News Page

• New task VISIONS (February 27, 2013):
  The new program VISIONS is a visual inspection tool for 2d and 3d data sets with all the functionality that GIDS provided (e.g side panels with XV slices), but with an up to date user interface, a truecolor image display and a lot of extra functions related to world coordinates. It is possible to extend a plot with contours, beams, labels, sky graticules, etc.
  It has a built-in manual and every input field in the GUI has a tool tip. It provides high quality output in various formats (PostScript, PDF, PNG, etc.)

• Problems with PGPLOT colour PostScript files (June 8, 2012):
  Newer versions of Ghostscript and also certain PostScript printers do not always render PGPLOT colour PostScript files correctly. GIPSY's PostScript driver had been changed to fix this. For existing files written with the old driver, a conversion utility has been made available. See: fixcps.doc.

• New PGPLOT device (May 21, 2012):
  A new PGPLOT device for plotting in a screen window has been made available. It is named SCREEN and it can be used as an alternative to the existing device X11, which has the big disadvantage that it doesn't properly handle expose events. This has the consequence that X11 loses its window contents when it has been covered by other windows. For the implementation of SCREEN the task PGVIEW is used. This task is started automatically when it is not already active but it can also be started by the user. The latter can be useful when a different window size needs to be specified with PGVIEW's keyword XYZIZE=. This keyword can also be specified in a default file for PGVIEW, e.g., $HOME/.gipsy/pgview.def.

• Improved Apple Mac OS X support (December 13, 2011):
  GIPSY is now also supported on 64-bit Apple Mac OS X systems. We tested on Lion, version 10.7.2. For more information and instructions, please consult the Download and Installation Guide.

• Larger datasets (May 23, 2011):
  The first phase of increasing the maximum size of datasets has been completed. The new maximum size is about 2 gigapixels (~8 GB).
  To make the increased size also available on 32-bit Linux systems, it is necessary to add the following flags to gfortran's compilation parameters in $gip_loc/setup:
      -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
  See $gip_sys/setup.mgr.

• New task FITSREPROJ (March 6, 2011):
  This task if a versatile tool to re-project data in a FITS file to another- or a modified world coordinate system. The output can be converted to a GIPSY set (to be used for tasks like ROTCUR, ROTMOD etc.).

• New task ALLSKYPLOT (February 17, 2011):
  Plot an all sky graticule in a given sky system and plot shapes, markers and/or images on that system.

• New task WCSFLUX (January 14, 2011):
  Plot set/subsets from a GIPSY set or slices from a FITS file and annotate those plots with world coordinate labels and/or a graticule. Then add shapes in one image. The shapes propagate to the other images using their world coordinates. Finally calculate the flux in those shapes.

• Kapteyn Package (June 14, 2010):
  The installation of the new task KAPTEYNPACKAGE will also attempt to install the Kapteyn Package within GIPSY. For this to be successful, some requirements must be met. Running the task will show whether the Kapteyn Package has been installed successfully and what can be done if this is not the case.

• GIDS on 24-bit displays (June 2, 2010):
  Until recently, GIPSY's oldest image display program GIDS could only run on 8-bit PseudoColor displays. Modern graphics interfaces and drivers that support this mode are hard to find. GIDS now has been modified so that it can run on 24-bit displays that support the DirectColor visual, which most of those displays do. A disadvantage compared to TrueColor (which GIDS does not support) is that usually the colors of other windows change when GIDS' colormap changes.

• New task SKYCALQ (March 2, 2010):
  Another sky calculator. It is derived from SKYCALC and uses Qt4 instead of GIPSY's own GUI toolkit Ggi. To be able to use it, the Python packages PyQt4 and kapteyn need to be installed.

• 64-bit support, code changes (June 19, 2009):
  GIPSY is now fully supported on 64-bit Linux systems. In order to achieve this, a number of code changes had to be applied. We believe that the impact of these changes is limited, but they have not been tested on architectures which are not available to us (MacOS, Solaris, etc.) We would appreciate to receive reports about any problems. There is a "frozen" distribution available from before the changes which can be used in case of serious problems: gipsy_src_17Jun2009.tar.gz.

