Daily Image
02-03-1992
Soft2000
| Submitter: | Jan Noordam |
| Description: | In the early nineties, the WSRT upgrade was in full swing, the AIPS++ project had been launched, and there was already talk of a SKA(I). In that context, a small group consisting of Johan Hamaker, Jan Noordam (chair), Friso Olnon and Hans van Someren Greve sketched a development path for the WSRT offline software and beyond. This block diagram of the "Soft2000" plan dates from about 1992. Its cornerstone was the emergence of AIPS++, the common data reduction package that was being written by an international consortium, in which ASTRON was deeply involved. Around 1995, AIPS++ was to supersede existing packages like AIPS, NEWSTAR, MIRIAD and DIFMAP. In the interim period, the WSRT NEWSTAR package was to play a starring role, supported from Australia by Wim Brouw (in exchange for the princely reward of one box of Dutch cigars a week, officially sanctioned by Wilfried Boland). The Scissor module was an early observation management system written by Marco de Vos. As so often happens, Reality could not keep up with Vision. AIPS++ developed more slowly than was hoped, and got bogged down in "culture wars", e.g. over the existence of Direction-Dependent Effects (DDE). Since we were already using the AIPS++ uv-data data format, considerable effort was devoted to writing converters to other formats. NEWSTAR is still in use in 2013 (by the same user, Ger de Bruyn), as are the other 2nd generation packages. And some of the old WSRT online software still survives in the new Telescope Management System (TMS). Still, it was a productive period that prepared us better than most for the challenges of the new telescopes, LOFAR, WSRT/APERTIF and SKA. It produced the Hamaker/Bregman/Sault Measurement Equation, and led to MeqTrees and BBS. And the lasting legacy of AIPS++ (now renamed CASA) is its Measurement Set, written by Ger van Diepen. NB: This image has been posted in 2012, so the the blurb has been written with the benefit of hindsight. Please let us know if you have more information about this picture. |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
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