-------- Philippe Salome IRAM salome@iram.fr October/November 2004 ALMA Offline software test NAME: Questionnaire on testing experience 1. Please list briefly your background in the following areas: A. Radio Interferometry ((sub)millimeter or centimeter) I've only used the PdB interferometer, first during my Ph-D for my own projects and now more regularly as AoD. B. Experience with VLA and/or PdBI data No experience with the VLA. Observer at PdB, local contact for data reduction and analyse, participation in setups preparation. C. Astronomical Data Reduction packages: AIPS None MIRIAD None MMA None Gildas/Clic Experienced AIPS++ None D. How much experience have you had with the AIPS++ software package before this test? It was the first time that I used the AIPS++ software. 2. Please identify which dataset you processed during this test: B. BIMA CO(1-0) observations of NGC 4928 3. Were you able to complete the fill, editing, and calibration of the data? If not, why? Please comment on specific steps if desired (comments can be positive or negative): A. Filling the data into AIPS++ format No problem the first time (using the script).I first made a mistake : I didn't put the readonly option to False. Using the script this then appeared clear to me. When I tried to use the widget menu to fill the data, it was not obvious to me that I had to go through the 'all functions' menu to fix some parameters (like in 'select'). For example in my first attempt, I forgot to fix the sbandav to USB for instance. Looking at the scripts helped me to understand how to deal with the mrfiller widget, and the other wigdets in general. When trying to fill the data, if the file name '.ms' already exists, it is not possible to overwrite it ? I have had a bug for the second dataset that I did not reduce (by lack of time). See in the comments (last part of the report) how this happened. B. Editing and visualizing your data I first used the autoflag function in script mode with all the parameters inside. Then even after doing an unflag, I could not see any amplitude in the first 2 end last 2 channels. I may I have missed something... probably not reset correctly the flags. The possiblity to see flag/unflagged data together is very interseting and helped to see that these data were not unflagged. In msplot : A frequent error : when defining the Nb of channels (different for Field 1, 2 and the source Field). It is very easy to forget the spectral setup and to let bad values in the channels number parameter when going back and forth from Source Fields to Calib Field.. One question : I wanted to have a plot of all the channels or all the frequencies covered during the observations, but I didn't managed to. The idea was to see an AMP vs uvdist plot per channel (not per band), to see the line in the uv plane at the line frequency. Is that possible ? While trying to do so, I tried to plot channels vs frequency. But this was not possible. And, aips++ froze with this message : ********** Plot Frequency versus Channel ********** Channel selection: #chan=64, start=1, width=1, incr=1 Polarization selection: [YY] Selection initialized ok Channel selection: #chan=64, start=1, width=1, incr=1 Reading by row No data plotted. No data plotted. Editing not possible for multipage plots: change selection and try again Deleting the unused flag table called alla.ms.flags.7 Closed the measurement set called alla.ms. Successfully closed empty server: ms ***************************** In the shell window: -------------------- error, non-compatible types for assignment enter the text in that file's own buffer. ----------------------------- and then it was not possible to use msplot anymore. I had to go out of AIPS++ C. Atmospheric phase corrections (PdBI data only) Not applicable for these data D. Gain (phase and amplitude) calibration No problem. It could be useful to have a clear indicator to the quality of the calibration (a kind of confidence levels : phase rms...). Besides, explanation on how to flag data at this step would be very useful in the cookbook (in the step by step description). Finally, one remark : the 'plotcal' seems not to work through the widget, or I forgot to fix a parameter, So I use the script command line cal.plotcal(). E. Absolute flux calibration No problem. The 'refspwmap' option was not available through the widget menu of cal.fluxscale(). Is it only possible by using the script command ? F. Bandpass calibration Not applicable for these data 4. Were you able to subtract continuum in the uv-plane (if applicable)? If not, why? Not applicable for these data 5. Were you able to split out the calibrated data (if desired)? If not, why? Yes, no problem. 