Data Combination Project (DataComb)

DataComb is a set of python scripts that will aid you in combining radio interferometric and single dish observations, and obtain quantitave measures of how different techniques perform. The scripts should work with CASA 6.x, and also require both CASA and astropy to be installed.

The work in this repository has been presented by: Plunkett, Hacar, Moser-Fischer, Petry, et al. (2023) (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023PASP..135c4501P) While we want to get the manuscript and code out as soon as possible, please be patient as we clean up the code base.

Overview:

1. If you want to (more quickly) get combined images, go directly to Quick_start.md,
2. If you want to understand the steps, go to Overview.md,
3. [Advanced users] If you want adjust parameters and perform data combination on your own data, go to DC_pars.md.

Scripts for the Paper

These should be the steps that allow you to reproduce the data combination as presented in Plunkett et al. (2023):

1. Ensure your CASA has astropy installed
2. Ensure the analysisUtilities are installed for your CASA
3. Run configure to be able to run the CASA based scripts
4. Gather the data (see data/README.md)
5. Execfile DC_script.py to run through your selected data set

1. - 3. Preparations

Details are given in Preparation.

You have to make these adjustments just once. Steps include:

1. Requirements
2. Configure
3. (Optional but Recommended) Permanently Set Up Your CASA Environment

4. Data

Details are in data/README.md.

As suggested in Preparation, the setup assumes that the data is present in data, physically or via a (sym)link. If you cloned this Github repository, then the data directory should already exist. You can modify this for your system as needed.

5. DC_script.py, DC_run.py, and IQA_script.py

At each start of a CASA instance you have to call the DC_locals.py once to set up your source and destination folders, e.g.

execfile("/home/teuben/DataComb/DC_locals.py",globals())

DC_script.py is simply a wrapper that first calls the DC_pars-file you designate there, and then the combination program DC_run.py.

Alternatively, you can use these two lines to call:

execfile("/home/teuben/DataComb/DC_pars.py", globals()) 
execfile("/home/teuben/DataComb/DC_run.py",globals())

For more on DC_run.py, you can find an overview of the capabilities given in Overview, and more detail in DC_run. Templates of DC_pars-files are found in the templates directory.

DC_run.py uses the Python module datacomb.py for preparation and combination of the data, and the Python module IQA_script.py for the assessment of the combination products. Both modules can be used as a stand-alone.

A quick start guide is given in Quick_start.

Want to know more?

If you use the code and/or techniques presented in this repository, please cite: Plunkett, Hacar, Moser-Fischer, Petry, et al. (2023) will be updated with full reference

The corresponding author of Plunkett, Hacar, Moser-Fischer, Petry, et al. (2023) is Adele Plunkett (aplunket@nrao.edu). Some ongoing testing and features will be planned. Please contact the authors, or open an "issue" to report any particular bugs encountered or suggest features.