******************************************************************************* timas-spec (.../papco_interface/timas_spec_panel.help) ******************************************************************************* This is Version 1.4 of the TIMAS PAPCO Module, 11/12/01. Up-to-date information on the TIMAS PAPCO Module and TIMAS data is at ftp://willow.colorado.edu/pub/timas/PAPCO/timas.html COMMENTS ON THIS VERSION OF THE TIMAS PAPCO MODULE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o TIMAS PAPCO Module V. 1.4 is designed to work with PAPCO V. 9 or higher and IDL 5.0 or higher. o Changes in V. 1.4 are correction of a units error in the "slice" function and correction of a Y2000 bug that prevented reading data files for years beyond 1999. o Added features in V. 1.3 are choice of flux or energy flux and "Output" capability to create data files from plots. (Use the Output button on the PAPCO main widget or the Draw Window.) o When making IDL (Save/Restore) output files of plotted data, the following structures are created and written out by PAPCO (from papco_write_data in papco_output.pro ): input_header={DESCRIPTION: '', $ ;Module-supplied description of data TIME_LABEL: '', $ ;Module-supplied description of time units CHANNELS: fltarr(res1(1),2), $ ; Energy bin bounds Y_LABEL: '', $ ; Y-axis label Z_LABEL: '', $ ; Z-axis label (on color bar) RS_LABEL: '', $ ; Label under opposite side of color bar NODATA: 0.0} ; Nodata value Note: The following tags may be added to input_header in PAPCO V. 9.3: PANELKIND: currPlotInfo.PANELKIND, $ ; e.g. "polar_timas" ONECOUNT:fltarr(res1(1)), $ ; Not used by TIMAS module t90_start: t90_start, $ ; Panel start time, T90 t90_end: t90_end, $ ; Panel end time, T90 mjdt_start: mjdt_start, $ ; Panel start time, MJDT mjdt_end: mjdt_end $ ; Panel end time, MJDT input_data={time:time, $ ; Time vector for data; units are described in ; input_header.TIME_LABEL data:data} ; Two dimensional data array (time, energy); units ; are given in input_header.Z_LABEL o The warning message below is normal when reading CDF files in IDL. Ignore this message. % CDF_CONTROL: Function completed but: NO_PADVALUE_SPECIFIED: A pad value has not been specified. o After data is read, a message is printed, e.g., "% r_timas_spec_l1: Finished reading 6558 records of which 6558 were stored." Normally, the number of records stored will equal the number of records read. Fewer records will be stored than read if there are data records within the contiguous set read that have stop times that do not fall within the requested range, in other words, have bad time stamps. o Mouse functions (Advanced PAPCO): The Zoom and Slice functions are operational. Zoom mode works on the time axis only. In Slice mode, the mouse cursor can be clicked to show a single spectrum or may be dragged in the x (time) direction to show a continuously varying energy spectrum. o A crash will occur if you do the following: 1. Select a date and time with "Select timerange for Plot" and "Draw". 2. Select a subset of the previous time range from "Select timerange for Plot" and then "Draw". 3. Use the mouse "Slice" function to get an energy spectrum. Avoid the crash by setting the subset of the previous time range with "Start zoom Time" and "End zoom Time" near the top left of the main PAPCO widget (Panel Plot Composer) instead of with "Select timerange for Plot". o Automatic Z scaling may fail with some TIMAS data because of a few erroneous, very large flux values. The plot will appear mostly blue in these cases. We may have fixed this problem because some additional checks were added to the CDF file creation program. o Occasionally data with bad time stamps will cause a gray bar to overwrite good data when looking at short (unaveraged) time intervals. o The default PAPCO pixel resolution for GIF files is 570x760. We have found that a better resolution is 675x900. Change the resolution by selecting the Defaults button on the PAPCO controls and changing the entries in "File output GIF pixel size" or by editing the papco_default file in papco_user_xx . o Our thanks go to Jeremy Faden, University of Iowa, for helping us in using the HYDRA module as a starting point for the TIMAS module. UPDATING YOUR TIMAS MODULE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are no user settings in the TIMAS module. Unless you have customized your module, you can untar the polar_timas.tar module distribution file (from within the papco_xx/papco_modules directory), and overwrite your old module files without losing any local information. (User settings are stored in the papco_user_xx directory.) PAPCO VERSION 9 BUGS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you select IDL (Save/Restore file) as your choice of output type when making data files with the "Output" button, then a separate file will be made for each panel. Unfortunately, only one file name is used so that the files overwrite one another. This bug will be fixed in PAPCO V. 9.3. If you use the ASCII (renamed TXT in PAPCO 9.2) file type for the "Output" button, the TIMAS nodata value can't be formatted because the format doesn't allow for the extra character needed for a minus sign. This bug will be fixed in PAPCO V. 9.3. PAPCO may strangely fail to find existing files if you use a '~' symbol in in papco_user_xx/papco_setup_variables.pro to represent your home directory. You may wish to add the following comment to papco_setup_variables.pro : ; WARNING: Do not use the '~' notation for your home directory because ; PAPCO will then fail to perform operations that depend on the IDL ; routine findfiles ( findfiles cannot parse a '~'). Use '$HOME' or ; the complete directory name instead. CONTACTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Peterson (303)492-0686 bill.peterson@lasp.colorado.edu Scott Claflin (650)424-3348 claflin@mail.spasci.com