6. Were you able to image the data? If not, why? Please identify any problems you had during imaging. Pb with the second dataset. See at the end of the report. Wiewer : very powerful possibility of drawing/analyse the results. One remark concerns the defaults parameters (no labels, no axis...). As a general comment, I would say that there are so many options at different places, that it is not obvious to find easily how to draw simple things that are not set by default. For instance, I tried to have colors the 'file' menu, then through the 'color manager' and finally, I found inside one of the submenus of 'adjust' how to do. Once one know, it is very easy. But I spent quite a long time to have a standard display : with colors and axis. I also had Pb to have channel maps with a proper size (each image was too small because of margins). Is the max number of channel maps limited at 25 ? I have not found quickly how to plot the value in velocity (or frequency) of each channel map into the plot. The analysis possiblities are very interesting and the summary options very useful. 7. Were you able to analyze the images adequately to determine if the results you obtained were scientifically reasonable (e.g. display the image, calculate RMS and peak, make a moment map or take a spectrum)? If not, why? Yes, I imaged the moisaic, by channel maps and I computed the first moments. 8. Please summarize the final results of your image(s): (first day only) n4826_mom0.im n4826_mom1.im gcala.cm - RMS: (full) 18.7 Jy/beam.km/s 427.2 km/s 0.139 Jy/beam - Peak Flux Density: (full) 129.5 Jy/beam.km/s 583.0 km/s 1.437 Jy/beam (I had to select a plane region to compute the statistics for the calibrator image (gcala.cm)) 9. Did you have adequate support during your test? If you contacted the AIPS++ groups for questions or to fix a bug, please comment on the interaction and whether it was helpful. 10.Was AIPS++ easy to install? If not, why? Some rpm were missing on my mandrake 10 version. So I had to extract some rpm by hand , and to download from the mandrake cD and from a rpm website some other packages : rpm -ivh pgplot-5.2.2-4ds.i586.rpm rpm -ivh pgplot-motif-5.2.2-4ds.i586.rpm rpm -ivh rpfits-2.6-13ds.i586.rpm rpm -ivh cfitsio-2.401-12ds.i586.rpm On the mandrake cD : install of the lesstif package >From the web, download the files : rpm -vih libblas3-3.0-9mdk.i586.rpm rpm -vih liblapack3-3.0-9mdk.i586.rpm rpm -vih pgplot-devel-5.2.2-4ds.i586.rpm then only, do : ./casa_install mandrake . install 11.The Synthesis Reduction Cookbook you used for this test is the first version of a comprehensive cookbook for ALMA users. Please evaluate the organization, content, and presentation of the cookbook. It is meant to be the first documentation users will see when they want to reduce ALMA data, it provides background on the code capabilities, and extensive examples. The on-line documentation provides more details and code descriptions. With this in mind, please answer the questions below. If you have detailed comments, please attach them to the end of this questionnaire. - Was the documentation adequate for you to complete your test? Yes. The chap 9 with the scripts description is very useful for a beginner. - Was the cookbook good? Yes - Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the cookbook? Maybe a description of the file organization could be added. Directories are created with sereral different table types and files. I could be interesting to now what all these new directory exaclty contains. - Was the on-line documentation good: * User Reference Manual? * Supporting documentation? I did not use it. I only had a very quick look because I did not know how to execute a shell commands. Finally I found the answer in the cookbook scripts. 12.Roughly how much time did you take to perform the following steps: - Installing aips++: 2h - Fill, editing, & calibration: 12h - Continuum imaging: -- - Spectral line imaging: 1h - Analysis: 8h - Filling out this questionnaire: 2h - Evaluating and grading the scientific requirements: 2h - Total time: 27h 13.Please rate your overall testing experience: - good - fair 14.Was the test well designed and executed by those in the ALMA offline subsystem (e.g. the subsystem scientist and the Offline subsystem group). If not, can you provide any suggestions for improving the next test? Yes, the test was well designed. 