Subject: release of saord 1.8

From: Eric Mandel <eric at head-cfa.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 07:20:57 -0400

*******************************************************************************

		     The SAO R&D Software Suite
			 Public Release 1.8
		            16 July 1998

			   containing:

		SAOimage: The Next Generation (SAOtng)
		The X Public Access mechanism (XPA)

			   as well as:

	      	The ASSIST Graphical User Interface	
		The XDir directory browser
		The IRAF ncl with tcsh line editing

	    Contributors to this software include:

	  Eric Mandel		Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
	  William Joye		Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
	  Saleem Mukhtar	Jet Propulsion Laboratory
	  Doug Tody		National Optical Astronomy Observatories

	    with important assistance from:

	  Alberto Accomazzi	Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
	  Mark S. Ackerman	University of California, Irvine
	  Doug Mink		Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
	  John Roll		Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
	  Dennis Schmidt	Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
	  Ralph Swick		The Web Consortium

What's New and Significant in this release?
-------------------------------------------
This release of the SAO R&D package contains support for new types of
FITS data.  SAOtng 1.8 can display FITS image extensions, FITS binary
tables, n-D FITS images, compressed FITS data, and FITS files that are
found on the Web. In addition, SAOtng can display raw event lists (i.e.,
binary files containing events with a known record structure) -- useful
for X-ray lab data.

For X-ray astronomers, the ability to image FITS binary tables is
particularly significant. Our new support for FITS binary tables includes
a technique for filtering photon events in FITS tables.  This filtering
scheme is several times faster than previous schemes (such as IRAF QPOE
filtering) and also supports full C-syntax in the filter specification.
In addition to standard filtering using QPOE-style range lists, you
now can filter one attribute against another (e.g., "pi==pha+1") or
use arithmetic functions (e.g., "pha%2==1" to get odd pha values).
Full boolean algebra is supported, as is spatial region filtering
(e.g., "circle(400,450,50) && pie(400,450,90)").

New support for manipulating region marker attributes has been added.
It now is possible to fix attributes such as position, size, etc. on
one or more markers to prevent accidental resize or movement.  This
is especially useful when performing catalog marking.

Finally, a number of bug fixes and other relatively minor improvements
have been made, most notably to the internal memory management scheme.

Introduction
------------ 
We are pleased to announce the availability of a new public release
(version 1.8) of the SAO R&D software tree containing, among other
things, a new and improved version of SAOtng. We invite you to
retrieve the software and use it for your astronomical analysis (and
other?) needs.

[Historic Note: this is "the release formerly known as 1.7.2", which was
available from 4 June 1998 to 5 June 1998. Oops! We had to withdraw this
release because of a bug that was unacceptable to our quality control.]

SAOimage: The Next Generation (SAOtng)
--------------------------------------
SAOtng is a new version of the popular SAOimage display program.  It
is a superset of the ximtool program developed at NOAO for IRAF and as
such, utilizes the NOAO widget server (included in this package).  It
also incorporates the X Public Access mechanism to allow external
processes to access and control its data, GUI functions, and
algorithms.  SAOtng supports direct display of IRAF images and FITS
images (and easily can support other file formats), multiple frame
buffers, region/cursor manipulation, several scale algorithms, many
colormaps, and easy communication with external analysis tasks.  It is
highly configurable and extensible to meet the evolving needs of the
astronomical community.

The X Public Access Mechanism
----------------------------
To add 'open software' functionality to programs such as SAOtng, we
have developed the 'X Public Access' mechanism (XPA).  Built on top of
the existing Xt selection interface, XPA allows an Xt program to
define points of public access through which data and commands can be
exchanged with external programs.  Its simple programming and
command-line interface is designed so that arbitrarily large amounts
of data can be transferred to and from Xt programs using XPA.  Also,
the data associated with a given access point can be read and written
simultaneously.  XPA is the precursor to a more generalized message
bus system that will be built as collaboration between SAO and NOAO.

Platforms
---------
The SAO R&D software has been built on the following platforms:

	Sun Sparc	Solaris 2.5, 2.6	OpenWindows 3.x
	Sun Sparc	SunOs 4.1.3, 4.1.4	X11R5/R6.3
	HP9000/735	HP/UX A.09.01		X11R5
	SGI		IRIX 5.2, 5.3, 6.2	X11R5/R6
	DEC Alpha	OSF1 4.0		X11R6
	Gateway P5-90	Slackware 2.2.5		X11R6
			RedHat 5.0		X11R6

We develop and run the software mainly on Suns, but time has been
spent with the other (borrowed) platforms, especially 64-bit Alphas.
Ports to other systems should be relatively easy at this stage.
If you do a port (or try to and have problems), please let us know.

Information and Availability
---------------------------
Please visit the SAO R&D Group Home Page for news, updates, and downloads:

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/

Our home page will help you to download the source code distribution
and/or binary distributions for various platforms.

Alternatively, the SAO R&D software suite can be retrieved directly
via anonymous ftp from sao-ftp.harvard.edu in the pub/rd directory.
The source tree is contained in a compressed tar file called
saord.tar.Z. The binary distributions also are available at this site.
We recommend using the binary distributions where possible.

The unpacked tar file requires approximately 20 Mb of disk space.
The build will require approximately double that amount, depending
on the platform.

SAOtng Mailing List
-------------------
An saord mailing list (saord-announce) have been set up using Brent
Chapman's "Majordomo" mailing list manager.  Subscribers to this list
will receive periodic status reports, release notices, and other
useful information concerning SAORD software.  If you wish to become a
subscriber, please send an e-mail message to:

	majordomo at head-cfa.harvard.edu	

The mail should contain the following command in the body of the
message:

	subscribe saord-announce

If either you or your mailer add a signature to your mail message,
please add the following command after the "subscribe" command(s):

	end

(Note that we have combined the old saotng-announce and assist-announce
lists into this saord-announce list, so it is not necessary to join the
new list if you subscribed to one of the old lists.)

Acknowledgments
----------------
Much of this software was developed at SAO by the HEAD Software R&D
group with the significant help of collaborators across the country.
The work at SAO was performed in large part under a grant from NASA's
Applied Information System Research Program (NAG5-3996), with support
from the AXAF Science Center (NAS8-39073).  SAOtng, ASSIST, and XPA
are embodiments of an evolving software cooperation philosophy and
practice we hope to bring to astronomy and other disciplines.  They
reflect our efforts to understand how software systems (and people)
can act in concert without sacrificing their independence.

For more information (or to complain or encourage!)
---------------------------------------------------
Please send mail to: saord at cfa.harvard.edu.  We respond to questions,
bug reports, suggestions, gripes ...

						Eric Mandel
						eric at cfa.harvard.edu