QUIP

QUIP stands for Quicklook and Image Preprocessor for WEx. It uses Ginga as its GUI, with additional plugins from stginga.

Basic data flow for QUIP:

Basic data flow for QUIP.

Getting Started

Once you have successfully installed QUIP and all its dependencies, you can start it by calling the quip command. For detailed examples, see Using QUIP.

To see QUIP (Ginga) command line help:

$ quip --help

To see QUIP command line version:

$ quip --version

To start QUIP with a “QUIP Operation File” in the current working directory:

$ quip operation_file_001.xml

During the development phase, sometimes unintentional bugs might cause Ginga to produce segmentation fault. When this happens, you can do the following using GDB to get the traceback and report it to wss_tools’ GitHub issues:

$ gdb
(gdb) file python
(gdb) run /my/install/dir/bin/quip operation_file_001.xml
... # Reproduce the error on the GUI
(gdb) where
(gdb) Quit

Using QUIP

Warning

To meet JWST Wavefront Sensing analysis needs, QUIP customizes Ginga by installing custom configuration files in your $HOME/.ginga directory. If the configuration files already exist, they will be overwritten. Please make a backup prior to running QUIP for the first time, if desired.

Warning

Ginga is set such that loaded buffer will never expire, so that modified buffers and generated mosaics will stay in memory. This can become memory intensive but is necessary to support QUIP analysis features.

QUIP behaves slightly differently depending on the operation type defined by WEx. There are three main behaviors:

  • Normal analysis mode (not THUMBNAIL nor SEGMENT_ID), where inputs are passed into Ginga as-is, with a “standard” set of plugins. It is assumed that no more than twenty 2K images will be processed per session in this mode on wsslinux2 to ensure sufficient memory.

  • THUMBNAIL, where inputs are pre-shrunk and their WCS adjusted accordingly for the purpose of creating a quick-look mosaic (ignoring distortion) in Ginga.

  • SEGMENT_ID, where inputs are pre-shrunk, grouped, and placed into respective NIRCam chip positions for the purpose of flipping through NIRCam exposures, one at a time, in Ginga.

You must provide a “QUIP Operation File”, which is an XML file that defines the WEx operation type and input images to use; Its schema is available under QUIP’s package data distributed with wss_tools. Each input image is assumed to have [PRIMARY, SCI, ERR, DQ] extensions only; Extraneous extensions (e.g., (SCI, 2)) will be ignored.

The following are the output files generated by QUIP; Some might not be present depending on the operation type:

  • “QUIP Out” is for storing a new image list for the next step in WEx. This file is not generated for SEGMENT_ID because all input images will be used for the next step. Its filename is given by the “QUIP Operation File” and its schema is available under QUIP’s package data distributed with wss_tools.

  • “QUIP Activity Log” is for documenting all the actions that modified the input images such that it is possible to manually reproduce the output images. This file is not generated for SEGMENT_ID and THUMBNAIL because they do not produce any output images, although THUMBNAIL can still shortlist existing input images. Its filename is given by the “QUIP Operation File” and its schema is available under QUIP’s package data distributed with wss_tools.

  • Output FITS images are only present if user choose to modify input images. They are always accompanied by “QUIP Out” and “QUIP Activity Log” files. They are saved in the output directory given by the “QUIP Operation File” with a user-defined suffix in the filenames for clarity.

  • All operations produce a Ginga log file (“ginga.log”) in the output directory. This file is for debugging Ginga and should not concern most QUIP users.

There are also some hidden configuration files and caches that QUIP uses but should not concern typical users:

  • Ginga Configuration Files in $HOME/.ginga directory.

  • Thumbnails generated by Ginga in .thumbs within your working directory, which is presumably where your “QUIP Operation File” resides.

  • Intermediate files generated by QUIP in quipcache within your working directory. These files include scaled down images and mosaics for THUMBNAIL and SEGMENT_ID operations.

Below are some examples for specific operation types:

QUIP has access to all standard Ginga plugins and uses the following directly from stginga:

Details on how QUIP customizes Ginga configurations and provide additional plugins are as follow: