SAOtng Command Line Options

The SAOtng program is started from the saotng script by typing:

    saotng [command options ...] [filename]

If a filename is supplied, that image will be displayed in frame 1. Files (except for FITS files) are identified by their extension as follows:

• IRAF image files (.imh .stf)
• IRAF QPOE files (.qp)
• FITS images (any extension: SAOtng checks for legal FITS)

These command line options can be set automatically each time SAOtng is started by means of csh-style environment variables. A series of setenv commands can be placed in the usual files (~/.cshrc, ~/.login, ~/.profile, etc.). Better still, they can be placed in the ~/.saotng startup file; SAOtng will "source" this file on startup. The associated environment variable for each option is listed at the end of the option's description.

The SAOtng command line options are:

-accel [accel list]

Replace the list of accelerator commands with the specified list. These accelerator commands are displayed as command buttons at the left of the SAOtng GUI. See Adding New Accelerator Buttons. [environment variable: SAOTNG_ACCEL]

-accelcolor ["default"|"multi"|user-defined color]

Set the colors of the accelerator buttons. Specifying "default" (which is the default) will set all accelerator buttons to a shade of grey (the color of the help button). Specifying "multi" will utilize the colors in the accel list (currently a rainbow of pastel colors). Specifying a specific color will make all of the buttons that color. This is overkill, frankly. [environment variable: SAOTNG_ACOLORS]

-allowtcl [True|False]

Allow TCL commands to be sent to SAOtng through the "tcl" public access point. Because any TCL command can be sent in this way, the facility is turned off by default. [environment variable: SAOTNG_ALLOWTCL]

-analysis [analysis tools list name]

Add the analysis tools in the specified file or file list to the system-defined list of analysis routines. This is the mechanism by which new analysis routines are integrated into SAOtng without changing the code. See Analysis Routines in SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_ANAL]

-analformat [submenu|line|none]

Determines the format for the analysis menu. In cases where several analysis routines are defined in separate files, the format can be used to group the routines by filename. If "submenu" is chosen (the default), then analysis routines from different files are grouped in sub-menus identified by the name of each file. If "line" is chosen, then analysis routines within one file are separated from those in other files by a line within one large menu. If "none" is chosen, no grouping is performed. If only one file is input, then no submenu is created.

See Analysis Routines in SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_ANAL]

-autoconfig [True|False|max,{width,height}]

Specifies whether frame 1 will autoconfigure its size to match the image being loaded. When turned on, and when frame 1 only is in use, each new load of an image will change the size of the frame to match data dimensions. This allows easier panning of the image in memory. This feature is disabled when more than one frame is in use. The default for most platforms is "max 4096 3096", meaning that autoconfig is turned on, but with a limiting width and length of 4096. For Linux, the default value is "max 1024 1024" giving a smaller limit. See Autoconfiguration of Frames. [environment variable: SAOTNG_AUTOCONFIG]

(Important note: the C-shell does not properly process command line arguments with spaces between them, so you must separate width and height, etc. with commas.)

-autoflip [True|False]

If autoflip is set to true, a newly loaded image containing FITS WCS information will be flipped if necessary so that "north is up". See Autoflip of Images for more information. [environment variable: SAOTNG_AUTOFLIP]

-backgroundcolor

Set the primary background color for the GUI. [environment variable: SAOTNG_BACKGROUNDCOLOR]

-b or -beautiful

Use beautiful colors for the SAOtng GUI. The default GUI is grey on grey in order to avoid color flashing when Netscape is present. This switch will assign more attractive colors to the GUI, including the use of multiple colors in the accelerator buttons. [environment variables: SAORD_GUIFLAVOR and SAOTNG_ACOLORS]

-bland

Use black and white only for the SAOtng GUI. The default GUI is grey on grey in order to avoid color flashing when Netscape is present. However, its possible, for example, that CDE will hog so many colors that even that is too much. This switch goes to ultimate lengths to make the GUI visible. See also -beautiful. [environment variable: SAORD_GUIFLAVOR]

-block [block factor]

Set the initial image block factor (default = 1). This is the blocking factor at which an image section will be extracted. A value of auto will cause SAOtng to calculate the block factor so that the entire image is displayed. [environment variable: SAOTNG_BLOCK]

-blocking_preference [sum|average]

Set the initial blocking_preference (default = "sum"). The extraction programs for some file types (e.g. IRAF and FITS) support both summing and averaging when extracting an image section. The blocking preference can be changed from the Section menu. [environment variable: SAOTNG_BLOCKPREF]

-checkNaN [True|False]

Controls checking for FITS BLANK values (for integer data) or IEEE Not-A-Number (NaN) values (for floating point data). The default is to check for these values and ignore them in scaling, min/max, pixel value display, etc. Because it takes more time to check pixels for NaN values, it might be desirable to turn checking off in cases where speed is critical and no such bad values are in the data file. (But note that if you try to process a NaN, you will get a floating point exception on some machines.)

