National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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                        RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.11
                                  June 7, 2011
********************************************************************************

The HEASoft 6.11 release is primarily driven by updates to the Swift and
Suzaku mission software, but also includes updates to several packages
which have been revised to mirror the current development versions in
use at the HEASARC.

As before, configuration-related changes thoughout the package means that
users who already have HEASoft v6.x.x installed will need to completely
replace their software installation; there is no clean way to simply
overlay this new release or to update an existing installation.

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                                    CFITSIO
********************************************************************************

   - In imcompress.c, removed attempt to free memory that had not been
     allocated.

Version 3.27 - 3 March 2011

  Enhancements

    - added new routines fits_read_str and fits_delete_str which read or
      delete, respectively, a header keyword record that contains a specified 
      character string.

    - added a new routine call fits_free_key_longstr which frees the memory
      that fits_read_key_longstr allocated for the long string keyword value.

    - enhanced the ffmkky routine in fitscore.c to not put a space before the
      equals sign when writing long string-valued keywords using the ESO
      HIERARCH keyword convension, if that extra character is needed to
      fit the length of the keyword name + value string within the 80-character
      FITS keyword record.

    - made small change to fits_translate_keyword to support translation of
      blank keywords (where the name = 8 blank chracters)

    - modified fpack so that it uses the minimum of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th order
      MAD noise values when quantizing and compressing a floating point image.
      This is more conservative than just using the 3rd order MAD value alone.

    - added new routine imcomp_copy_prime2img to imcompress.c that is used by
      funpack to copy any keywords that may have been added to the primary
      array of the compressed image file (a null image) back into the header of 
      the uncompressed image.

    - enhanced the fits_quantize_float and fits_quantize_double routines in
      quantize.c to also compress the tile if it is completely filled with
      null values.  Previously, this type of tile would have been written 
      to the output compressed image without any compression.

    - enhanced imcomp_decompress_tile to support implicit datatype conversion
      when reading a losslessly compressed (with gzip) real*4 image into an
      array of real*8 values.  

Version 3.26 - 30 December 2010

  Enhancements

   - defined 2 new macros in fitsio.h:  
       #define CFITSIO_MAJOR 3
       #define CFITSIO_MINOR 26
     These may be used within other macros to detect the CFITSIO
     version number at compile time.
     
   - modified group.c to initialize the output URL to a null string in 
     fits_url2relurl.  Also added more robust tests to see if 2 file
     pointers point to the same file.

   - enhanced the template keyword parsing code in grparser.c to support
     the 'D' exponent character in the ASCII representation of floating
     point keyword values (as in TVAL = 1.23D03).  Previously, the parser
     would have writen this keyword with a string value (TVAL = '1.23D03').

   - modified the low-level routines that write a keyword record to a FITS 
     header so that they silently replace any illegal characters (ASCII 
     values less than 32 or greater than 126) with an ASCII space character.
     Previously, these routines would have returned with an error when
     encountering these illegal characters in the keyword record (most commonly 
     tab, carriage return, and line feed characters).

   - made substantial internal changes to imcompress.c in preparation for
     possible future support for compression methods for FITS tables analogous
     to the tiled image compression method.

   - replaced all the source code in CFITSIO that was distributed under the
     GNU General Public License with freely available code.  In particular,
     the  gzip file compression and uncompression code was replaced by the
     zlib compression library.  Thus, beginning with this version 3.26 of
     CFITSIO, other software applications may freely use CFITSIO without
     necessarily incurring any GNU licensing requirement.  See the
     License.txt file for the CFITSIO licensing requirements.

   - added support for using cfitsio in different 'locales' which use a
     comma, not a period, as the decimal point character in ASCII 
     representation of a floating point number (e.g., France).  This
     affects how floating point keyword values and floating point numbers
     in ASCII tables are read and written with the 'printf' and 'strtod'
     functions.

   - added a new utility routine called fits_copy_rows/ffcprw that copies
     a specified range of rows from one table to another.

