Introduction

ctools is a highly modular collection of utilities for processing and analysing CTA reconstructed event data in the FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) data format. Each utility presents itself as a FTOOL (see http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftools/) and performs a single simple task such as event binning, event selection or model fitting. Individual utilities can easily be chained together in scripts to achieve more complex operations, either by using the command line interface, or by using the Python scripting language. The ctools user interface is controlled by standard IRAF-style parameter files. Software is written in C++ to provide portability across most computer systems. The data format dependencies between hardware platforms are isolated through the cfitsio library package from HEASARC (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio/).

This User Manual describes the use of the ctools software.