• New task MAPMAKER (February 27, 2009):
  Plot set/subset data from a GIPSY set or data slices in a FITS file and annotate those plots with world coordinate labels. Use contour lines to enhance the visibility of features. The task has a hard copy facility for PS, PDF, png etc. The program is ideal for comparing channels in a radio data cube or for comparing different sources (e.g. mixing GIPSY sets and FITS files). Put markers with a mouse button. These markers are simultaneously plotted in all other images at the same position in world coordinates.

• New task FITSREAD (February 3, 2009):
  A FITS reader for images which can be used as an alternative to RFITS.

• New task TRANSPOSE (January 27, 2009):
  This task copies an input set to an output set of which the axis order may be different. It may be an alternative to AXSWAP. All header items are transferred to the correct level in the output set's hierarchy.

• New task SKYCALC (October 7, 2008):
  Calculates for a given position in one of the sky systems, the corresponding position in other sky systems. It is a more powerful successor of the task SKYTOOL. It requires the Kapteyn Package to be installed - this is not part of the GIPSY distribution.

• New: SLICEVIEW 1.5
  Improvements (compared to the previous version 1.4):
  • Zooming with keys + and - in all modes. Reset with key '0'
  • Zooming with shift left mouse button. Dezoom with ctrl left button
  • Panning to cursor with key '9'. Arrow keys for small displacements of image
  • Interpolation button acts on current frame and on others when displayed
  • Draw contours button acts on current frame and on others when displayed
  • Colours can be changed with left mouse button in image (only in display mode)
  • Finally some useful output to GPLOT input file. Handy to create a hardcopy with GPLOT with the option to change plot parameters"
  • Interaction from XV plots. Control with mouse which subset is displayed
  • Data from line graph can be written to Ascii file on disk
  • Spline control points to file on disk in three formats
  • Improved and extended documentation (e.g. about mouse and keyboard actions)
  • A number of minor bugs are removed

• New task VTKVOLUME (January 14, 2008).
  VTKVOLUME is a simple, experimental task allowing the user to display and manipulate a volume-rendered image of a data cube. It has been written in Python and uses VTK for the volume rendering. The presence of GIPSY's Python and VTK modules are required for being able to run it.

• New Python module (July 12, 2007).
  The existing experimental Python modules (gipsy, ggi, gipsyc) will soon be replaced by a single pre-compiled module which will be part of the standard distribution. Prerequisites for this binding are a supported architecture (now Linux or MacOS), Python 2.3 or higher, and NumPy. For existing Python programs small changes may be necessary. Documentation can be found via this link.

• GIPSY for the Apple Mac (May 4, 2007)
  In the near future both Motorola- and Intel-based Apple Mac computers will be fully supported. A first version is included in the standard distribution and can be downloaded now. Care has been taken not to break existing installations on other architectures, but if you experience problems which may be related to this change, please inform us about this.
  For installing GIPSY on a Mac, you need X11, the g77 compiler, and the Xaw3d widget set. X11 can be found on the MacOS installation disk, the g77 compiler can be obtained from http://hpc.sourceforge.net/ and Xaw3d can be installed using fink.

• New application SPLINEFIT (May 24, 2006)
  A new program called SPLINEFIT fits a spline to selected profile data and interpolates for other data in that profile. It is also suitable as a template program to test your special functions to process profiles. Documentation can be found in splinefit.dc1.

• MPEG recording in SLICEVIEW (December 8, 2004)
  The data set inspection tool SLICEVIEW has been extended with the possibility to store movie sequences in MPEG-1 format. For more information refer to SLICEVIEW's help window or to its document file. The recording is delegated to a separate task MPEG, which can also be used by itself for other purposes.

• MacGIPSY: GIPSY on Apple Mac G4 and G5 (November 18, 2004)
  Update: As GIPSY's standard distribution now also supports Mac OS, this news entry is only of historical interest.
  Thanks to Erwin de Blok's (Mt Stromlo) efforts it is now possible to run GIPSY on Apple Mac G4 and G5 systems. To install GIPSY on such a system some simple extra steps are required. Eventually this will all be integrated in the standard distribution.

