archive release notes Version 1.15 of the Science Data Archive (SDA) user interface (UI) is an upgrade release which introduces a workaround to the PHP array_reduce function bug and also now provides the VOTable format as download format option to SDA users. A complete list of enhancements and bug fixes are described in Changes since v1.14. With the ACS science team apparently moving to Mac laptops and with the discovery of several serious security flaws, use of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x is now strongly deprecated. The ACS software groups recommends Mozilla or Firefox for Linux and Windows, Safari for Mac OS X.n, These can be downloaded from links below. Also described below are the hardware and software requirements for v1.15, the basic functionality of v1.15, the known bugs and limitations of v1.15, and the planned improvements for the future 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:
The use of the following browsers is deprecated:
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:
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:
The search and retrieval of images are performed via a dynamically generated data inventory page. Searches for detected objects are performed through the catalog 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:
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 1.15 offers several tools for inspecting and analyzing the results of object queries:
The following enhancements and bug fixes have been implemented since v1.13:
Version 1.15 of the UI contains most of the functionality and features requested by the GTO team at the onset of development and then confirmed at the Summer 2002 meeting in Wyoming. The few required features not yet implemented include:
. Queries constrained by uncorrected magnitudes or magnitude uncertainties (either corrected or uncorrected) have not yet been implemented.
Colors of catalogued objects are displayed in the query results only when the query is constrained by color. Under such circumstances, the objects' colors are displayed automatically. Colors are not yet included in the list of optional output parameters from the Photometry Catalog.
Version 1.15 processes SDA queries in a linear fashion with remedial hierarchical grouping. These limitations should not handicap simple queries, but more flexibility is needed to enable more complicated ones. Consult the Query Examples page for advice on how to construct queries within the current logic and grouping limitations of the UI.
Planned improvements for future releases of the UI include, but are not limited to:
