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Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
22 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
The ESO­MIDAS Courier is published twice per year by the ESO­MIDAS Group of the European Southern
Observatory.
Contributions as well as suggestions and comments are invited and can be sent to the editor. In particular,
authors of ESO­MIDAS application software that would be of general interest for the ESO­MIDAS community,
are invited to make this software available.
If you are not on the mailing list and want to receive future issues of the Courier, contact the editor. More updated
information about ESO­MIDAS can be obtained from the ESO­MIDAS Bulletin Board, accessible via anonymous
ftp.
The ESO­MIDAS TM Courier:
Editor: Rein H. Warmels
Typeset by FrameMaker TM
Published by the European Southern Observatory
Karl­Schwarzschild­Straúe 2,
D 85748 Garching bei MÝnchen,
Federal Republic of Germany
ISSN 1018­3051
The following MIDAS Support services are available
for sending suggestions, comments or to obtain help
when problems arise.
Telephone: +49­89­32006456
Telex: 5282822 eso d,
attn. ESO­MIDAS
Telefax: +49­89­3202362,
attn. ESO­MIDAS
Span: ESO::MIDAS
EARN: MIDAS@DGAESO51
Eunet: midas@eso.uucp
Internet: midas@eso.org
Anonymous ftp: ftphost.hq.eso.org (134.171.40.2)

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 21
ESO­MIDAS Request Form
This is a request form for release 93NOV of the ESO­MIDAS 1 system. To obtain a new release,
please complete this form and return it to us (see reverse). Material will be shipped only to users
with a valid ESO­MIDAS User Agreement. If you still have a tape or tape mailing box from the
last release, you MUST return these before we send the new release.
ESO­MIDAS User Agreement No 2 :
Technical Support Coordinator:
E­Mail:
Tape format:
Documentation requested:
Date: Signature:
1. ESO­MIDAS TM is copyright protected software developed by the European Southern Observatory for the pur­
pose of Image Processing of Astronomical Data.
2. for new user agreements t.b.d.
1600 bpi VAX/VMS backup
6250 bpi VAX/VMS backup
1600 bpi TAR format
6250 bpi TAR format
QIC­24 TAR format
Exabyte 8200 TAR format
DDS/DAT 4mm VAX/VMS backup
ftp (TAR files only)
DDS/DAT 4mm TAR format
ESO­MIDAS User Guide 93NOV
ESO­MIDAS Environment Version 1.2
IDI­routines
AGL Reference Manual Version 3.61

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
20 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
. update in some installation scripts;
. adding warning messages in command CREATE/GUI;
. first implementation to support A/UX systems (Unix on Macs);
. checking descriptor_type when writing descriptors;
. bug fixed in INTAPE/FITS when reading tables containing I*2 (only HP);
. refurbishment of the CCD package;
. bug detected in Fortran compiler SC1.0.1 for SunOS 4.1.3;
. bug fixed for COMPUTE/IMA;
. TERMCAPFILE modified to support xterms on HP;
. bug fixed in PLOT/ASSIGN to translate logical names into system names;
. command EDIT/LONG added in the LONG package;
. warnings for zero dynamic range in data (PLOT/TABLE & PLOT/HISTOGRAM);
. bug fixed in VMS installation of MIDAS with default files;
. bug fixed with wildcard input;
. correct flag conservation option;
. making the CENTER algorithm more robust;
. bug fixed for VMS systems in INTAPE/OUTTAPE commands;
. 93NOV help files updated;
. fix EXTRACT/CURSOR for scaled images;
. some compilation errors in IBM/6000 for package WAVELET fixed;
93NOVpl2 can be updated to 93NOVpl3 by replacing only those files affected by the updated ones.
Directory: 93NOV//patches_pl2
Files: README
patches_001.tar.Z
patches_002.tar.Z
patches_003.tar.Z

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 19
The following text contains the current (dated 25 March January 1994) information about the patch files
for the ESO­MIDAS 93NOV release. The patch files can be obtained from ftphost.hq.eso.org or
134.171.40.2).
93NOVpl1
New or fixed in 93NOVpl1 compared to 93NOVpl0 (original 93NOV release):
. fixing some help files for the Data Organizer (DO) context;
. fixes in the MIDAS installation file install.sh;
. fixes in the MIDAS installation file setup.sh;
. indisk.prg and indiskfits.hlq updated.
93NOVpl0 can be updated to 93NOVpl1 by replacing only those files affected by the updated ones.
