FTOOLS V4.0 RELEASED
We are pleased to announce the release of FTOOLS v4.0. In this message, we summarize:
- How to obtain FTOOLS v4.0
- Impact on ASCA users
1. How to obtain FTOOLS v4.0
FTOOLS v4.0 has been released, and can be obtained from the FTOOLS web-page at:
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/ftools_menu.html
This is where the most up to date FTOOLS information is available,i including notices of the FTOOLS releases, online HTML versions of FTOOLS documentation, and the continually updated FAQ. Users should always check here first for answers to questions.
Any problems installing FTOOLS should be reported to: Feedback form.
Any problems using FTOOLS for ASCA data analysis should be reported to the ftoolshelp address above or to:
If the problem relates to the scientific contents of the FTOOLS, the latter address is more appropriate.
2. Impact on ASCA users
- Rbnpha
- This tool now follows the channel numbering convention of the input file.
Both SIS and GIS event files are numbered from channel 0, and therefore the extactor originally creates the spectral files that also start with channel 0. However, old versions of bnpha (which is run by default when extracting SIS spectra in xselect) used numbers starting with channel 1 in the output files. With this new version, rbnpha will respect the channel numbering convention of the input file, which solves several problems such as encountered in adding GIS-2 and GIS-3 spectra taken while GIS-3 was suffering the bit problem.
IMPORTANT: You need xspec 9.02 or later, or else there will be a suprious 1-channel shift in the SIS spectral analysis. If you use your own spectral analysis package, please contact ascahelp to make sure your software interprets the latest SIS response matrices correctly.
- Ascascreen
-
Ascascreen now uses ad*.unf files as default input; to use
raw ft*.fits files, specify ascascreen -e fits.
Ascascreen now uses a more sensible threshold (4 times readout cycle)
for SIS t_dy_nt and t_saaCOR); it will also have
different region files for removing the background ring for spread
discriminator off data.
The problem in previous versions, where the standard region selection for GIS 64x64 spatial resolution mode failed, has been fixed.
- Xselect / extractor
- The program that is run by the xselect extract or
bin command has been extensively overhauled and is available as an
ftool called extractor. See fhelp extractor for
details. A number of bugs have been fixed in the region filtering. All regions
with the exception of circles were one pixel off in both dimensions. In
addition, the circle region did not always work correctly. Region filtering
should now work for all sizes of regions. Note that a good way to check
that the region filtering is correct is to extract a filtered image,
read it and the region file into SAOimage or SAOtng,
and check that all pixels with any part in the region were selected.
Extractor now uses dynamic memory so there is no (theoretical)
limit to the size of images that can be extracted. In particular, the problems
extracting ROSAT images at binning factors less than 15 have been fixed.
Xselect now supports SAX LECS and MECS.
- Sisrmg
- The new version contains
- New FITS keywords that allow xspec to handle matrices that begin with channel 0
- Correct treatment of the event threshold for PI spectra.
IMPORTANT NOTE If you previously fudged FITS keywords of your spectral file(s) to 'fool' sisrmg into creating the correct response files, you should delete these spectral files. The new version will only work correctly with unfudged spectra.
- Gains=0 is now the default (previously -1) for constructing the energy-channel mapping; this will result in slight shifts for various spectral features (some better, some worse). However, fitting results are independent of the gains parameter.
- A primitive support for data processed with correctrdd
- Addascaspec
- This script combines the source and the background spectra and the
response files from different instruments or observations, and
takes care of the complex background normalization automatically.
- Ghkcurve
- Ghkcurve now intersects the user's input Good Time Interval
list with the input housekeeping file's ALLGTI extension, if there is one.
The merged GTI list is written in the output file, instead of just copying
the gtifile one. The user can now specify which monitor count to read
with the new `monitor' parameter, and can say to not use an input GTI
with `gtifile=none' (the ALLGTI is still applied). Ghkcurve now
writes checksum keywords, applies TIMEZERO keywords, uses the actual
first and last times for TSTART and TSTOP, can handle larger
GTI arrays, and resets the integration when an SF_LOST HK entry is
encountered.
- Ascaarf
- Arf calculation for the GIS has been sped up by using an FFT to convolve
the telescope and detector point response functions. A new parameter
bkgfile can be used to specify an image to be subtracted from the WMAP
before calculating the arf.
- Ascaeffmap
- Now uses an FFT to convolve the telescope and detector point response
functions.
- Mekal and Raysmith
- These are new ftools that can be used to run the Mewe-Kaastra-Liedahl
and Raymond-Smith equilibrium collisional plasma models and build an
XSPEC table file. This file can be used to replace the one used by
default in XSPEC if a different parameter or energy gridding is
required.
- Genrsp
- This ftool can be used to build test instrument response matrices.
The response is assumed to be gaussian with no escape features. A variety
of different dependences of resolution with energy or wavelength are
available.
- Fregcon
- This ftool now works.
- Ffilecat
- No longer requires filenames to be < 100 characters.
2b. A note for users of XTE update v3.6.1
As noted earlier, the new version of rbnpha was included in v3.6.1, however the corresponding update to sisrmg was incomplete, causing a spurious 1 channel shift when analyzed using xspec. If you have gotten around this problem by inserting the TLMIN4 keyword in the response matrix, you need not take any further action.
- How to obtain FTOOLS v4.0
- Impact on ASCA users
This file was last modified on Wednesday, 07-Apr-2004 11:03:08 EDT
Curator:
HEASARC Guest Observer Facility
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