array
464    when it is read in from a file.
465
466* Other minor changes to the code, to improve memory handling and
467  remove redundant arrays and variables.
468
469
470Duchamp version 1.0.5 (2006/09/06)
471----------------------------------
472
473Since version 1.0, there have been a range of mostly minor
474changes. These are generally bug-fixes, thanks to feedback from a
475number of users, as well as a few extra features.
476
477Here is a summary of the changes since version 1.0:
478
479USER INTERFACE:
480
481* The user is now able to enter the value of flag parameters in the
482  parameter file as strings, as well as integers (so one can enter
483  true or 1 to give the same result).
484
485GRAPHICAL OUTPUT:
486
487* Added a new function that draws the edge of the blank region on the
488  maps and image cutouts. There is a new flag parameter --
489  drawBlankEdges -- that controls the use of this function (the
490  default is true).
491  Also, the edge of the field is plotted on the image cutouts as a
492  yellow line. This distinguishes it from the purple blank pixel
493  dividing line.
494
495* The size of the tick mark in the image cutout (indicating the
496  spatial scale of the image) is now adaptable, so that it shows the
497  scale that best fits the image (ranging from 1 arcsec to 15
498  degrees). (This is a change from the previous standard length of 15
499  arcmin.)
500
501* The zoomed spectrum had its flux scale determined by all points in
502  the zoom box,including those flagged by the Milky Way (MW)
503  range. This has been fixed so that any MW channels will not affect
504  the flux scaling, potentially improving the appearance of objects
505  detected close in velocity to strong MW emission or absorption.
506
507* Improved Karma Annotation file output, so that files without good
508  WCS are dealt with appropriately.
509
510TEXT-BASED OUTPUT:
511
512* The position resolution in the IAU-format names has been increased,
513  so that distinct objects close to one another are more readily
514  distinguished.  Overlapping sources at different velocities may
515  still have the same name, but this is a more general problem.
516
517* The presentation of the results in tabular format has been improved,
518  so that the precision of faint sources is sufficient to show their
519  flux, for instance, is not 0. This also applies to the information
520  presented above the spectral plots.
521
522* Improved error and warning reporting, so that the formatting and
523  presentation of information is clearer.
524
525FITS I/O RELATED:
526
527* The previous version was did not deal well with 4 (or greater)
528  dimensions in the FITS file -- the memory allocation was badly done,
529  and the axes needed to be in a particular order. This has been
530  fixed, so that the FITS I/O routines can now handle any sized FITS
531  file, with axes in any order (as long as there are two spatial and one
532  spectral axes).
533
534* When the FITS file does not have a rest frequency defined, there is
535  no way to transform the frequency axis into velocity. In this case,
536  the spectral axis is left as frequency, and put into units of MHz.
537
538* If the beam size is not indicated by the FITS header (through the
539  BMAJ and BMIN keywords), the user can manually specify the size
540  through the parameter file (using parameter beamSize).
541
542* The FITS I/O routines make use of the command fits_file_exists. This
543  was introduced into the CFITSIO package from version 2.5, so Duchamp
544  will only work with this version or higher. Version 3+ is preferred.
545
546OTHER BUG-FIXING:
547
548* Several bugs related to the blank-pixels were dealt with.
549  The correct values were not propagating through correctly, meaning
550  that the default values were being used. Also, there was the
551  potential for blank pixels to be detected when the FDR method was
552  used. Finally, the image cutout displays occasionally did not
553  obscure the blank pixels. All these problems should be fixed now.
554
555* The FDR setup routine was occasionally failing with a segmentation
556  fault, due to it accessing unallocated memory. This has been fixed.
557
558* Fixed bugs that affected the way 2D images (rather than 3D cubes)
559  were dealt with. The minChannels test failed when minChannels=0.
560
561* If there is no beam information in the FITS header, the user can now
562  enter a beam size as a parameter.
563
564* Other minor fixes to the code, to improve its structure and
565  robustness.
566
567
568Duchamp version 1.0 (2006/06/30)
569--------------------------------
570
571The first full release version.
572
573Several major changes compared to previous version:
574
575* Incorporated a FitsHeader class, to keep track of header information
576  (including WCS) from the FITS file. All units-related calculations
577  are done with this class, such as conversion to velocity, and
578  pixel-to-WCS conversion.  The main advantage of this is improved
579  speed of execution, more adaptable to different units, and improved
580  code (easier for me!).
581
582* Able to select the dimensionality of the reconstruction, rather than
583  just doing it in 3-D.
584
585* Robust text output, so that the columns are sized correctly given
586  the data being written, and the relevant units (derived from the
587  FITS header) are included in the output table.
588
589* Improved the way the reconstructed image is saved and read back in,
590  with a better naming scheme and a better set of new FITS header
591  keywords. The MW headers are now not written.
592
593Other, more minor changes include:
594
595* MW channels now not set to 0, but just ignored for searching
596  purposes (and for the scaling of the spectral output -- they are
597  plotted though and highlighted with a hashed box).
598
599* The scale bar in the moment map in the spectral output file has its
600  length indicated.
601
602* Improved VOTable output, with more information about the way Duchamp
603  was run.
604
605* Made sure all statistics calculations in the reconstruction are
606  based on robust (ie. median) methods.
607
608Also moved to an autoconf based configure/make compilation, for ease of use.
609
610
611Duchamp version 0.9.2 (2006/06/27)
612--------------------------------
613
614* Added the use of warning flags for detections: for either edge
615  location or negative enclosed flux.
616
617* A new command line option added so that the user can specify a FITS
618  file to be searched with the default parameters, rather than giving
619  a full parameter file.
620
621* The scale bar on the moment cutout now works in general case, using
622  an iterative process to get to the correct length.
623
624* RA axes are now done correctly on the full-scale maps.
625
626* Various coding fixes, improving the readability of the code,
627  particularly regarding the declaration of temporary variables.
628
629* Changed the way the time of execution is called : now using time.h
630  functions, rather than a system call.
631
632* Changed output in Detection/outputDetection.cc for the pixel
633  information of detected objects (the info printed above the spectral
634  plots) -- now print out number of voxels in object, and have
635  improved the formatting a little.
636
637* Improved the functionality of saving the FITS file containing the
638  reconstructed array. Added ability to save and read back in the MW
639  parameters when saving a reconstructed cube (if a reconstructed cube
640  has different MW range to that being considered, it would cause
641  problems). ReadRecon now just returns a FAILURE and will reconstruct
642  the cube anew.
643
644* Changed default value of flagGrowth to 0.
645
646
647
648Duchamp version 0.9 (2006/05/05)
649--------------------------------
650
651First public release version.
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