Re: [alma-sw-ssr] Offline Requirements v3.1

[Morita <morita@nro.nao.ac.jp>]

Dear Mel,

I am using IDL for analysis of imaging results and 
I like it very much.  Such package is very convenient for
not only image analysis but also prototyping or test of new imaging
algorithms.

At Nobeyama we are using IDL for single dish continuum data 
reduction. The manpower cost for the developments was very cheap.  
Several outside people installed this system in their own computer 
system.  Most of the case, they already had IDL licences.
NRO does not prepare any money for such export of the system.
The software company often upgrade the package version and we need 
to pay some money for each version up.  So, the total cost is big
and our institute cannot give these expenses to every end users.
Fortunately, almost no people have blame us, because imaging 
process of single dish continuum is simple and people only need 
this system just after their observations.

> Most image analysis packages have a module which can be executed:
> CONVOLVE(image, beam, method, output_image)
> 
> Radio astronomers have developed algorithms we could supply:
> DECONVOLVE(image, beam, method, output_image)
> 
> where method= clean[Hogbom,Clark,SDI,mfsclean,MRclean,maxen,maxempty,etc]
> 
> If these algorithms are written in an modular fashion, it should
> not require much extra work to write the code so that
> it can be incorporated into and invoked from other packages.
> I think it is appropriate to state this as a high priority requirement.

I like this concept.  But, even for IDL, it is not simple to make 
such external modules written with standard languages(Fortran, C, C++). 
Memory interface between package and external modules is problem
and I think it depends on commercial packages.
Maybe, we need to develop individual libraries for every packages.

Regards,
Koh-Ichiro