Directory: 93NOV//patches_pl0
Files: README
fix001.tar.Z*
fix002.tar.Z*
fix003.tar.Z*
fix004.tar.Z*
93NOVpl2
New or fixed in 93NOVpl2 compared to 93NOVpl1:
. help files for INTAPE/OUTTAPE updated;
. bug fixed in the MIDAS tapeserver;
. Bug fixed to correctly setting descriptor LHCUTS;
. A new context included: CCD;
. Bug fixed with the ADD/ICAT;
. Man pages in ./93NOV/system/unix/*.l;
. Upgrade in ``installation'' document;
. Bugs fixed in the installation procedures.
93NOVpl1 can be updated to 93NOVpl2 by replacing only those files affected by the updated ones.
Directory: 93NOV//patches_pl1
Files: README
patches_pl1.tar.Z
93NOVpl3
New or fixed in 93NOVpl3 compared to 93NOVpl2:
. context PEPSYS is compiled without Fortran optimizer;
. CCD context bugs fixed in and upgrade of sources;
. bug fixed with the REPORT/PROBLEM command;
. bug fixed with MAXIMUM option in AVERAGE commands;
. update of TUTORIAL, and bug fixes for the IRSPEC context;
. adding option NBORDI<0 in command DEFINE/HOUGH in ECHELLE context;
. documentation of ESTIMATE/DISPERSION in the LONG context;
The MIDAS 93NOV Patch File Summary
(from the ftp account)

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
18 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
New naming convention for plot files ­ RHW 940208
In order to avoid conflicts in the names of plot files the naming convention of plot files has been revised. Now, for
each assigned device the graphics system generates a plotfile with a name that starts with name of the assigned
device (e.g. graph_wnd0, ps4ipg1, etc.), followed by MIDAS unit number, and with the extension ``.plt'' (e.g.
graph_wnd00.plt, ps4ipg100.plt). Although this may look complicated, you will hard notice the change since
in most cases the names of the plot files are not used.
Postscript devices ­ RHW 940208
Three new devices called postscript (default = landscape), postscript.l (for landscape), and postscript.p (for portrait)
have been included. Assigning the graphic output to one of these devices (e.g. ASSIGN/GRA postcript) will
generate a postscript file postscript.ps. These new ``devices'' ease the inclusion of encapsulated postscript graphics
in your papers and documents.
PLOT/PERSPECTIVE ­ RvH/RHW 940105
A new version of PLOT/PERSPECTIVE has been installed. It is much FASTER than the old one and offers the
possibility to draw the grid in the X, y, or both directions. Since making perspective plot of large areas doesn't make
much sense (every thing will turn back), the limit is an area of 512x512 pixels. The meaning of the command
parameters have slightly changed. They can now be understood.
PLOT/TABLE ­ RvH/RHW 940105
The plot table command has been upgraded to facilitate the representation of 3­dimension tables. This addition
functionality was required by the ISO software group in the Netherlands how currently are writing and testing their
(MIDAS) calibration and analysis software for the ISO project. Take some time, and read the help file for complete
information.
PLOT/CONTOUR, PLOT/GRAY, PLOT/VECTOR ­ RvH/RHW 940105
The limit of 512x512 pixels has finally be lifted. All image sizes can now be plotted.
ASSIGN/GRAPH ­ RHW 940208
The FILE/NOFILE option in the command ASSIGN/GRA has been eliminated. Now, plot (meta) files, with the
extension .plt, will always be created.
Context CCD
New Context CCD ­ RHW 940112
The first version of the new MIDAS CCD package has been released. The package allows you to reduce your CCD
frames in a very flexible way, either in automatic or ``manual'' mode. This release is to be considered as beta test
version. Therefore, users are urged to report bugs, problems, suggestions, improvements, or other comments of this
nature to me (Rein Warmels, rwarmels@eso.org).
Context CCD ­ RHW 940114
At initialization of the CCD context a MIDAS table (eso_specs.tbl) and a MIDAS procedure (eso_descr.prg) will be
copied into your working directory. The MIDAS table contains the specifications of the CCD's currently in use on
La Silla (data taken from the ESO Users Manual 1993). This table is used by the LOAD/CCD command that will
look into this table for the requested telescope/instrument parameters and to be loaded into the CCD keyword
structure. The MIDAS procedure copies the names of the (default) ESO descriptors into the CCD keywords, and is
executed when the CCD context is enabled. Both, MIDAS table and procedure can be simply modified. Read the
help documentation of LOAD/CCD and INIT/CCD for more information.
COMBINE/CCD, MKCAL/CCD ­ RHW 940125
The exposure types of the input frames are now compared with the exposure type stored in the keyword `exp'_type,
where `exp' is BS, DK, FF, SK, OT (the first parameter of the command). If a difference is found, i.e. you have
included frame(s) with wrong (a) exposure type(s) the combining will be terminated.
