New Features and Important Changes in ctools 1.2.0

4 October 2016


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


Configuration
-------------
The testing.py script has been modified so that cscripts that are executed
from the command line are included in the coverage reports (#1827).


Python interface
----------------
A pars() method has been added to the Python interface of all ctools and
cscripts that allows assigning parameters from a dictionary or retrieving
all parameters in a dictionary (#1838).


Support model
-------------
The ctobservation base class that derives from the ctool base class was
introduced to provide a common base class for all ctools that hold an
observation container. The class implements the following methods:
- obs()                        Returns reference to observation container
- first_unbinned_observation() First unbinned CTA observation in container
- next_unbinned_observation()  Next unbinned CTA observation in container
The following ctools derive from the class:
- ctbin
- ctbkgcube
- ctcubemask
- ctedispcube
- ctexpcube
- ctmodel
- ctobssim
- ctpsfcube
- ctselect
- ctskymap

The ctlikelihood base class that derives from the ctobservation base class
was introduced to provide a common base class for all ctools that perform
maximum likelihood optimisations. The class holds an optimizer member. The
class implements the following methods:
- opt()      Returns pointer to optimizer
- evaluate() Evaluates log-likelihood at a given parameter value
The following ctools derive from the class:
- ctbutterfly
- cterror
- ctlike
- cttsmap
- ctulimit

The introduction of these base classes avoids code duplication.


ctobssim - CTA observation simulation
-------------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctselect - CTA event selection
------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The time_reference() method has been removed since the method is part of the
ctool base class, and exposed in Python as _time_reference().


ctbin - CTA event binning
-------------------------
The ctbin segfaulted when running on an observation container with different
energy thresholds. This problem is now fixed (#1850).

The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The save() method led to a segmentation violation in case it was applied on an
empty ctbin instance, and specifically in case that the instance contains an
empty observation container. This bug has been fixed (#1835).


ctlike - Maximum likelihood fitting
-----------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The class now derives from ctlikelihood (#1828).


cttsmap - Generation of Test Statistic map
------------------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The class now derives from ctlikelihood (#1828).


ctskymap - CTA sky mapping
--------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The ctskymap::map() method has been renamed to ctskymap::skymap() to avoid a
name conflict with Python (#1828).


ctmodel - CTA counts cube modelling
-----------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctexpcube - CTA exposure cube generation
----------------------------------------
Set hidden "addbounds" parameter by default to "no" (#1819).

The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctpsfcube - CTA point spread function cube generation
-----------------------------------------------------
Set hidden "addbounds" parameter by default to "no" (#1819).

The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctedispcube - CTA energy dispersion cube generation
---------------------------------------------------
Set hidden "addbounds" parameter by default to "no" (#1819).

The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctbkgcube - CTA background cube generation
------------------------------------------
Set hidden "addbounds" parameter by default to "no" (#1819).

The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctmapcube - CTA map cube generation
-----------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctcubemask - CTA cube filtering
-------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctbutterfly - Generate butterfly diagrams
-----------------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).


ctulimit - Compute upper limit
------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The tool now also supports spectral models with the new naming conventions, and
in particular the "PhotonFlux" and "EnergyFlux" names (#1832).

The class now derives from ctlikelihood (#1828).


cterror - Likelihood profile error computation
----------------------------------------------
The clear() method now calls GApplication::clear() to conserve the properties
of the tool (#1835).

The class now derives from ctlikelihood (#1828).


cscripts
--------
Added the support modules "modutils" and "ioutils" to the cscripts module and
removed the obsolete functions fit(), cterror(), cntmap() and modmap() from the
"obsutils" module (#1830).

The csroot2caldb script now takes the zenith and azimuth angles as parameters
and writes them into the calibration database.


Examples
--------
None


caldb
-----
None


models
------
None