15.Do you have any additional comments that may help improve test of the offline software in the future? * As a general comment, for a first time user, I think it is difficult to understand the hierarchical importance of the different processes that can be executed with AIPS++. There are so many possibilities, through different tools and options that it is sometimes difficult to find how to do things one want to do. So I think that this is pretty difficult for someone who don't know what to do. However the required tools were available and worked for the data reduction of the moisaic imaging. The step by step help was really necessary as a first introduction. * There are so many accessible parameters, that one may often forget to fill an important field. All the more so as these parameters are sometimes at different places (cf usb in 'select'). * A second comment concerns the calibration/imaging quality assessment. Maybe some more detailed informations could be added (phase, amplitude rms, clean convergence) so that it is possible to judge more easily the 'quality' of the data/reduction. * It is necessary to include the library each time the user want to run a different tool when typing the script. It is not indicated in the cookbook. This is automatic when using the widgets, but not when typing the script commands. This could be added in the cookbook (it was not obvious to me). * If the plot display disappear (in msplot for instance), I have not found an easy way (directly accessible) to ran the display again. * Sometimes AIPS++ freeze and then it is necessary to go out of AIPS++. I did not manage to kill just the task that produced the problem. * Filling/Editing the second dataset : I could not create the 'imager' attached to allb.ms directory. Aips++ froze with this message : In the shell window : --------------------- - LocalExec::SetStatus: abnormal child termination for /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/imager LocalExec::SetStatus: abnormal child termination for /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/gtable In the log window : ------------------- Appending ngc4826b.ms to allb.ms Added 0 rows and matched 10 from the antenna subtable Added 7 rows and matched 0 from the field subtable Added 5 rows and matched 0 from the data description subtable > MeasurementSet Name: allb.ms MS Version 2 Observer: Project: t108c115.n48 Observation: BIMA(10 antennas) Telescope Observation Date Observer Project BIMA [ 4.40002e+09, 4.40003e+09] t108c115.n48 BIMA [ 4.40002e+09, 4.40005e+09] t108c115.n48 BIMA [ 4.40002e+09, 4.40004e+09] t108c115.n48 Data records: 119205 Total integration time = 28116.2 seconds Observed from 23-Apr-1998/03:07:07 to 23-Apr-1998/10:55:43 Fields: 9 ID Name Right Ascension Declination Epoch 1 3C273-F0 12:29:06.70 +02.03.08.60 J2000 2 1230+123-F0 12:30:49.42 +12.23.28.04 J2000 3 NGC4826-F0 12:56:44.24 +21.41.05.10 J2000 4 NGC4826-F1 12:56:41.08 +21.41.05.10 J2000 5 NGC4826-F2 12:56:42.66 +21.41.43.20 J2000 6 NGC4826-F3 12:56:45.82 +21.41.43.20 J2000 7 NGC4826-F4 12:56:47.40 +21.41.05.10 J2000 8 NGC4826-F5 12:56:45.82 +21.40.27.00 J2000 9 NGC4826-F6 12:56:42.66 +21.40.27.00 J2000 Data descriptions: 23 (23 spectral windows and 1 polarization setups) ID #Chans Frame Ch1(MHz) Resoln(kHz) TotBW(kHz) Ref(MHz) Corrs 1 32 LSRD 112077.166 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 2 32 LSRD 111977.163 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 3 32 LSRD 111877.435 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 4 32 LSRD 111777.432 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 5 32 LSRD 111677.704 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 6 32 LSRD 111577.701 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 7 32 LSRD 111477.973 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 8 32 LSRD 111377.969 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 9 32 LSRD 114819.827 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 10 32 LSRD 114919.83 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 11 32 LSRD 115019.558 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 12 32 LSRD 115119.561 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 13 32 LSRD 115219.289 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 14 32 LSRD 115319.293 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 15 32 LSRD 115419.02 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 16 32 LSRD 115519.024 3125 100000 115271.2 YY 17 1 LSRD 111777.556 800000.072 800000.072 115271.2 YY 18 1 LSRD 115219.429 800000.072 800000.072 115271.2 YY 19 64 LSRD 114950.382 1562.5 100000 115271.2 YY 20 64 LSRD 115040.397 1562.5 100000 115271.2 YY 21 64 LSRD 115130.137 1562.5 100000 115271.2 YY 22 64 LSRD 115220.153 1562.5 100000 115271.2 YY 23 1 LSRD 115135.265 400000.006 400000.006 115271.2 YY Antennas: 10 ID= 1-4: ANT1=UNKNOWN, ANT2=UNKNOWN, ANT3=UNKNOWN, ANT4=UNKNOWN, ID= 5-8: ANT5=UNKNOWN, ANT6=UNKNOWN, ANT7=UNKNOWN, ANT8=UNKNOWN, ID= 9-10: ANT9=UNKNOWN, ANT10=UNKNOWN Tables(rows): (-1 = table