• New task PYBLOT (November 10, 2004)
  PYBLOT is a replacement and extension of the task BLOT which could only be used on 8-bit pseudocolor displays. It allows the user to interactively define shapes which set a mask for conditional transfer of image data to an output set. In GIPSY type pyblot to start the program. To prevent color flashing, truecolor users can add the keyword ggiopt=fixcol.
        PYBLOT is the first GIPSY task written in Python. It can only be run when GIPSY's Python binding has been installed. Without this binding it will only display an informative message. Comments are welcome.

• Python binding (March 23, 2004)
  GIPSY's Python binding enables you to run tasks written in the Python language. This software is a work in progress which has only been tested on Red Hat Linux versions 7.2, 9.0 and Enterprise. More information can be found via the following links:
  using the binding:
  
  • Recipes
    reference documentation:
  • GIPSY's base classes and functions
  • Ggi, the graphical user interface
  • Python's complete documentation tree
    installation:
  • Download and Installation Guide

• Ggi plotfield upgrade (May 14, 2003)
  The PlotField element from GIPSY's graphical user interface (Ggi) has been modified so that it is capable of redrawing (parts of) the element in case it has been obscured by other windows, etc. So it now behaves correctly, even if the X server does not support the backing-store and save-unders options.
        However, if the X server supports these options, it may still be advantageous to switch them on, because drawing in PlotFields can then be more efficient. Ggi will detect the presence of these options and act accordingly.
        Affected tasks: FUNPLOT, GAUFIT2D, INSPECTOR, RENDER, ROTMAS, SLICEVIEW, XGAUFIT, XGAUPROF.

• Default files (August 9, 2001)
  The way default files are used has slightly changed. First, the directory for the `global' hermes.def has been changed from $HOME (the login directory) to $HOME/.gipsy

  This directory now also can contain task-specific default files as well as a default file with keywords for all tasks: tasks.def. The latter file can be especially useful for specifying the GGIOPT= keyword used in tasks with a graphical user interface.

  If you already have a hermes.def in your login directory, you can execute the following steps to bring it to its new place:

     cd
     mkdir .gipsy
     mv hermes.def .gipsy/
  

  For more information see the Hermes User's Guide.

• Event recording and playback (June 18, 2001)
  Recording and playing back events from a task with a GUI has become still easier. Just click with the right mouse button in the background of any of the task's windows. This will open a new window in which the event file name can be specified, event recording can be started and stopped and which also contains a button which allows you to start the event player with the relevant fields already filled in.

• New task PLAYER (April 27, 2001)
  This task brings back batch processing for tasks with a graphical user interface! It allows the user to execute a script with keyword changes, or 'events', for an other task. In this way it appears as if PLAYER pushes the other task's buttons, types into text entry fields, turns dials, etc.
        An event player script is a simple text file which may be prepared by the user but can also be generated automatically when the new recording feature of GIPSY's graphical user interface is used. See the section ``Keywords'' of ggi.doc.

• Non-default visuals. (March 14, 2001)
  In addition to 8-bit PseudoColor, GIPSY's graphical user interface (Ggi) now also supports the DirectColor and TrueColor visual classes of the X Window System. Ggi will try to select the most suitable visual available, but the user can override this choice.

  There are no plans to modify GIPSY's display server GIDS in a similar way, so when use of this program is required, the default visual still must be 8-bit PseudoColor.

  More information is provided in a separate document.

• Linux compatibility. (January 2001)
  The Linux version of GIPSY is now fully maintained. We are currently using the RedHat 7.0 distribution.

• New task SLICEVIEW. (July 26, 2000)
  Inspection tool for 2-D and 3-D data sets, with GIDS like functionality (colour bar, movie loops etc.) It extracts data along a user defined line, ellipse or spline curve and shows the data as XV images. It shows z-profiles with intensities or flux in a predefined area.

  It has a graphical user interface, is easy to master and has lots of import and export utilities. Displayed images, annotated with coordinate labels, can be sent very easily to printer or PostScript file.

• PGPLOT drivers (April 28, May 23, 2000)
  The PostScript drivers for PGPLOT have been modified so that they now deliver Level 2 output. Advantages are: color images occupy about 80% less space in the output file, monochrome images 35% less. Images can also be rendered using interpolation. (Independent of printer support for interpolation.)

