SciSim version history

Tru64 on Alpha machine

Source code is modified such, that it is now possible to run SciSim on an Compaq Alpha running Tru64 (formerly known as Digital Unix)


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Graphical User Interface

• SciSim is ported to Qt 2 library
• The fonts used in SciSim 2.0 series were not available on every platform. As a result the GUI could be practically unreadable, as the font did not fit into the areas assigned to them. This is fixed by dynamically assigning areas to labels, edit fields etc.
• All windows have the same look-and-feel.
• The SciSim main window can be resized. This makes it easier to find the sources if they are not on-axis. In fact the SciSim GUI can now fill the whole screen.
• Grouped the View controls into one area, which makes it easier to navigate over the sky.
• The center button allows the User to center the telescope on the current highlighted point in the sky. This can be any point or the current source selected in the Source Editor
• The bar indicating the progress of the simulation is more reliable. The bar starts running when all simulators are initialized.
• The User is acknowledged on an estimate of the simulation time. The status bar indicates time remaining.
• When SciSim is started the complete pipe-line activated (see the Configuration screen) by default.
• Space craft simulator is implemented at the front of the pipe-line, acting as input to RayGen (gsim) and OM (osim)
• The seed can be configured for all simulators that uses a seed.
• Widgets allow standard copy-and-paste features.
• User may change the style appearance of the GUI, by selecting one of the styles in the menu bar

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ODF issues

The back-end of SciSim, the Observation Data Files has been re-implemented. This was done to keep in step with the development of XMM-Newton SAS:

• All ODF converters now behave in the same way.
• ODF products are compliant to the latest ODF ICD
• The products generate proper file names automatically, and in accordance with the ODF file name conventions.
• Additional Attitude History File generation by HODF
• Extra tool to convert a sources file into an ODF compliant FITS file.

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RFCSIM uses on board sources

Implementation of the on board sources of the RGA Focal camera

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OSIM changes

• OSIM takes input from the S/C simulator directly. As a result, the S/C attitude is reflected in OSIM output.
• The OSIM simulator now generates the same binary output as the other camera simulators. This output can be viewed with the default ssim* tools.
• Implementation of channel selection

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S/C simulator

A new simulator, SPSIM has been extracted from GSIM source code. As a result, GSIM as well as OSIM now have access to S/C behavior.

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Platform independent binary format

The binary format of files has changed such, that the output of e.g. MSIM on a Sun SPARC, can be processed by e.g. RGASIM on a Linux box.

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Port to newer compilers

The source code is updated to work with newer stable compilers and libraries:

• GNU EGCS 1.0.3 and 1.1.x series
• GNU GCC 2.95.x series
• NAGWare F90 series
• NAGWare F95 series
• CFITSIO 2 series
• Qt 2.x.y series
• Perl 5.0 and 5.6 series

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Improved build mechanism

The build mechanism is updated:

• The compilation is done in an area, different from source code. It is now possible to have simultaneous builds from the same source code.
• Test harness passes over all platforms tested.
• Configuration of Makefiles is done by a configure script.

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