IMACS and LDSS Mask Making Software

A set of software support programs is available for users of the IMACS and LDSS instruments to prepare slit masks.
These programs may be run in any of these places (Click link to download distribution):

Using any Fedora Linux system
Under Mac-OS-X (intel platform) V 10.5 (Leopard) linux distribution
Under Mac-OS-X (intel platform) V 10.6 (Snow Leopard) linux distribution
Under Mac-OS-X (intel platform) V 10.7 ( Lion ) linux distribution
Distributions for some locally supported systems:
- Fedora core 5 (32 bit) or (64 bit)
- Fedora core 8 (32 bit) or (64 bit)
- Fedora core 13 (32 bit) or (64 bit)
- Fedora core 3 and Redhat 9 systems are no longer supported.
Please note that this list may be revised with each release, and that some of the above distributions may be out of date if they are not currently supported at OCIW.
As a do-it-yourself source distribution.
Instructions for support on the OCIW linux workstation network.

The linux distributions may be downloaded using the links above, stored in a directory of your choice, and expanded by a command like "gtar xfz lsi.tgz". Then follow the installation instructions which are also supplied as the file "README" in the distribution.

Documentation on the use of this software is included in the distribution itself as text files. At a future time, some of this may be made into web pages; when this is done, they will be linked here

The software consists of these executable programs:

intgui -- interface to define the observing details.
maskgen -- program which generates mask data from intgui output.
maskcut -- takes mask specification and generates NC file.
ncplot -- utility to plot NC movements to see how mask is cut.
smdfplt -- plots mask described by a .SMF file.
getlsi (or getisi) -- script to download the latest software distribution.
mgclean -- script to delete files generated by this software.
obscat -- script to construct an observing catalog from .SMF files.
cacherep -- utility to report star catalogue cache status.
and other utility programs as needed.

Here are the data files needed for and distributed with the programs.
> Please right click and save these files to disk as they may not display as text.

Here are some links to the current distributed documentation files:

And, here are some documentation links for file formats:

Here are links to suplemental documentation and data files which are subject to change in the future:

How to download star catalogs needed for skyview feature in intgui.
Pointers to SMDF files for long slit and special masks in general use.

Documentation on IMACS itself, and on submitting slit masks is found on the LCO web site.

For further details, read the documentation, or email Clardy (at) obs.carnegiescience.edu.

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