QSAS: Science Analysis Software

QSAS: Science Analysis Software for Space Plasmas

QSAS version 2.3.09

This is an end of branch release.

Macintosh users will need to install QT 4.5 as there are library incompatibilities with QT4.4, but QT3 and QT4.3 onwards are supported on other platforms.

QSAS version 2.3.09.

Bug fix in reading qft files with blank first line.
Other minor bug fixes.

QSAS version 2.3.08.

Gap handling in plot has been corrected.
CVA-CTA, Q4SC and Minimum Variance plugins have been modified to make allowance for changes on core qdos behaviour which could cause them to fail to run.

QSAS version 2.3.07. Macintosh users will need to install QT 4.5 as there are library incompatibilities with QT4.4. This is a bug-fix release.

Minimum Variance and Q4SC_Normal plugins were broken in 2.3.06. This has been fixed.
Selecting a single time element in a time series resulted in getting the first time element of the series. Fixed.
Fixed bug in plot labels where subscripts and superscripts could be the wrong size.
In plot, colour scale tick lengths is now editable.

QSAS version 2.3.06 makes the following enhancements.

Better memory management in QDOS, improving speed.
In plot, ranges taken from metadata are changed when arrays are summed.
Sequences of one record can be accessed as though they were a single scalar or matrix as appropriate (helps plotting when an array is sliced at a time value).
Plot is more tolerant of time dependent DEPEND_i values.
In plot, dropping an array onto the plot list item (not data object slot in Data Tab) will make a default subsample choice based on whether TS or XY frame type.
Plot is now much faster, especially for spectrograms.
Plots now use TrueType fonts. Default fonts are set up by the system, but the users can override these choices locally via the profiles.
Profiles: more options are available for setting default array subsampling.
Profiles: option to change the size of the GUI font, and to opt for a more compacter GUI (only reducing some margins at the moment).
Profiles: possibility to define one custom plot colour table per profile.
Changing plot type now retains the subsample choice for an array.
The Export Data window is now smaller.
"Newline" characters can be added to plot labels: code #n.

QSAS version 2.3.05 mainly fixes a bug found in version 2.3.04.

"Invalid window limits in Y" errors on automatically set up Y ranges could appear on log plots in v2.3.04. This has been fixed.
A "Nudge Y axis" option has been added to the Y axis tab in the Plot interface, adding an extra margin to automatically set-up Y ranges, to better separate plots within a stack.

QSAS version 2.3.04 fixes the following bugs found in version 2.3.03:

Sessions created under version 2.3.03 could be corrupt and result in a crash when they are loaded.
The Rainbow Extended palette matches more closely that of QSAS 2.2.x.
The buildPlugin script generated by the autoconf distribution is fixed. A buildPlugin_win script skeleton is provided on Windows
The Correlation Coefficient plugin has been cleaned up to attach dt offsets as DEPEND_0.
Vectors without time tags now default to plot as XY traces using DEPEND_0 as X axis.
Event labels in plots are no longer clipped on the panel boundaries.

QSAS version 2.3.03 fixes the following bugs found in version 2.3.02:

Matrix SVD and inversion fixed on Windows and PowerPC Macs. Plugins such as HofTel make use of these routines - results for version after 2.2.08 on these platforms should be checked. Linux and Solaris systems were not affected.
The Windows version could freeze during writing to the terminal when more than a screen full of diagnostics was written.

New features are also available:

Interactive time/x browsing in plot. Left-click on a plot frame to raise an interactive tool for modification of the time or x axis range. This provides zoom in and then sliding of the displayed interval.
Time stamps with 60+ seconds, 60+ minutes or 24+ hour fields can now be ingested (and autocorrected).
Improved speed when reading time strings.

QSAS version 2.3.02 adds several improvements to QSAS 2.3.01:

Restoring sessions with plots is much faster
Plotting is faster too, especially for spectrograms
The cursor now appears in the time interval editor
New ISSI_Vperp plugin. Updated HofTel plug-in (compatible with Themis data)
Profiles are saved to disk as soon as they are changed
Reduced use of the Qt3 Support library in the Qt4 version

QSAS version 2.3.01 fixes several bugs and glitches in QSAS 2.3.00. It also updates the HofTel plug-in, replaces the ISSI_plasma plug-in with PlasmaParams, and adds the possibility to save the plug-ins feedback to a log file.