   - enhanced the test for illegal ASCII characters in a header (fftrec) to
     print out the name of the offending character (e.g TAB or Line Feed) as
     well as the Hex value of the chracter.
     
   - modified ffgtbc (in fitscore.c) to support nonstandard vector variable
     length array columns in binary tables (e.g. with TFORMn = 2000PE(500)').
     
   - modified the configure file to add "-lm" when linking CFITSIO on
     Solaris machines.
     
   - added new routine, fits_get_inttype, to parse an integer keyword value
     string and return the minimum integer datatype (TBYTE, TSHORT, TLONG, 
     TLONGLONG) required to store the integer value.

   - added new routine, fits_convert_hdr2str, which is similar to fits_hdr2str
     except that if the input HDU is a tile compressed image (stored 
     in a binary table) then it will first convert that header back to 
     that of a normal uncompressed FITS image before concatenating the header
     keyword records.

   - modified the file template reading routine (ngp_line_from_file in 
     grparser.c) so that it ignores any carriage return characters (\r)
     in the line, that might be present, e.g. if the file was created on a 
     Windows machine that uses \r\n as end of line characters.

   - modified the ffoptplt routine in cfileio.c to check if the PCOUNT
     keyword in the template file has a non-zero value, and if so, resets
     it to zero in the newly created file.

   Bug Fixes
   
   - fixed a bug when uncompressing floating-point images that contain Nan
     values on some 64-bit platforms.
     
   - fixed a bug when updating the value of the CRPIXn world coordinate
     system keywords when extracting a subimage from larger FITS image,
     using the extended CFITSIO syntax (e.g.  myimage[1:500:2, 1:500:2]).
     This bug only affects casee where the pixel increment value is not
     equal to 1, and caused the coordinate grid to be shifted by between
     0.25 pixels (in the case of a pixel increment of 2) and 0.5 pixels
     (for large pixel increment values).

   - fixed a potential string buffer overflow error in the ffmkls routine
     that modifies the value and comment strings in a keyword that uses
     the HEASARC long string keyword convention. 

   - fixed a bug in imcompress.c that could cause programs to abort on
     64-bit machines when using gzip to tile-compress images.  Changed
     the declaration of clen in imcomp_compress_tile from int to size_t.


********************************************************************************
                                      APE
********************************************************************************

- Add parsing support for + and - at end of parameter names. These are
  interpreted as yes and no, i.e. parameter+ means the same as parameter=yes.

- Fix bug in which a default parameter value of " " (single space) was
  truncated when the par file was saved (ftlist).

- Check for ambiguity in parameters entered on the command line: allow
  partial matching when there is no ambiguity, or return a non-zero status
  when there is.

- Update the lookup table for converting Ape error codes to PIL codes.

********************************************************************************
                                    QDP/PLT
********************************************************************************

- Fixes from Allyn Tennant for the SCR command so that it doesn't close
  then reopen the plot device. This allows multipage PS plots when calling
  PLT repeatedly with SCR included in the command list.

- Bug fix from Allyn Tennant for SET LENGTH command - was incorrectly
  limiting the length to 80 characters.

********************************************************************************
                                   ATTITUDE
********************************************************************************

- tristarid: Fixed an error in the ordering of values transferred from
  columns in the input file to the output.

********************************************************************************
                                   CALTOOLS
********************************************************************************

- genrsp: Fixed a bug when energies are read from resp_file: the
  first ENERG_LO value was erroneously set to the highest energy,
  not the lowest.  Added improved diagnostics for user error.

- rbnrmf: Added check for THRESH=0 in RBN_ERMF to avoid memory fault.

********************************************************************************
                                    FUTILS
********************************************************************************

- fverify: Modified to conform to latest version 3 of the FITS Standard.
  updated the list of error and warning conditions in the help file

********************************************************************************
                                FV/FITSTCL/POW
********************************************************************************

- Fix WCS projection for vector image column.

********************************************************************************
                                    HEAGEN
********************************************************************************

- barycorr: Updated fkeypar -> ftkeypar; fkeyprint -> ftlist;
  fparkey / fmodhead -> fthedit to get around path length restrictions
  in the old futils. Also fixed a bug that was preventing the copying
  of RA_NOM, DEC_NOM, and PLEPHEM from the axBary temporary outfile.

