New Features and Important Changes in ctools 1.1.0

1 July 2016


Introduction
------------
This document briefly summarizes the changes that have been made in this
ctools release with respect to the precedent release.


Configuration
-------------
None


Python interface
----------------
The IACT scripts csfindobs, csiactcopy, csiactdata, and csiactobs are only
imported into the cscripts module and tested if the Python version is 2.6 or
newer. These scripts make use of the json Python module that is only became
available from Python 2.6 on.


Support model
-------------
The "edispcube" parameter is expected in any tool that supports stacked
analysis. If the parameter is not "NONE" or empty, the ctool::set_obs_response()
method will load the energy dispersion cube and use it in the response
definition of the first observations (#1724).

A new method setup_observations() has been added that sets up an observation
container by appending all required information that is missing using the
user parameters.


ctobssim - CTA observation simulation
-------------------------------------
The simulation energy range is subdivided internally to avoid having a too
large difference between simulation area and effective area. Before, there
was a simulation area of 19634954 m^2 that was applied to all energies, which
led to the simulation of a huge number of low energy photons that were thrown
away later due to the small effective area. Now, the energy range is subdivided
(controlled using the "eslices" parameter), and for each energy range, the
simulation area is computed from the maximum effective area in that energy
range multiplied by a security factor of 2. This leads to a much more efficient
simulation of low-energy events (#1673).

Any existing events in an event list are now removed before starting the
simulation to enable providing an existing event file on input from which
only the observation attributes are extracted (for example GTI, ROI, energy
range, etc.) while the measured events are replaced by the simulated ones
(#1663).


ctselect - CTA event selection
------------------------------
The tool now allows the usage of non-default extension names for the event
and Good Time Intervals. If the events are not located in the "EVENTS"
extension, the extension name can be provided by appending the extension
name to the input file name using the syntax

    <filename>[<event extension name>]

where <filename> needs to be replaced by the name of the FITS file and
<event extension name> by the name of the FITS extension. ctselect also
extracts the name of the Good Time Intervals extension from the data sub-
space keywords provided in the header of the event file.

The user has now also the possibility to specify other extension names for
the events and the Good Time intervals upon writing of the selected output
file. The format of the "outobs" parameter for this is

    <filename>[<event extension name;GTI extension name>]

If only an event extension name is provided using

    <filename>[<event extension name>]

the original extension name will be kept for the GTIs. Changing only the
GTI extension name can be achieved using

    <filename>[;GTI extension name>]

The ctselect tool now can also write the output into the same file that
was input, replacing the initial event (and eventually also Good Time
Intervals) extensions.


ctbin - CTA event binning
-------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the counts cube via a SAMP Hub to Virtual
Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).

The tool now computes the counts cube weights according to the overlaps
between the Region of Interests and energy boundaries with the counts
cube bins. This allows in particular for a proper handling of different
energy thresholds between observations that will be stacked into a single
cube. Also different Region of Interests are now properly handled, and
there is no longer an issue with counts cubes that are larger than the
Region of Interest of the event list (#1789).


ctlike - Maximum likelihood fitting
-----------------------------------
Add "edispcube" parameter to support energy dispersion for stacked analysis
(#1724).


cttsmap - Generation of Test Statistic map
------------------------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the Test Statistic map via a SAMP Hub to
Virtual Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).

Add "edispcube" parameter to support energy dispersion for stacked analysis 
(#1724).


ctskymap - CTA sky mapping
--------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the sky map via a SAMP Hub to Virtual
Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).


ctmodel - CTA counts cube modelling
-----------------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the model cube via a SAMP Hub to Virtual
Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).

Add "edispcube" parameter to support energy dispersion for stacked analysis 
(#1724).


ctexpcube - CTA exposure cube generation
----------------------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the exposure cube via a SAMP Hub to
Virtual Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).

Remove "edisp" parameter as this is parameter is not needed (#1724).


ctpsfcube - CTA point spread function cube generation
-----------------------------------------------------
Remove "edisp" parameter as this is parameter is not needed (#1724).


ctedispcube - CTA energy dispersion cube generation
---------------------------------------------------
This tool generates an energy dispersion cube for a stacked analysis. The
energy dispersion cube holds the migration matrix as function of sky
direction, true photon energy and the migration value which is the ratio
of reconstructed over true energy (#1724).


ctbkgcube - CTA background cube generation
------------------------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the background cube via a SAMP Hub to
Virtual Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).


ctmapcube - CTA map cube generation
-----------------------------------
This tools generates a map cube from a model definition XML file. In that
way an arbitrary source model can be fed as diffuse map cube into an
analysis. This speeds up considerably the analysis in case that many
(extended) sources should be kept fixed (#1760)


ctcubemask - CTA cube filtering
-------------------------------
Add publish() method to publish the masked counts cube via a SAMP Hub
to Virtual Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).


ctbutterfly - Generate butterfly diagrams
-----------------------------------------
Add "edispcube" parameter to support energy dispersion for stacked analysis
(#1724).


ctulimit - Compute upper limit
------------------------------
Add "edispcube" parameter to support energy dispersion for stacked analysis
(#1724).

In case that the parameter error is zero, the parameter value is taken as
parameter error to define the bracketing parameter values (#1795).


cterror - Likelihood profile error computation
----------------------------------------------
The output filename is now read ahead in case that the tool is executed
(#1700).

Add "edispcube" parameter to support energy dispersion for stacked analysis
(#1724).


cscripts
--------
Add the csiactcopy script that copies IACT data from a remote machine to
the user's machine (#1661).

Add csresmap::publish() method to publish the residual map via a SAMP Hub
to Virtual Observatory interoperable tools (e.g. Aladin).

Add "edispcube" parameter to cslightcrv, csresmap, and csspec scripts to
support energy dispersion for stacked analysis (#1724).

Add csworkflow script that executes an arbitrary analysis workflow (#1508).

Transformed cta_root2caldb into csroot2caldb script. The parameters
"bgdoversample" and "bgdinfill" have been added to the parameter file to
provide more control over the background template generation. The background
template is now generated using linear interpolation, and the
"bgdoversample" allows to generate the background template at a finer
sampling than the spatial sampling in the ROOT file.

Add csobsdef.pntdef() method to set directly a pointing definition from a
gammalib.GCsv object (#1771).

Add cstsmapsplit script that generates the command sequence for splitting the
computation of a Test Statistic map into computations of sub maps (#1797).

Unit tests have been added for all cscripts.


Examples
--------
None


caldb
-----
None


models
------
None