New Features and Important Changes in ctools 00-08-00 Author(s) : Juergen Knoedlseder 24 July 2014 1. Introduction --------------- This document briefly summarizes executable by executable the most important changes made since the last release of ctools. For all ctools, the public method interface was cleaned up so that only methods that are really useful for an outside client are exposed. Low-level methods that are used by the application are now protected, as improper usage of these methods may lead to unpredictable results. 2. Configuration ----------------- None 3. Python interface ------------------- None 4. ctobssim - CTA observation simulation ---------------------------------------- ctobssim was not fully thread save as the models were shared among the threads which led to concurrent memory access when evaluating the Monte Carlo cache. The models are now copied within the parallel section, avoiding concurrent memory access (#1258). ctobssim now also supports the handling of energy dispersion. Energy dispersion can be switched on or off using the hidden edisp parameter. 5. ctselect - CTA event selection --------------------------------- The temporary file is now properly close to avoid file opening errors when iterating over ctselect (#1149). 6. ctbin - CTA event binning ---------------------------- WARNING: The philosophy behind the ctbin tool changed fundamentally! ctbin now always produces a single counts cube on output. If a single event list is specified on input, the functionnality is basically unchanged. If multiple event lists are specified, however, events are now merged into a single counts cube file. No observation definition XML file is written anymore! So far, ctbin still writes pointing information in the counts cube, although this is not necessarily meaningful if merging event lists with different pointings. In the long run, pointing information will be summarized in a pointings definition file, and will be removed from the counts cube header. The logic is that the pointing definition is set to the map centre. This is only identical to the pointing in case of binning a single event list and using the usepnt=yes option (or specifying the pointing manually as the xref and yref parameters). 7. ctlike - CTA maximum likelihood fitting ------------------------------------------ ctlike now has full access to the calibration database, allowing the use for 2D response functions in FITS files. ctlike now also supports the handling of energy dispersion. Energy dispersion can be switched on or off using the hidden edisp parameter. 8. ctskymap - CTA sky mapping ----------------------------- None 9. ctmodel - CTA counts map modelling ------------------------------------- ctmodel now has full access to the calibration database, allowing the use for 2D response functions in FITS files. ctmodel now also supports the handling of energy dispersion. Energy dispersion can be switched on or off using the hidden edisp parameter. 10. ctexpcube - CTA exposure cube generation -------------------------------------------- The first version of the ctexpcube tool is included in the release. ctexpcube computes the exposure cube for an observation definition file. The cube definition may be taken from a counts cube or may be specified by user parameters. 11. ctpsfcube - CTA point spread function cube generation --------------------------------------------------------- The first version of the ctpsfcube tool is included in the release. ctpsfcube computes the point spread function cube for an observation definition file. The cube definition may be taken from a counts cube or may be specified by user parameters. 12. ctbkgcube - CTA background cube generation ---------------------------------------------- The first version of the ctbkgcube tool is included in the release. ctbkgcube computes the background cube for an observation definition file. The cube definition may be taken from a counts cube or may be specified by user parameters. 13. ctcubemask - CTA cube filtering ----------------------------------- The first version of the ctcubemask tool is included in the release. ctcubemask allows filtering of bins in a counts cube by setting the bin content to -1. Filtering can be done by energy, for a circular Region of Interest (ROI) or using ds9 exclusion regions. 14. Examples ------------ None 15. Scripts ----------- Add logL and event statistics to cspull output file. Convert all tabs into spaces. The obsutils script has now been moved into the ctools module namespace. The following functions have been added to obsutils: * set_obs() replaces the now obsolete set() function * set_obs_list() returns an observation container filled with a list of observations * set_obs_patterns() defines standard patterns of CTA observations. Current options are: - "single": single pointing - "four": four pointings offset by specific angle around centre * spectrum() generates spectral points by fitting a source model in specified energy bins. 16. caldb --------- None 17. models ---------- None