- rebingausslc: BUG FIX: time filtering was not working properly,
  now fixed. BUG FIX: now works when INDEF specified for only one of
  tstart/tstop. BUG FIX: first input time bin was sometimes lost, now kept.

- swco.dat: valid through 2011Apr28 at 12:13:45.995UTC

********************************************************************************
                                    HEASARC
********************************************************************************

- extractor: Added new parameter adjustgti which can be used to
  line up the output GTIs with CCD frame boundaries.  Fixed bug
  when creating WMAP in image coordinates when combining event
  files with different image WCS.  The correction to a single WCS
  was not being made for the WMAP.

- getocctimes [NEW]: Calculate the occultation times of a
  source as seen from an orbiting observatory due to the Earth
  blocking the source.  This task presently functions with
  orbit files only from the Suzaku mission.

- mathpha: Changed the defaults for properr and errmeth to 'no'
  and 'POISS-0' for best practice with modern spectra.  Modified
  description of calculation and propagation of errors in the
  help file so that best practice is recommended.

- pileest [NEW]: Creates an estimated pileup fraction image from
  an event file.

********************************************************************************
                                   HEATOOLS
********************************************************************************

- ftcoco: Allow infile='' to mean infile=NONE  (for WebHERA); Default
  chatter=2 to enable console output.

- ftimgcalc: BUG FIX: subtle memory access bug fixed.

- ftkeypar: Modified to not return an error if the keyword does not exist,
  to more closely mimic the behavior of the fkeypar task.

- ftstat: Removed NULLs before computing median, and added median to
  parameter file output.

- ftverify: Modified to conform to latest version 3 of the FITS Standard.

********************************************************************************
                                    XSELECT
********************************************************************************

- Added an adjustgti=yes entry for Swift XRT so that extractor
  output GTIs will be aligned to frame boundaries.  Added code to
  pass to extractor the setting of the adjustgti parameter.

********************************************************************************
                                     XSPEC
********************************************************************************

This release includes Xspec 12.7.0.  

Please see the Xspec Issues/Patches web page for updates beyond v12.7.0:

  http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xanadu/xspec/issues/issues.html

* New features in v12.7.0:

  The primary new feature of 12.7.0 is the addition of the Python
  module, PyXspec v0.9 beta.  PyXspec is built and installed by default
  on most platforms along with the regular XSPEC build, and simply
  requires an "import xspec" statement to load into Python. XSPEC can
  now be run from object-oriented Python scripts, or interactively
  from a Python shell prompt. Detailed instructions can be found in 
  PyXspec.pdf.

  While most features of standard XSPEC are already supported in this
  beta release, some still remain to be implemented.  Please let us know
  if any missing feature is of particular importance to you, or if you
  have suggestions and ideas for improvement.

* Other new features:

  - New models:
      cplinear: Piecewise linear non-physical background model for
         low-count spectra developed for Chandra by Patrick Broos.
      eqpair, eqtherm, compth: Paolo Coppi's hybrid hot plasma emission
         models.
      vvapec, bvvapec: APEC models allowing all 30 elemental abundances
         to vary (for use with AtomDB 2.0).
      zigm: Multiplicative model, computes the mean attenuation of the
         optical/UV spectrum by the intergalactic medium.
      zashift, zmshift: Convolution models for applying redshifts to
         additive and multiplicative models respectively.
      
      Also note that the default APEC model data files have been updated
         to AtomDB 2.0. This version of AtomDB includes contributions
         from more elements than earlier versions. When using the apec
         and vapec models these extra elements have Solar abundance by
         default. To change this use "xset APEC_TRACE_ABUND".
         
  - The 'statistic' command may now be applied to individual spectra.
    This makes it possible to simultaneously fit spectra which require
    different fit statistics.

  - Added the 'pgstat' option to the statistic command. This is similar
    to using 'cstat' with a background file except that the background
    is assumed to have Gaussian statistics (not Poisson) read from a
    STAT_ERR (and optionally SYS_ERR) column.
   
