Installing Compiled Executables for use with the IDL Runtime

If you do not have an IDL license, the GPI Data Reduction Pipeline is distributed as compiled code along with the IDL runtime.

Note

If you do have an IDL license, there’s nothing stopping you from installing these compiled versions of the code instead of the source if you want to; it’s just not required!

Obtaining and installing the GPI DRP Executables

The distribution ZIP files for the GPI pipeline come in two flavors:

• A platform-independent ZIP file containing only the compiled pipeline code itself. To use this file, you must download and install the IDL runtime virtual machine yourself. It may be obtained from Excelis.
• Platform specific ZIP files that contain the compiled pipeline code plus the IDL runtime virtual machine for a given operating system. These contain everything you will need to start the GPI pipeline on that OS.

Version 1.0.0 (2014 Feb 14):

• gpi_pipeline_1.0_compiled.zip - GPI pipeline compiled code only
• gpi_pipeline_1.0_runtime_macosx.zip - GPI pipeline compiled code plus IDL runtime for Mac OS X
• gpi_pipeline_1.0_runtime_linux.zip - GPI pipeline compiled code plus IDL runtime for Linux
• gpi_pipeline_1.0_runtime_windows.zip - GPI pipeline compiled code plus IDL runtime for Windows
• gpi_pipeline_1.0_source.zip - GPI pipeline source code (available for reference)

Version 0.9.4 (2014 Jan 7):

• gpi_pipeline_0.9.4_r2360_compiled.zip - GPI pipeline compiled code only
• gpi_pipeline_0.9.4_r2360_runtime_macosx.zip - GPI pipeline compiled code plus IDL runtime for Mac OS X
• gpi_pipeline_0.9.4_r2360_source.zip - GPI pipeline source code (available for reference)

Obtain the desired zip file and uncompress it to a directory of your choosing. Remember this path for use when configuring DRP paths in the next section.

Starting the DRP with the IDL Runtime

The zip file contains, among other things, a directory called executables which contains .sav files needed by the Virtual Machine to run the pipeline:

• gpi_launch_pipeline.sav starts the main data reduction session and status console
• gpi_launch_guis.sav starts the GUI session, including a launcher window that will allow the user to start the various GUIs.
• gpitv.sav starts GPItv alone.

How to start the compiled code varies by operating system.

Mac OS X

On Mac OS X, the executables directory contains three Applescript files corresponding to the above named .sav files. Double click any of these to start that component of the pipeline. You can also start compiled code from the command line

unix% idl -rt=/path/to/executables/gpi_launch_pipeline.sav

To conveniently start both required IDL sessions at once, there is a shell script scripts/gpi-pipeline which launches two xterms and starts the pipeline and GUIs sessions in them.

You may need to set the environment variable IDL_DIR to the executables\idl## directory.

Linux

You can start compiled code from the command line

unix% idl -rt=/path/to/executables/gpi_launch_pipeline.sav

To conveniently start both required IDL sessions at once, there is a shell script scripts/gpi-pipeline which launches two xterms and starts the pipeline and GUIs sessions in them.

You may need to set the environment variable IDL_DIR to the executables\idl## directory.

Windows

On Windows, the executables directory contains three .exe files corresponding to the above named .sav files. Double click any of these to start that component of the pipeline.

You must manually start both the pipeline and GUIs sessions to use the pipeline interactively.

For any of the above OSes, you may also manually start the IDL Virtual Machine by itself, and it will present you with a file dialog for browsing to and selecting a .sav file to run. See the Exelis documentation on starting a runtime application for more information.

Contents of the Distribution ZIP files

In addition to the executables directory already discussed, the code distribution ZIP file contains also the following directories:

• config: this directory contains various pipeline configuration files, filter transmission FITS files, and other required ancillary data.
• recipe_templates: this directory contains the template DRF that will be used by the parser to define which recipes should be used for a specific dataset.
• scripts: this directory contains convenience scripts for starting the pipeline
• queue: this empty directory will be automatically scanned by the controller for new recipes to be executed,
• log: this empty directory serves to place the DRP log file of every reduction processed.
• executables/IDLxx: (where xx is some version number) contains the IDL Virtual Machine itself and its assocated files
• html: A local copy of this HTML documentation for possible offline access.

If you have followed these steps successfully, you have installed the pipeline code. Proceed now to Configuring the Pipeline.