Note that the value of the BLANK keyword should not be 0 because of problems associated with distinguishing blocked data from blank data. If BLANK=0 is detected, SAOtng will disable checking for NaN. [environment variable: SAOTNG_CHECKNAN]

-cmapname [name]

Specify a new name for the SAOtng private colormap. The default name is "default[20,SAOtng]", which means that SAOtng will use the public colormap if it can allocate at least 20 colors and will create a private colormap called "SAOtng" otherwise. Specifying a name other than than "default" will cause a private colormap to be created automatically. All instances of SAOtng that use the same name will share the same private colormap. This means that when the colormap changes in one instance, it also changes in all others. Specifying a new name will cause SAOtng to use a different private colormap that will not be shared with other instances. See The SAOtng Colormap Setup. [environment variable: SAOTNG_CMAPNAME]

-cmaps [directory]

Add the colormaps in the specified directory to the system-supported colormaps. Colormaps are ASCII files containing (up to 255) normalized RGB triplets (i.e. ".5 .5 .25", etc). The colormap name will be the root part of the file name (without extension). See Adding New Colormaps. [environment variable: SAOTNG_CMAP2]

-colormap [colormap name]

Make the specified colormap the default colormap for all new frames. The default is Greyscale. [environment variable: SAOTNG_COLORMAP]

-commandbackground

Set the background color for the GUI command buttons. [environment variable: SAOTNG_COMMANDBACKGROUND]

-commandforeground

Set the foreground color for the GUI command buttons. [environment variable: SAOTNG_COMMANDFOREGROUND]

-commandfont

Set the font for the GUI command buttons. [environment variable: SAOTNG_COMMANDFONT]

-controlpanel [True|False]

If True, the control panel is activated at start-up time. (Default is False). [environment variable: SAOTNG_CONTROLPANEL]

-coords [pixels|degrees|hms]

Specifies the initial type of WCS display. (Default is hms). [environment variable: SAOTNG_COORDS]

-defaultcolor [color]

Specifies the default color for markers that have no color specifically associated with them. (Default is green). [environment variable: SAOTNG_DEFAULTCOLOR]

-dialogcolor

Specifies the color of the SAOtng dialog box. (Default is Netscape grey). [environment variable: SAOTNG_DIALOGCOLOR]

-display [X display]

Set the X display options in order to display SAOtng on a remote server. [environment variable: DISPLAY]

-fifo [fifo name]

Set the name of the IRAF input and output fifos. The default is "none". These fifos are used by IRAF to communicate with SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_FIFO]

-files [file access list name]

Add the file types in the file access list to the system-defined list of supported file types. This is the means by which new file formats are supported by SAOtng without changing the code. See Adding New File Formats. [environment variable: SAOTNG_FILES]

-flavor [BEAUTIFUL|DEFAULT|BLAND]

Set the GUI color scheme for SAOtng. The default is DEFAULT, which gives a Netscape gray on gray look. The BEAUTIFUL scheme gives pretty colors, while BLAND is black and white. [environment variable: SAORD_GUIFLAVOR]

-fix "type,resize,move,rotate,point,delete,zoom"

Set the initial global set of fix params for markers. Any number of fix specifiers can be input and markers created interactively will have their initial characteristics fixed. (Default is no fixing of marker characteristics.) if more than one option is specified, please use a comma as a separator instead of spaces because of shell problems. See Fixing Region Markersfor more information. [environment variable: SAOTNG_FIXMARKERS]

-flip [x|y|xy|none]

Set the initial flip state for each new frame. The default is no flipping, so that the origin of the image is in the upper left corner. [environment variable: SAOTNG_FLIP]

-frame [frame number]

