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Features of the PROS software
A few new features and enhancements to the standard IRAF system have
been introduced with the PROS software:
- extensions: Many IRAF tasks will automatically
supply the correct default
extension for the expected input. In addition to these, the PROS software
differentiates files of the same kind (e.g., tables), with
compound extensions, the first part giving the PROS type, with the
syntax _xxx (e.g., _fft), the second the
IRAF file type (e.g., .tab).
Default compound extensions are used by the PROS tasks when no
extension is given for the output file name. Most PROS
tasks allow the output file name to be defaulted, with the
convention that the output file name will be composed of the input
`root' name, plus the default extension specific to the task.
In general this is obtained by typing a carriage return.
For example, if ``rp110590.qp" is the
input image file to imcnts, the default output file will be
``rp110590_cnt.tab''(
see Radial Profiles and Projections
for details of obtaining count distributions.)
- directory path names: Directories in IRAF are
delimited by ``/" or ``$". If a file is specified as
`directory/filename<input ext>', the output filename will be
`directory/filename<output ext>. For example, if the input file to the
imcnts task is /pool7/rp110590.qp, the default output table would be
/pool7/rp110590_cnt.tab.
For the output table to be written in the current
directory, the ``." string should be used instead of the null string.
If the response to ``output filename'' is a carriage return or ``''
(the null string), the directory names will be retained.
Notable exceptions are the
spectral tasks, in particular the fitting
routines, in which the output table is written to the current directory
by default.
- regions :
Spatial filtering is accomplished by
means of region masks, in which
each mask value corresponds either to a single geometric shape, or
to two or more geometric shapes combined according to the rules of
boolean algebra. Regions are used in virtually all PROS analysis tasks
that use image data. Geometric shapes allowed are: circle,
box, ellipse, polygon, annulus, pie slice, and rotated box (
for more information type help regions).
- filters : The introduction of QPOE files, with
spatial, temporal and energy information for each photon, allows the
filtering of photons in time intervals or energy bands, together with
spatial filtering. Most PROS tasks that work on QPOE files
accept filtering of photons at run time (cf. energy filtering, .
- World Coordinate System: RA and Dec.
- Tables: Analysis results are written to tables.
More specific and detailed discussions of the PROS features can be found
in the on-line help files, and in the on-line science specifications.
In addition, the following help files may be useful:
- XRAY -- pros, bugs, coords, explain_errors, explain_xdata,
explain_screen, exposure, file_compare, filter, extensions, qpoe,
missions, release_xray, regions, prf (or psf), rosat_files, xspec_interface
- XSPECTRAL -- models_spectral, using_spectral, pspc_fitting
- XSPATIAL -- prf (or psf)
- DETECT -- explain_detect, using_detect
- XPLOT -- using_xplot
- TIMCOR -- using_timcor, utc
To obtain help, type `help filename', e.g., ``help coords''.
Next: Coordinate Systems
Up: IRAF/PROS
Previous: Other Types of Files
rsdc@cfa.harvard.edu
1998-06-10