Release Notes for Science Data Archive
User Interface (Version 1.8.2)
Release Date: Wednesday, 9 April 2003
Contents
Version 1.8.2 of the Science Data
Archive (SDA) user
interface (UI) implements several enhancements made since the
release of Version 1.8.1 on 17 March 2003. These enhancements are described in
Changes since v1.8.1.
Version 1.8.2 includes many new tools and functions that were
originally designated for the upcoming release of v2.0. Because
these new tools significantly enhance the navigation of the UI and access to the
data, we chose to release them now rather than wait for all the
goals for v2.0 to be completed. Described below are the hardware
and software requirements for v1.8.2, the basic functionality of
v1.8.2, summaries of changes since v1.8.1, the known bugs
and limitations of v1.8.2, and the planned improvements for the
v2.x series of UI releases.
There are no specific hardware requirements for operating the UI. Any computer that
accommodates efficient WWW browsing will be sufficient for basic UI functionality.
However, computers should have sufficient memory and processing
speed to display and manipulate drizzled WFC images, which can be
as large as 250 MB.
The UI is a
WWW-based interface to the SDA
database and image storage media (RAID). The UI has been designed with
strict adherence to the XHTML and DOM HTML (through JavaScript/ECMAscript
bindings) standards, so it will perform well with any WWW
browser that fully supports these standards. The recommended
browsers for the UI are:
Netscape 4.7x (for any platform) and Internet Explorer 5.x
(for Windows and Unix) do not properly execute the UI and are therefore not
supported by the ACS archive group.
Proper use of the UI requires the following
browser options be set:
- Javascript must be enabled
- Permission to open new windows must be granted
These options are default settings on most browsers. For Mozilla
and Netscape, they are changed via the "Edit Preferences" menu
option --> "Advanced" category --> "Scripts and Windows"
subcategory.
Finally, a FITS image
viewer must be installed to properly display FITS images through the UI. Such viewers
include:
To enable your browser to spawn the FITS viewer, edit your browser
preferences to include a MIME type of "image/x-fits" for extension
"fits " and the correct path to the executable for the FITS viewer.
The UI has two
basic functions:
- Search and retrieval of
CALACS and APSIS image
products
- Search and analysis of objects listed in APSIS catalogs
Whereas both functions were performed via a common query form in
v1.0, the search and retrieval of images are now performed via a
dynamically generated data inventory page. Searches for detected
objects are still performed through the query form. This form has a
tabbed format, meaning that the basic steps of a query (defining
search criteria, selecting output fields, and viewing results) are
accessed through a tabbed menu.
The SDA stores selected images
generated by
CALACS and APSIS. The
CALACS images are produced by on-the-fly calibration through MAST. Only the calibrated FLT
and CRJ files, which are the input products of APSIS, are stored in the SDA. All other
CALACS files must be retrieved through MAST. The APSIS image products that are stored in
the SDA are:
- Drizzled and combined images (science, wieight, RMS, and
context) for each filter (from module combDither)
- Combined filter images (science and weight) for object
detection (from module combFilter)
- Segmentation images identifying detected objects (from module
detectionCatalog via SExtractor)
- Images of background around detected objects (from module filterCatalog via SExtractor)
All archived
CALACS and APSIS images can be
downloaded through the UI's data inventory and/or
displayed with standard FITS image viewers spawned by the
WWW browser. The detection images generated by APSIS can be viewed as color PNG files
through set summary pages linked to the data inventory. The
ancestors and descendents of each archived image can be traced,
thereby providing the user a pedigree of every archived APSIS run.
Objects in each GTO image are identified and characterized
photometrically, astrometrically, morphologically, and
cosmologically by APSIS. The
object catalogs generated by APSIS
(detection, filter, photometry, and BPZ) are transformed into searchable
database tables. Object queries are formed by constraining selected
parameters from each of these catalogs.
Version 1.8.2 offers several tools for inspecting and analyzing
the results of object queries:
- Summary pages containing basic information and cut-out (or
"postage-stamp") images of each object
- Collective displays of cut-out images of many detected
objects.