Select the frame to display (why would you want to do this?) [environment variable: SAOTNG_FRAME]

-frameheight [height]

Set the initial height of the image frame which holds the image data. The default is 512. More data can be maintained in memory than is displayed on the screen at one time (display size if specified by the -winwidth and -winheight switches). The panner will display a representation of the full image frame. Moving the marker in the panner will change the part of the image being displayed. The .ximtoolrc file can be used to specify frame sizes for individual frames. See also -winheight, -winwidth, and -frameheight. Note that using this switch will turn off autconfig, since the latter will change the frame size when the first image is loaded. Autoconfig can be turned on from the Frame menu or by placing the -autoconfig switch after this one. [environment variable: XIMTOOL_FRAME_HEIGHT]

-framesize [size]

Set the initial width and height of the image frame which holds the image data. The default is 512x512. More data can be maintained in memory than is displayed on the screen at one time (specified by the -winwidth and -winheight switches). The panner will display a representation of the full image frame. Moving the marker in the panner will change the part of the image being displayed. The .ximtoolrc file can be used to specify frame sizes for individual frames. See also -winheight, -winwidth, and -frameheight.

Note that using this switch will turn off autconfig, since the latter will change the frame size when the first image is loaded. Autoconfig can be turned on from the Frame menu or by placing the -autoconfig switch after this one. [environment variables: XIMTOOL_FRAME_HEIGHT and XIMTOOL_FRAME_WIDTH]

-framewidth [width]

Set the initial width of the image frame which holds the image data. The default is 512. More data can be maintained in memory than is displayed on the screen at one time (specified by the -winwidth and -winheight switches). The panner will display a representation of the full image frame. Moving the marker in the panner will change the part of the image being displayed. The .ximtoolrc file can be used to specify frame sizes for individual frames. See also -winheight, -winwidth, and -frameheight. Note that using this switch will turn off autconfig, since the latter will change the frame size when the first image is loaded. Autoconfig can be turned on from the Frame menu or by placing the -autoconfig switch after this one. [environment variable: XIMTOOL_FRAME_WIDTH]

-gui [gui file]

Specify an alternate graphical user interface (GUI) for SAOtng. The GUI file contains a TCL-based widget code that defines the user interface. See Modifying the SAOtng GUI [environment variable: SAOTNG_GUI]

-helpdir [directory]

Set the default help directory. This is initialized in the saotng script and normally does not need to be changed by users. [environment variable: SAOTNG_HELPDIR]

-helppage [homepage]

Set the default help home page to something other than the default "help.html". This is useful in conjunction with the -helpuserdir switch if you want to change the default help page in order to add new help files to SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_HELPPAGE]

-helpuserdir [directory]

Specify a user directory in which to look for help files. Help files are searched in this directory, in addition to the directory pointed to by the -helpdir switch. It is useful for adding help files for site-specific analysis tools. [environment variable: SAOTNG_HELPUSERDIR]

-hog [True|False]

Determines whether SAOtng hogs memory in order to run faster. If True (the default, SAOtng will retrieve and maintain in memory both scaled data and raw data for the displayed image section. Otherwise, raw data is not maintained in memory and must be re-extracted for rescaling and some data analysis operations. See SAOtng Memory Considerations for more information. [environment variable: SAOTNG_HOGMEMORY]

-init [command list]

Specify a list of initialization commands to be executed when SAOtng is run. [environment variable: SAOTNG_INIT]

-input_fifo [fifo name]

Set the name of the IRAF input fifo. The default is "none". The input fifo is used by IRAF to communicate with SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_IFIFO]

-kbprefix [""|KP_|other?]

The keys on the keypad are specified differently for X11R5 and X11R6. This can cause problems with the up, down, left, and right arrow keys. SAOtng tries to determine from the build which keypad specification to use. The choice can be overridden with the -kbprefix switch. If, for example, you are running a version of SAOtng built under X11R5 but displaying it under X11R6, you probably will want to use -kbprefix KP_ or else the arrow keys will not work. If you have problems with this confusing issue, please contact us. See X Window System Problems for more information. [environment variable: SAOTNG_KBPREFIX]

-knotsize [n]

Set the size of the knots on markers. The default is 1, so that the knots do not show. A size of 5 will make them reasonable visible. [environment variable: SAOTNG_KNOTSIZE]

-largefont1 [fontname]

Specifies one of the SAOtng fonts (I forget which!) [environment variable: SAOTNG_LARGEFONT1]

-manalysis [marker analysis tools list name]

Add the marker analysis tools in the specified list to the system-defined list of analysis routines. This is the means by which new analysis routines are integrated into SAOtng without changing the code. See Marker Analysis Routines in SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_MANAL]

-marker [circle|rectangle|ellipse...]