absent) MAIN(119205) ANTENNA(10) DATA_DESCRIPTION(23) DOPPLER(16) FEED(10) FIELD(9) FLAG_CMD(0) FREQ_OFFSET(-1) HISTORY(25) OBSERVATION(3) POINTING(0) POLARIZATION(1) PROCESSOR(1) SOURCE(1) SPECTRAL_WINDOW(23) STATE(1) SYSCAL(180) WEATHER(-1) > Deleting tool myms1 Successfully deleted tool myms1 Execution will construct new tool myimager Starting server measures Server started: /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/measures (AIPS++ version: 1.9 (build #819)) defaultmeasures (dm) ready defaultregionmanager (drm) ready for use defaultviewer (dv) ready Starting server imager Server started: /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/imager (AIPS++ version: 1.9 (build #819)) Opening MeasurementSet allb.ms Adding MODEL_DATA, CORRECTED_DATA and IMAGING_WEIGHT columns Execution will construct new tool myimager Starting server imager Server started: /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/imager (AIPS++ version: 1.9 (build #819)) Caught an exception! Event type=create exception=Table allb.ms does not exist GUI for constructor imager no longer needed Execution will construct new tool myimager ----------------------------------------- ...same problem when creating the imager for alla.ms which was previously working. - LocalExec::SetStatus: abnormal child termination for /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/imager Pb with the Imager. I had to go out of AIPS++. So I tried to fill again the BIMA data with different names for the .ms files. It was Ok for 3c273c.ms. However, when I tried exaclty the same thing for 1230+123c.ms (instead of 1230+123.ms), I had this error message : *********************** - LocalExec::SetStatus: abnormal child termination for /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/mirfiller Server 'mirfiller' has failed unexpectedly! You will need to create the relevant tool again. If that causes unexpected behavior, please restart AIPS++ Please submit a bug-report using bug() if you can reproduce the problem. *********************** It was impossible to kill the mirfiller process. The message is : ************************ Unable to find server for tool mymirfiller since it does not have an id() function. It worked with 'delete'. ************************ For the second dataset, I had again the error message : In the shell window : --------------------- - LocalExec::SetStatus: abnormal child termination for /home/phil/Offline-Test/rpms/lib/casa/bin/mirfiller In the log window : ------------------- Caught an exception! Event type=create exception=Table allc.ms does not exist I re-built the ms files once again, concatenated them again in a new file. However, I still couldn't create the imager or see the ms data. The error was : ********************* Cannot open allb.ms as a table. Problem opening the measurement set. The error was: Cannot open allb.ms as a table. Deleting the unused flag table called allb.ms.flags.1 "msplot.g", line 1405: error, : "msplot.g", line 1405: operand to .done is not a record File: table.g, Line 706 Stack: .(), msplot.g line 6096 .(), msplot.g line 6117 msplot(), glish eval line 2 eval(), toolmanagersupport.g line 362 is not a function value ********************* After ADJUST, while trying to go back to Image analysis in tool, AIPS++ froze with this error message : Loaded system packages: utility Type help() for help Glish version 2.8. - error, non-numeric array index: : operand to .mask is not a record File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 363 File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 376 Stack: .(), viewerimageslices.g line 272 error, non-numeric array index: : operand to .mask is not a record File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 363 File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 377 Stack: .(), viewerimageslices.g line 272 error, non-numeric array index: : operand to .mask is not a record File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 363 File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 376 Stack: .(), viewerimageslices.g line 272 error, non-numeric array index: : operand to .mask is not a record File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 363 File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 377 Stack: .(), viewerimageslices.g line 272 error, non-numeric array index: : operand to .mask is not a record File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 363 File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 376 Stack: .(), viewerimageslices.g line 272 error, non-numeric array index: : operand to .mask is not a record File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 363 File: viewerimageslices.g, Line 377 Stack: .(), viewerimageslices.g line 272