QSAS version 2.3.00 is the first release in a new branch. New features include:

Port to Windows XP and Vista
Support of Qt4.2+, using the Qt3Support library. QSAS 2.3 will progressively migrate to full native Qt4 code, and eventually drop Qt3 support
Basic Statistics plugin
Improved time editor
Profiles for user settings. Simplified QSAS scripts.
Plot completely recoded:

Native Qt plot window (X11 not needed)
Plots can be saved as eps, pdf, jpg, png (replaces gif) or svg.
Plots use Metadata as default for axis scale and lin/log option (autoscale still available)
Better control of axis labels
User definable default for dropping vector and array objects
Pre-defined C1 ... C4 panels and traces with default Cluster trace colours
Option to fill white gaps in spectrograms
Fill values set to background colour in spectrograms
Simplified Value Return with multiple undo
Capability to link traces or spectra to use the same base object (replacing in one trace replaces in all)

Particle Moments plug-in, from phase-space distribution
Basic handling of Event Tables at the VOtable format: reading, writing, sorting and set operations
Removal of all Fortran code. The WavDenoise and Tsyganenko plugins require the f2c library.

Several minor bugs of version 2.2.09 were fixed.

Full details of the changes and fixes at this release are listed in the 2.3 branch Development Table.

This version is available for Solaris, Linux, Mac OSX (Power PC and Intel ) and Windows (XP and Vista).

QSAS is a software package which provides a flexible, extendable environment for the selection, manipulation, and display of space physics data. QSAS is written in C/C++ and is compiled using the gnu compiler set, and makes use of several elements of third-party software, including Qt (http://qt.nokia.com/downloads), cdf (http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and PLplot (http://plplot.sourceforge.net/).

Finding out about QSAS

QSAS Help Pages contains more detailed information about QSAS capabilities.
QSAS Screen shots shows the major functionality in use.
Sample Session is a tar file of a sample QSAS session to help get a feel of the system. This file is also shipped with the distribution. If it is not available in your installation (named SampleSession), extract the tar archive in the QSAS_HOME/tmp directory and open from the QSAS 'File/Restore Session' menu.
Some Notes on Writing QSAS Plug-ins provides guidance for users with personal analysis routines to enable them to receive data from and return data to QSAS via the dynamic QSAS Plug-in Interface. Also available as a pdf file.
Programmer's documentation provides information on the C++ class structures for QDOS and QSAS. This documentation is generated using doxygen.

Other specifications can be found within the various items supplied with QSAS.

Obtaining QSAS

Please email CSC Support each time you download a qsas distribution, stating which version, so that we can keep users informed of changes and monitor levels of interest. QSAS is provided free under GPL public licence, see licence file.

Information on the various options for installing qsas is provided in the QSAS Installation Notes.

Solaris and Linux users should download the source distribution that builds itself using autoconf and follow the instructions contained in the INSTALL file in this distribution:

	Qt3	Qt 4.2+
libtool 1.x	qsas-2.3dist-qt3.tar.gz	qsas-2.3dist.tar.gz
libtool 2.x	qsas-2.3dist-qt3-lt2.tar.gz	qsas-2.3dist-lt2.tar.gz

Most Linux distributions ship libtool 1.x. Only bleeding-edge distributions are based on libtool 2. To view your version of libtool, run: libtool --version.

Linux packages are now provided for various Linux distributions. This document explains the (simple) packaging procedure.

The executable is installed as symlinks /usr/bin/qsas and /usr/bin/QSAS.

Distribution	x86 (32 bit)	x86-64 (64 bit)
OpenSuse 11.0	qsas-2.3.09-1.i586.rpm	-
Ubuntu 8.10	-	-
Fedora 10	-	-
Mandriva One 2009.0	-	-
Source RPM (libtool 1.x)	qsas-2.3.09-1.src.rpm
Source RPM (libtool 2.x)	qsas-2.3.09-1.src.rpm

Mac OSX users should download the Mac installer as a disk image

qsas.dmg (universal binary for both PowerPC and Intel Macs).

and run the installer contained therein.

Note that the installer performs an update that deletes old QSAS executable files,

(this appears to be beyond our control, and a QSAS_2_4 installation will delete applications from QSAS_2_3)

so if you wish to keep an older installation it will be necessary to temporarily drag

the old QSAS_2_3 folder to the Desktop, and back to /Applications if you wish to revert to the earlier version.