Set the default marker shape. The default is "circle". [environment variable: SAOTNG_MARKER]

-markerwarning [True|False]

Specifies whether a warning should be posted before markers are destroyed (e.g., by loading a new image or deleting the frame, if they have not been saved to a file). [environment variable: SAOTNG_MARKERWARNING]

-maxsize [bytes]

The maximum size of a FITS file that will be maintained in memory by SAOtng. Maintaining a FITS file in memory speeds up image sectioning operations. If a FITS file exceeds this size, sectioning operations will be processed externally (as occurs with other file formats). The default value is approx 1.5Mb for Linux, 4.5Mb for other platforms. If -maxsize is set to 0, then size is ignored and SAOtng always tried to maintain the file in memory. Thus, a maxsize of 1 should be used to force external extraction. [environment variable: SAOTNG_MAXSIZE]

-menubackground

Set the background color for the GUI menus. [environment variable: SAOTNG_MENUBACKGROUND]

-menuforeground

Set the foreground color for the GUI menus. [environment variable: SAOTNG_MENUFOREGROUND]

-menufont

Set the font for the GUI menus. [environment variable: SAOTNG_MENUFONT]

-messages [True|False|Startup]

If Startup, the message window is activated at start-up time. If Startup or True, the message window is raised when an Error or Warning message is available to be read. (Default is True.) Of course, the Messages window can always be displayed using the Messages menu option in the Images menu. [environment variable: SAOTNG_MESSAGES]

-ncolors

The size of the colormap to allocate for image data. The default is 200. SAOtng will compete with other programs (such as Mosaic) for colormap resources. This often causes flashing of the colors when moving from one window to another. If you are experiencing excessive colormap flash or other colormap problems and you need to have other colormap hogs on the screen at the same time, you can try allocating fewer colors for SAOtng. It probably won't help but ... Note that this switch duplicates functionality found in the -cmapname switch. See The SAOtng Colormap Setup for more information.

-output_fifo [fifo name]

Set the name of the IRAF output fifo. The default is "none". The output fifo is used by IRAF to communicate with SAOtng. [environment variable: SAOTNG_OFIFO]

-panmag [panner|magnifier|none]

Set the initial state of the panner/magnifier. The default is to display the magnifier. [environment variable: SAOTNG_PANMAG]

-port [port number]

Set the IRAF port number, used by IRAF to communicate with SAOtng. The default is 5137, the standard IRAF port used by ximtool. [environment variable: SAOTNG_PORT]

-printer [printer name|file|ghostview]

Set the default printer for generating PostScript of the screen. You also can specify a filename or "ghostview" to save or view the PostScript dump, respectively (Default is "lpr"). [environment variable: SAOTNG_PRINTER]

-prosregions

The region support in the IRAF/PROS analysis system does not recognize the in-line comments that are appended to each saved region (i.e., the comments detailing the region name or color). It also is rather picky about the region header, preferring the filename to be specified without a "filename:" prefix, etc. Using this switch will cause the SaveMarkers command in the Markers menu to strip off these in-line comments. Alternatively, stripping the in-line comments can be turned on via the .saotng file using the environment variable assignment:

  setenv SAOTNG_SAVEREGIONS 'xpaget $xpa regions | sed -f \${SAOTNGBIN}/prosregions.sed > $filename'

Note that this sed script is not run if you use xpaget directly to retrieve regions. However, you can run sed directly to convert the output from xpaget:

  xpaget SAOtng regions | sed -f [...]/prosregions.sed

where [...] is the bin directory in which saotng and prosregions.sed reside.