  - Modified the pileup model for consistency with Sherpa and ISIS.  A
    new parameter 'fracexpo' is added which should be set to the FRACEXPO
    keyword value in the ARF.
   
  - It is now possible to choose proportional or fixed fit deltas from
    the startup Xspec.init file.  The initial default setting is now
    proportional deltas rather than fixed deltas.
   
  - Improvements made to the output generated during a fit.  The
    parameter names are listed at the top of columns, not just their
    numbers.  Column alignment has been improved, and is no longer 
    limited to a maximum width of 5 columns.
   
  - Added reporting of the Bayesian contribution (if any) to the fit
    statistic output.
   
* Enhancements previously released as patches to 12.6.0:

  - Initpackage now recognizes and builds files with .f03 extensions for
    Fortran 2003, and .f90 extensions for Fortran 90.
   
  - Added a new 'fakeit' option for setting the fake background exposure
    time.
 
  - Added a new 'tclout version' option for returning the XSPEC version
    string.
   
  - Improved XSPEC's internal update mechanism to reduce the number of
    model calculations.
   
* All bug fixes to v12.6.0 released as patches a - ab are included in
  v12.7.0.  In addition the following problems have been corrected:

  - A crash occurred if 'tclout notice energies' was performed on a
    spectrum containing only a dummy response with no channels.
   
  - The 5 redundant 'xset' options (those which merely duplicate other
    existing XSPEC commands) weren't passing their arguments to the
    command handlers correctly.
   
  - Fit error messages were misleading for the case where the data was
    missing a suitable response, or when the only existing models were
    inactive.
   
  - A fatal error could occur in 'fakeit' when attempting to generate a
    background file while only a dummy was used for the response.
   
  - The 'bayes' command handler was not properly handling the case where
    the prior type option string was abbreviated.
   
  - A crash occurred when 'flux' was run in error mode and the specified
    energy was entirely outside the range of one or more spectra.

********************************************************************************
                                     XSTAR
********************************************************************************

Version 2.2.1bg - updates since HEASOFT 6.10 include:

  * Changes committed to reflect new atomic data from Mike Witthoeft
    for K shells of Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Ar, plus modifications to code
    to allow better xstarv1 comparisons.

  * Changes to database to include DR from metastable levels of 3rd
    row iron ions.

  * Fixes errors in data file for indexing of k vacancy levels in
    iron l shell ions.


========================== MISSION-SPECIFIC SOFTWARE: ==========================


********************************************************************************
                                     RXTE
********************************************************************************

- faxbary: Fixed bug with timezero not being added to tstart/tstop.

- xpcaarf: (v3.9) Revision to geometric areas in parameter file.

********************************************************************************
                                    SUZAKU
********************************************************************************

Version 18 - Changes since HEASoft v6.10:

- aeattcor2 [NEW]: Creates a corrected Suzaku attitude file based on
  mean event positions as a function of time. The output is to be used
  in pileest.

- hxdwampipeline [NEW]: HXD-WAM reprocessing and product generation tool.

- hxdbstjudge [UPDATE]:
  * Implemented new method of burst detection based on HETE-2 trigger method.
  * Implemented method to detect source occultation signature (step method).
  * Added the output burst table in FITS.
  * Added new parameters:
    bgd_early_gap [int] : Gap in seconds between 'early' background interval
       and foreground interval.
    bgd_late_gap [int] : Gap in seconds between foreground interval and
       'late' background interval.
    det_alg [string] : Burst detection algorithm. Allowed values are HETE2,
       GINGA, and STEP. The default is GINGA.
    outtype [int] : Output file type. 0 = FITS table, 1 = ASCII text table.
    use_trigger_set [bool] : Whether to use "trigger set" or not. If set,
       a predefined set of input triggers are used.
    trigger_set [string] (SHORT|MEDIUM|LONG) : HETE2 type trigger set:
       short, medium and long

- hxdmkwamlc [UPDATE]:
  * Fix several keyword in the header of the lightcurves
  * Added support for GTI in input event file
  * Added FRACEXP and DEADC columns in the output file

- hxdarfgen: Fix the help file.