Note also that QSAS scripts and environment variables contain absolute paths, so directories should not be renamed.

QSAS requires QT4.5 or later to be installed, and this is available as a universal binary from...

http://qt.nokia.com/downloads

Double click the QT package and follow the installer instructions. On old Macs the QT4 installer may not complete, but it is safe to quit the installer and continue with the QSAS installation.

Launch QSAS on the Mac by double clicking on the QSAS icon /Applications/QSAS_2_3/QSAS

Windows users should download the following archive:

QSAS_win.zip

After unzipping, a QSAS folder will be created. Edit the QSAS/bin/QSAS.bat with any text editor (Notepad...) and adapt the path in the first line of the file. If you unzipped QSAS in C:\Program Files, you shouldn't have to edit it.
Then start QSAS by double-clicking QSAS.bat. You can also make shortcuts to this launcher.

A source package is available for users who wish to still use the old build script method of installation.

qsas-2.3.09.Source.tar.gzis a tarred, gzipped archive containing source code, build scripts and documentation for Linux and Windows.
QSAS Installation Notes (pdf) and QSAS Help Pages (html) are included in the distribution.

Obtaining Older Versions of QSAS

Details of all bug fixes closed at earlier versions can be found in

Development Table 2.0

Development Table 2.1

Development Table 2.2

Earlier versions may be obtained by contacting csc-support-dl@imperial.ac.uk

Plug-in Libraries

Plug-ins written by the QSAS team are distributed with the QSAS tar files, and install automatically at QSAS installation.
Many of the ISSI plugins are also distributed with QSAS precompiled.

Other QSAS plug-ins are also available from ISSI and MPE

Providing Feedback on QSAS

QSAS is built around the prototyping methodology, and continual improvement and enhancement is central to its development. Some enhancements will come via user-written modules which are incorporated via the QSAS plugin interface. The development team welcomes comments, reports of anomolous behaviour, and suggestions which should be sent to: csc-support-dl@imperial.ac.uk.

When submitting a report, please try to be as complete and specific as possible. If reporting a bug it can prove useful if you are able to identify a reproducable sequence of events and a specific data set. The save and restore session facility in qsas 2 can assist in providing feedback since save session directories can be tarred and emailed (save files are platform, independent). The environment variable QSAS_DEBUG can be set "ON" in the user's QSAS script. This prints progress information to the terminal. Sending us the last few hundred lines of this output can also assist in diagnosing problems.

· The binary executables shipped with qsas have the debug symbols stripped from them before distribution. If you wish to run qsas with a debugger, for example when debugging a user written plug-in, then these symbols should not be stripped from a locally built source copy (use "make install" rather than "make install-strip").

Acknowledging QSAS in Publications

The preferred wording for acknowledging use of QSAS in publications is "Data analysis was done with the QSAS science analysis system provided by the United Kingdom Cluster Science Centre (Imperial College London and Queen Mary, University of London) supported by The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)" or similar wording as appropriate.

Known Bugs and Future Enhancements

The Development Table itemises known issues by reference number with a short description of the issue, the module(s) affected, the version this is expected to be fixed by and the initials of the support staff member responsible for progressing it. Items are subdivided into "Bugs", "Features of the user interface" and "Enhancements planned".

Authors

This software was written by the CSC Team at IC and QMUL. The team members have included, in alphabetical order, Tony Allen (A.Allen@ic.ac.uk), Stuart Bale, Janet Barnes, Nora Bounaira, David Burgess (D.Burgess@qmul.ac.uk), Gareth Chisham, Markus Fraenz, Anthony Hare, James Meakin, Alban Rochel (A.Rochel@ic.ac.uk), Steve Schwartz (S.Schwartz@ic.ac.uk) and Abdeslam Serroukh. Current team members are shown with an email address. Please address all comments to csc-support-dl.

QSAS is developed as part of the Cluster Science Centre within the UK and funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The software is provided as is under the GPL public licence, though QM and IC retain the copyright. No liability is accepted for any damage resulting from the installation or use of this software, and no guarantee of its suitability is implied for any use other than the scientific visualisation and manipulation of Cluster science data. Copyright.

Last up-dated 07 January 2010

Send comments and suggestions to csc-support-dl@imperial.ac.uk

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