-rv [True|False]

Determines whether the image display background is black (normal) or white (reverse video). This is the last hack of SAOtng before ds9! [environment variable: SAOTNG_REVERSEVIDEO]

-rnames [region names file]

Change the name/color associations of the marker regions that you can create. See Changing Region Names. [environment variable: SAOTNG_RNAMES]

-savescaled [True|False]

Determines whether scaled data is saved in memory after it has been displayed. The default is False, as normally there is no reason to save this data. [environment variable: SAOTNG_SAVESCALED]

-scale [scale name]

Use the named scale as the initial scaling algorithm for each frame. [environment variable: SAOTNG_SCALE]

-scales [scale list file name]

Add the scaling routines in the scale list to the system-defined list of scaling routines. This is the means by which new scaling algorithms are added to SAOtng without changing the code. See Adding New Scales. [environment variable: SAOTNG_SCALES]

-scalelims [data|zscale|user,min,max]

Specify the way in which scaling limits are calculated. If "data", then min and max limits are taken from the min and max of the image. If "zscale", then the IRAF zscale algorithm is used to determine min and max. If user, 2 numbers are input to specify min and max limits. (Default is "data"). [environment variable: SAOTNG_SCALELIMS]

-smallfont1 [font1]

Specify some font or other in SAOtng! [environment variable: SAOTNG_SMALLFONT1]

-smallfont2 [font2]

Specify some font or other in SAOtng! [environment variable: SAOTNG_SMALLFONT2]

-smallfont3 [font3]

Specify some font or other in SAOtng! [environment variable: SAOTNG_SMALLFONT3]

-textbkgd [true|false]

Specifies whether the background for text is opaque (if true) or transparent (if false). (Default is true.) [environment variable: SAOTNG_TEXTBKGD]

-textdisplay [true|false]

Specifies whether text associated with externally loaded markers is displayed initially. This can be toggled from the global Marker menu (or individual marker menus). (Default is true.) [environment variable: SAOTNG_TEXTDISPLAY]

-title [name]

Set the title of this instance of SAOtng. The default is "SAOtng". This switch should be used when more than one copy of SAOtng is being run simultaneously on the same X server. It changes the name of the program's XPA access point from "SAOtng" to [name], so that commands can be sent to the right place. [environment variable: SAOTNG_TITLE]

(Important note: the C-shell does not properly process spaces between arguments in the title -- please do not use spaces in the title!)

-tmpdir [directory]

Specify the directory into which SAOtng writes temporary files such as FITS files accessed over the Web, and colormap files created when the screen is dumped to PostScript or a GIF image. The default is /tmp. [environment variable: SAORD_TMPDIR).

-unixaddr [unix socket name]

Set the IRAF unix socket name, used by IRAF to communicate with SAOtng. The default is "/tmp/.IMT%d", so that the standard IRAF unix socket is defined. [environment variable: SAOTNG_UNIXADDR]

-verbose [True|False]

If True, diagnostic output is sent to the screen (stderr). Note that such output always is sent to the messages window. [environment variable: SAOTNG_VERBOSE]

-warning [True|False]

Specifies whether a warning should be displayed before a frame is deleted or the program exited. The default is False. [environment variable: SAOTNG_WARNING]

-winheight [height]

The height of the image display window. The default is 512. This is the size of image that is displayed on screen and can be different from the size of the image maintained in memory. See also -winwidth, -frameheight, and -framewidth. [environment variable: SAOTNG_WINHEIGHT]

-winwidth [width]

The width of the image display window. The default is 512. This is the size of image that is displayed on screen and can be different from the size of the image maintained in memory. See also -winheight, -frameheight, and -framewidth. [environment variable: SAOTNG_WINWIDTH]

-winsize [size]

The height and width of the image display window. The default is 512x512. This is the size of image that is displayed on screen and can be different from the size of the image maintained in memory. See also -winheight, -winwidth, -frameheight, and -framewidth. [environment variables: SAOTNG_WINWIDTH and SAOTNG_WINHEIGHT]

-xdir [True|False]

Specifies whether the XDir directory browser should be brought up automatically when SAOtng is started. The default is False. [environment variable: SAOTNG_XDIR]

-xrm [Xt resource]

Arbitrary Xt resource values for SAOtng can be passed to SAOtng using the usual Xt -xrm switch. Note, however, that there cannot be any whitespace in the resource specification, since shell scripts such as saotng will process the whitespace incorrectly: use -xrm "*resource:value" instead of -xrm "*resource: value".

-zoom [zoom factor]

Specifies the initial zoom factor for new frames. [environment variable: SAOTNG_ZOOM]

Last Updated July 10, 1998