- xiscontamicalc: Added support for new contamination file.


********************************************************************************
                                     SWIFT
********************************************************************************

Swift/BAT

- batbinevt: Primary extension is labeled with EXTENAME instead of
  HDUNAME, now allowed by FITS 3.0 standard.

- batcelldetect: BUG FIX: no longer reports spurious fluxes for sources
  just outside the partial coding field of view; BUG FIX: no longer
  does error-box size check if position fitting is disabled; BUG FIX:
  potential memory corruption during error-box check potential now fixed.

- batclean: BUG FIX: Poisson rate data now weighted properly during fit;
  BUG FIX: ordering of balancing and weighting now fixed; Small sensitivity
  improvement expected from these bug fixes, depending on number of sources,
  background and source spectrum.

- batfftimage: BUG FIX: memory corruption in rare uses of 'aperture'
  parameter now fixed; Primary extension is labeled with EXTENAME instead
  of HDUNAME, now allowed by FITS 3.0 standard.

- batimgstatpos: BUG FIX: do not compute position for image table rows
  which do not have matching attitude data.

- batmaskwtimg: BUG FIX: memory corruption in rare uses of 'aperture'
  parameter now fixed; Primary extension is labeled with EXTENAME instead
  of HDUNAME, now allowed by FITS 3.0 standard.

- batoccultmap: Primary extension is labeled with EXTENAME instead of
  HDUNAME, now allowed by FITS 3.0 standard.

- batphasimerr: BUG FIX: correct exposure time now written for output
  simulated spectrum

- batsurvey-catmux: * Allow transformations to be specified with
  @filename.txt, in addition to directly on the command line

- batsurvey-gti: BUG FIX: garbage rows of output GTI file might survive,
  now fixed.

- battblocks: documentation improvements.

Swift/UVOT

- uvotsource, uvotmaghist, uvotproduct: Added support for the AB magnitude
  system. The column names for the UVOT Vega system remain unchanged.
  There is a second set of columns prefixed AB_ for the AB system.

- uvotdetect: Support for LSS corrections.  When running uvotdetect
  on an unsummed image (that contains WCS D keywords which can be
  used to determine detector positions for sky positions), you can pass
  lssfile=CALDB.  When running uvotdetect on a summed image, you can pass
  lssfile=SKY:<fitsimgext> where <fitsimgext> is a merged sky LSS correction
  (e.g., from uvotskylss).

- uvotgcn: Prepare a flag image which identifies unexposed pixels and
  provide it to uvotdetect to avoid bogus detections.

- uvotimsum: Fixed error summing images at the discontinuity in RA from
  360 to 0 or at extreme Decs. Was not accepting parameter method=FLAG.
  Added support for excluding images which do not overlap (see tool help-
  exclude parameter). If the input images contain WINDOW* and BIN*
  keywords, then they will be written to the output (and correspond to
  the smallest containing WINDOW and largest binning).

- uvotlss: When processing a table, prefer the FILTER column to the
  FILTER keyword.

- uvotoptsum: Added parameter timezero so user can specify the time
  relative to which exponential decay is calculated (see tool help-
  timezero parameter).

- uvotproduct: Use the nsigma parameter for plots.  Determine whether
  detections are significant based on uvotsource photometry NSIGMA
  (instead of MAG_LIM).

- uvotskylss: Fixed error if lssfile=<path> where <path> did not include
  an extension.

Swift/XRT

- xrtcalcpi: Handle new gain CALDB file format; Modified PI calculation
  for charge traps correction; New input parameters: 'userctipar',
  'beta1','beta2','ecti','offsetniter' and 'savepioffset'.

- xrtmkarf: Handle new psf CALDB file format.

- xrtlccorr: Handle new psf CALDB file format; Modified selection of
  appropriate frames while reading hkfile.

- xrtinstrmap: Modified selection of appropriate frames while reading
  hkfile.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby