QSAS: Science Analysis Software

Imperial College London

QSAS: Science Analysis Software for Space Plasmas

QSAS current version is 2.4.09

Macintosh users will need to install QT 4.5 as there are library incompatibilities with QT4.4.

QSAS version 2.4.09

Add Epoch16 handling (QSAS and Qtran)
Export full time accuracy
Provide Regression analysis and best fit line (TS and XY) in Analysis, Calculator and Plot
Include Eugen Sorbalo's gradients plugin in standard distribution. Includes 3s/c and 4s/c curl estimation.
Provide sort of the Working List (whole list or selection) by Name or Start Time or Object Type.
Provide Plot Y-axis option to autoscale across several (selected) panels
Provide option in Claculator to keep all metadata with calculation results (choice is independent for each input)
Fix browsing of multi-entry global attributes
Fix text print weight in pdf and ps files for non-standard page sizes
Fix crash on using some plugins in the calculator
Improve Calculator feedback
Improve Calculator item selection and tab behaviour
Improve save/restore file selection under linux
Fix crash from deleted calculator items not being released by QT
Add operators to Calculator

Units Operations
Event Table handling
Filtering
Statistics
Time Operators
Trace of Square Matrix
Differentiation (3 and 5 point estimates)
Angle Depends (0,360) <-> (180,180)

Fix QSAS export losing delta_plus on Depend_i when DELTA_PLUS and DELTA_MINUS point to same variable
Fix Crash in calculator if Extractor deleted while waiting for selection
Add Time Interval and Time Tags option to pulldown in Extractors (Calculator)
Line thickness in jpg and png files now the same as on the screen plot (except for lines below 1 screen pixel)
Change copy/paste in Plot to use xml and keep all formatting
Plot legend frame thickness now scales with plot frame thickness
Export VOTable event list from File menu (non-time sequence objects creayte single event of data time range)
Fix crash from deleting multiple items from Working List at once
Fix Time Shift operation to not attach xref that crashes export
Trap inputs with wrong dimensionality in various places in 2D and 3D plots
Fix Moments plugin to catch when Entity attribute does not identify a unique species, e.g. "Ion"
Allow user to set default choice for axis scaling (metadata or autoscale) in profile
Provide slot to set data range from an event table or data range (especially useful for constraining hodogram data range)
Fix crash in plot when data record range is hand edited in the data slot

QSAS version 2.4.08

Fix value return for plot when more than one page (when launched by click on plot)
Fix Calculator crash after input or extractor deleted drop data before new item selected
Fix crash in restore Working List with scalar sequence when "Strip Bad Data" is on
Implement availability range in time interval editor for plot value return and QDS
Implement CAA Time Interval data type across QSAS

QDS (data Selector), QDA (Direct Access), QDI(Old I/F Direct Import)
QEXUI (export)
handled in cef(ISO time string), cdf (pairs of epochs), qft and qfd
handled in data, variable attributes, global attributes and qsas xrefs
Note QDS cannot read data files with no time tags (some 'ASPOC active' files)

Calculator now sets "No Join" toggle automatically for non-sequence data
Updates to help pages for plot (re PLplot)
Fix auto-colourscale and animate time problems with 2D and 3D plots
Fix Save Black Box to menu in calculator and put save to library button on Black Box tab
Fix QSAS export losing delta_plus on Depend_i when DELTA_PLUS and DELTA_MINUS point to same variable

QSAS version 2.4.07

Fix creation of corrupt folders on WL (can crash on restore)
Fix some signal behaviour

missing signals from plot event label tab
WLmodified no longer emitted (uses objChanged() instead).

Remove QT3/QT4 specific file names (qxxx_qt4.h headers become qxxx.h)
New operator to convert timetags to scalar seconds from specified time (can replace DEPEND_0)
Add new time interval operations

Convert interval to duration in seconds
Find difference between two times as duration in seconds
Convert difference between two time tag sequences to scalar sequence in seconds

Enhance data slot capabilities

Allow extraction of time from event list
Improve slot popup behaviour in new calculator
Add optional output type selector to Analysis->Subsample/Extract menu
Migrate plugins to use time/event data slots fully

QSAS version 2.4.06

Fix a crash in plot under some versions of Linux
Adds a differentiation operator (3 point and 5 point derivative estimates)
Handles XY sequences as well as time sequences everywhere
Improves Time Interval and scalar interval editors
Fixes pdf and EPS page size being ignored
Makes deg and rad option in atan2 case insensitive
Provides a piecewise division operation in old and new calculators
Provides a metadata viewer and time slice feedback in data tab on plot (for cut & paste)
Fix bug where time interval sequences were not understood by some slots
Fix bug where "Outside Top Rt" legend wraps to whole width
Fix bug where plot linked items were lost in save/restore
Fix bug where slots lost component selection on drag & drop
Fix warning from plot list of "internal representation" corruption on restore
Fix several issues with time lines, extractors and black boxes on the calculator
Allow calculator to handle scalar Depend_0 as well as time sequences
Add Time/value field to record subset in slots to allow selection by value as well as record
Fix calculator loss of signals/slots on restore (drop object now updates timeline correctly)

QSAS version 2.4.05

Adds latest IGRF coefficients to coordinate rotation and Tsyganenko model
Allows XML save/restore (now used as default in modules that support it)
Extractors in Calculator recoded
atan2() function fixed in calculator
Added utility (under Analysis menu) to convert metadata angles (0,360) to/from (-180,180)
Fix Template C1-C4 traces in plot
Use Cluster colours as default for Cluster parameters (unless overridden by user or vector component)
Constants folder in Main WIndow now starts closed
An Overwrite option toggle provided for Working List
Fix crash on select All then Delete in plot
Add test joined on Z and Y objects in TS spectra
Fix R max bug in 3D viewer
Improve resize actions in Isotropic frames
Provide Units and SI_conversion in sqrt() function
Event Label slot now accepts text objects (e.g. metadata) as well as text
Fix time range bug on import via QDS
Fix numerous other bugs and GUI design issues

QSAS version 2.4.04

Allows creation and application of masks to sub-sample data based on values in another variable (text or numeric)
Provides 3 new plot utilities based on work done by a summer student, Ka Ho Tam...
- 2D Polar view
- 2D Polar and Cartesian Surface view
- 3D Polar and Cartesian view
Fixes bugs in svg plots, overwrite and subset when exporting data, and Calculator black box saves.
Adds extra coontent to help pages for time formatting and new plot views
Removes all legacy QT3 code. QSAS is now fully QT4 native.

QSAS version 2.4.03

Fixes a problem where old savesets can cause QSAS to hang or crash.
Isotropic frame handling is improved and a potential crash fixed
Plotting points is faster
Fixes a crash on deleting plot items
Array/Time slice now accepts drag and drop of time interval or object with timetags
Time interval widgets now provide a reset interval and selection opton.
Symbol sizes in legends fixed
Items created in plot are selected automatically
Edits in event lists now save correctly
New data appears at the top of the WL (like earlier versions of QSAS)
Fixes an axis bug when y axis range is very small
Provides a toggle to allow spectra in a panel to interlace to allow azimuth by azimuth plot (alias azimuth to time)
On Windows Calc2 crash fixed, Cluster config plugin updated
On Mac OSX fixes
- spectra not plotted until after focus out of window
- Items from Edit->Duplicate not visible on WL until after focus out
- New items in plot not showing until focus out

QSAS version 2.4.02

Provides a prototype for a new calculator interface (which can also chain plugins)

Fixes a bug in reading compressed .cef.gz data files.

Provides a true isotropic frame option in plot (as well as a square frame).

Changes launch of time interval editor from plot to require a double click on Mac OS.

Fixes exponent in X axis labels being offset off page to the right.

Fixes many minor, but irritating, issues in GUI and plot display.

QSAS version 2.4.01

Fixed loss of DEPEND_i in matrix multiplication.
Fixed crash on drag to calculator list.
Fixed bug in importing more than one variable at once in QDS.
Fixed serious issue with loss of dimensionality importing 2D and 3D data.
Fixed failure to read non-record-varying matrices.
Fixed crash on save session with spectra.
Fixed loss of time tags restoring session with data read via old QDS.
Fixed occasional crash in plot on delete item.
Added piecewise multiplication of arrays, (Ai, Aj, Ak, ...) * (Bi, Bj, Bk, ...) -> (AiBi, AjBj, AkBk, ...)
Fixed monor issues with namespaces, plugin information, time editor and plot.

QSAS version 2.4.00

All new Data Selector and database handler. Databases are NOT compatible with earlier versions as this is a complete rewrite. It handles CEF as well as CDF files. Note that CEF files are handled much more slowly than CDF files, but the new version should handle cdf files much faster than the older Data Selector.

Data slot validaton is rewritten.

New more powerful time interval editor.

List views (except Calculator) are now QT4 native.

Some New plugins.

Ability to concatenate data objects and force time lines to be monotonic.

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/).

Currently available for Linux, Mac OSX (Power PC and Intel ) and Windows (XP and Vista).

Finding out about 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:

Note that Older systems that use libtool version 1.xx (use 'libtool --version' to find out) will need to download the lt1 version and follow the instructions specific to libtool 1 systems. This will involve hand editing a couple of scripts:

Some user provided Linux rpm packages may be available for Linux distributions. This document explains the (simple) packaging procedure. If you build an rpm please notify csc-support-dl@imperial.ac.uk where we can pick it up and we'll add it to our list of available rpms.

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

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_4/QSAS

After unzipping, a QSAS folder will be created. Edit the QSAS/bin/QSAS.bat with a text editor 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.

Obtaining Older Versions of QSAS

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.

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, Gareth Chisham, Markus Fraenz, Anthony Hare, James Meakin, Alban Rochel, 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.

Distribution	x86 (32 bit)	x86-64 (64 bit)
OpenSuse 11.0	qsas-2.4.09-1.i586.rpm	-
Ubuntu 8.10	-	-
Fedora 10		-
Debian 10
Source RPM	qsas-2.4.09-1.src.rpm