  For installations which require PostScript Level 1, the old drivers are still available. They can be chosen by adding the definition -DPSLL1 to both C-compiler option lines in $gip_loc/setup. Then rebuild the drivers with:
      p -rebuild -sub pgdriv.src
  and the tasks with:
      p -update

• New task RENDER displays rendered 2d & 3d GIPSY data (Feb 16, 1999)
• Linux compatibility. (February 8, 1999)
  A number of changes were made to allow GIPSY to be installed under newer versions of Linux. We tested with the RedHat 5.2 distribution which contains Linux 2.0.36, gcc 2.7.2.3 and g77 (egcs-1.0.3 release).

• PGPLOT 5.2.0 . . .         . . . and its installation problems. (November 12, 1998)
  The latest version of PGPLOT has been installed. This was a long-awaited improvement which will make a number of interesting developments possible.
  There is a problem however. Due to the increased number of modules the installation program can run out of buffer space, leaving things in a more or less indeterminate state. If this has happened, the following steps can bring the system back to normal. You must be logged in under your local GIPSY account.

  cd $gip_exe
  \rm $gip_tmp/*
  \rm $gip_sys/architecture.lock
  sed -e 's/1024/2048/g' $gip_tsk/compile.c > ./compile.c
  mv ./compile ./compile.sav
  ./compile.sav ./compile.c
  ./compile -update
  

  As an alternative, this procedure can be obtained as a C-shell script via anonymous ftp:

  cd $gip_exe
  ftp ftp.astro.rug.nl
  Name: anonymous
  Password: your email address
  ftp> cd gipsy
  ftp> get combug.csh
  ftp> quit
  
  chmod +x combug.csh
  combug.csh
  

  (This procedure is not easier, but it has a slightly smaller chance of errors)

• New features in FUNPLOT. (September 16, 1998)
  
  • an optional extra window showing the Fourier transform (FFT) of the function being explored;
  • the possibility to supply a parameter with a list of values, e.g. read from a file using the file() input function;
  • cursor read-out and the coupling of the cursor coordinates to two special parameters: XC and YC.
• New task ROTMAS. (August 14, 1998)
  ROTMAS is a program for interactive modelling of rotation curves. It has a graphical user interface (Ggi). Besides fitting the components of a rotation curve, one can also inspect how well the curve fits in a XV-diagram.
  The program includes also an interface to program ROTMOD. This is the first release of the program.

• Graphical user interface routines package (Ggi) installed. (February 19, 1998)
  For more information see the document ``Event-driven Tasks and Graphical User Interfaces''.

• New task FUNPLOT. (September 18, 1997)
  Another experimental program based on Ggi. With this program virtually every mathematical function can be explored and plotted. Parameters to the function, origin and scale of the plot can be changed interactively, the function's derivative can be plotted, etc. Like SKYTOOL, this program can be run from ngipsy, so experience with GIPSY is not required. Just type:

  ngipsy funplot

• New task SKYTOOL. (July 25, 1997)
  An interactive coordinate transformation utility based on the new experimental GIPSY graphical interface routines (Ggi). It is intended to be self-explanatory.
  It should be considered as an alpha-release/demo meant to obtain experience with Ggi. Users are explicitly invited to share their experience, comments, suggestions etc. with the author of the program (Hans Terlouw, J.P.Terlouw@astro.rug.nl).

• New task FIT. (February 19, 1997)
  Least squares fitting program for one dimensional functions.

• New task INSPECTOR. (December 17, 1996)
  This task compares interactively radial HI velocities, obtained from (fitted) 'tilted ring' circular velocities, with velocities in data slices.

• Hermes now by default attempts to start a WWW browser (March 4, 1995)
  This browser can be used to view GIPSY documentation. It also will display help information when TAB is pressed. Then the Common Output Area (COA) on Hermes' terminal screen will not be overlayed anymore.

  When the browser is terminated, Hermes will revert to displaying help information on top of the COA.

  The WWW browser can also be suppressed by putting the following line in the Hermes default file (hermes.def):

     STARTBROWSER=OFF
  

• Hypertext documentation available (29 August 1995)
  Sites which want to have a local copy of the html documentation can obtain this via anonymous ftp. See instructions. Please note that any changes are not yet distributed via the automatic update.