- Sorting output columns in ascending or descending order
- Downloadable tables in ASCII, CSV, TSV, HTML, and XML formats
The following enhancements and bug fixes have been implemented
since v1.8.1:
- The Data Inventory now contains a column identifying the detector(s) associated with each science program.
- A "Return to Query" link has been added to the Data Inventory to facilitate navigation back to the last revised
catalog query tab.
- The line number in the RPS2 file corresponding to each CALACS image is now displayed in the pedigree
information for that image.
- The control panel for the Object Map has been reconfigured to accommodate the following new features:
- The "stretch" drop-down function permits the user to adjust the scaling of the image display.
This function sets the degree to which the intensity histogram is clipped before the image is
displayed.
- A directional compass and pixel-scale bar may be superposed on the image by marking the
"Compass" and "Scale bar" boxes.
- The "Show filters" function allows the user to select the correspondence between the filter
images and the red, green, and blue channels of the color image map.
- The Object Map's "View entire image" function now adheres to all the control panel settings except
those defining a zoomed image (e.g., x, y, height, width, and zoom).
- Object Maps zoomed less than 100% (i.e., binned greater than 1x1) are now displayed with bins set to the
average value of the binned pixels.
- The default zoom factor for small (e.g., HRC) Object Maps has been enlarged to 50%.
- Object Maps may now be downloaded in PDF format whether or not Kron apertures are overlaid.
- Selected-object lists are now preserved when manipulating the settings of the Object Map control panel.
In other words, when an Object Map is spawned from the query results page (thereby producing a finding
chart), the Kron apertures marking the locations of selected objects are not lost when the map is panned or zoomed.
- The Object Map link in the Object Summary page now produces a zoomed image of the region surrounding the object.
This change permits easier identification of very small objects within the Object Map.
- Image cutouts ("postage stamp" images) that appear in Object Summaries spawned from the clickable Object Map
conform to the filter-to-RGB mapping selected for the Object Map.
- Overly large image cutouts are now binned before being displayed in the Object Summaries.
- The option to select the color palette for arrays of image cutouts has been removed. This action is a consequence
of the general switch from PNG to JPEG format. JPEG files are 24-bit RGB images that do not accommodate
indexed color maps.
- A bug pertaining to the APSIS dataset update flag has been fixed. The Set Summaries for all
current, obsolete, and frozen datasets now properly reflect their status.
- A bug pertaining to the ordering of query results from temporary database tables has been fixed.
- A bug in the PHP array_reduce function occasionally causes a
failure of the Program Summary page. This bug has been reported to
the developers of PHP.
- The region box within the Object Map control panel cannot be
dragged by the pointer in the Internet Explorer 6.0 browser. The
box can be repositioned by pointing and clicking within the control
panel or by entering the x and y coordinates of the center of the
box.
- The filter-to-RGB selection boxes do not initially appear in
the Object Map control panel when clicking the "Show filters" function
from the Internet Explorer 6.0 browser. This problem appears to be
an IE6.0 bug, and a workaround is being developed. Fortunately, the
selection boxes do appear if the red box in the finder image is repositioned,
or if the "Hide/Show Controls" link below the title banner is toggled.
Because v1.8.2 is a preview of the larger v2.0 release, it lacks
some important functionality requested by the GTO team at the
Summer 2002 meeting in Wyoming. Limitations of this release
include:
- Color constraints on catalog queries have not yet been
implemented.
- Magnitude constraints on catalog queries are limited to single
filters or are uniformly applied to all filters.
- Graphical representation of catalog parameters has not yet been
implemented.
-
CALACS header keywords have not yet been implemented as object
catalog constraints.
- Multiple image file downloads have not yet been
implemented.
Planned improvements for the v2.x series of UI releases include,
but are not limited to:
- Object queries constrained by multiple magnitudes and
colors
- Object queries constrained by
CALACS header keywords
- Two-parameter plots and histograms of catalog parameters
- Color-magnitude and color-color plots of calibrated
photometry
- Multiple image file downloads
Inquiries may be directed to:
archive 