Context CCD ­ RHW 940204
Several commands in the CCD package have been updated. In particular, the REDUCE/CCD command now takes
care of several error conditions during the reduction pipeline. Also, a new table (eso_specs.tbl) containing the ESO
specific CCD parameters will be created in the working directory when the CCD package is initialized.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 17
Display
Resizing of windows ­ KB 940113
You can now resize the display or graphic windows of Midas. However, after that you have to reload or replot your
image in order to assure the correctness of future cursor related commands.
3D­viewing ­ KB 932312
A new application procedure `zperspec.prg' implements a perspective display of a 2­dim image. Use ``HELP/
APPLIC zperspec'' to get the details.
.../AUX_WINDOW command ­ KB 940113
The names of the commands CREATE/AUX_WINDOW and COPY/AUX have been changed to CREATE/ZOOM
and COPY/ZOOM (no change in the syntax). Also a new command DELETE/ZOOM has been added. See the
HELP for details.
INITIALIZE/DISPLAY ­ KB 940126
Since Midas does not distinguish anymore between different window managers, the parameter `window manager
flag' in INIT/DISPLAY has been removed. Please, consult the help of the command for details.
Scanning plots ­ KB 940204
A new application procedure `scanima.prg' has been implemented. Via `@a scanima' you can reconstruct a 1­dim
frame from a 2­dim image containing the plot of that frame. So, e.g., if you just have a plot of a spectrum (hard­
copy) do the following: go to the scanner in the user room, scan it and produce a TIFF file. Then read that file into
Midas via `@a intiff' and finally rebuild the spectrum via `@a scanima'. Use ``HELP/APPLIC scanima'' to get
detailed information.
VIEW/IMAGE ­ KB 940210
Continuous cursor readout and an option to calculate the magnitude of objects have been added to VIEW/IMAGE.
See the help fo details
Graphics
Graphics system ­ RHW 940105
With the help of Richard van Hees (Department for Space Research, University of Groningen, Netherlands), the
complete graphics subsystem was redesigned and rewritten in C. This work involved the following items: a: rede­
sign of the graphics keywords in the MIDAS keyword structure; b: creation of a MIDAS standard graphics library
that will be included in the new version of the ESO­MIDAS environment document; c: conversion the high level
MIDAS graphics library from FORTRAN to C; d: conversion of the MIDAS graphics application code from FOR­
TRAN to C.
In spite of the fact that this work meant a complete overhaul of the graphics code, the average MIDAS user will,
except for the number of new features (see below) and big improvement in performance, not notice it (however,
the results of the efforts will hopefully be appreciated),
Although the new system has been tested thoroughly during the months November and December it still may con­
tain bugs, improper documentation, or other inconveniences. Therefore users are kindly asked to report these to me.
Graphics keywords ­ RHW 940105
Which the upgrade of graphics system most of the graphics keywords have changed their name, and/or their mean­
ing, and/or their position. Hence, all procedures that do manipulate graphics keywords should be checked and,
if needed, modified. The new graphics keywords are contained in PLISTAT, PLRSTAT, PLCSTAT, PLRGRAP,
PLCMETA, and PLCDATA. For an overview of these keywords use the command HELP/KEYWORD PLxxxxx.
New standard graphics library ­ RHW 940105
Similar to the standard MIDAS libraries for the Standard Interfaces and the MIDAS Tables File System, there is
now a standard library for MIDAS Graphics. This library provides a set of interface routines (both in FORTRAN
and C) that can be used to enable data representation in a reasonable flexible way. The documentation will be
included in the next version of the MIDAS Environment document. Copies are already available in my office (room
401).
Graphic windows ­ KB 940128
Now, also the internal info of the different graphics windows is saved like for the display windows. That means,
that you can create several graphics windows at a time and switch among them (via ASSIGN/GRAPH) freely with­
out losing the coordinate information in these windows. Note, however, that only parameters concerning the coor­
dinate systems and the plotted data are saved. The general graphics parameters like line width (LWIDTH), colours
(COLOUR, BCOLOUR), plot mode (PMODE) are not saved.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
16 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
The MIDAS 94MAY News File
(with minor modifications and grouped by subject)
The following text contains a detailed summary of revisions and changes in the MIDAS application soft­
ware during the period between the previous 93NOV and the new 94MAY release. MIDAS users can pro­
duce this text with the MIDAS HELP [NEWS] command.
System control
ASCII output ­ KB 931217
The output from any Midas command can now be sent to an ASCII file in a very similar way to e.g. in Unix.
In order to send the output of a Midas command to a file `kukiwu' instead of the terminal, add to the command line
the string ``>kukiwu'' in the end. If you want the output to go into the file and also to the terminal, add the
string ``>kukiwu,terminal''. The output file is created as a new file. If you want to append stuff to an
existing file, add the string ``>>kukiwu''. Please, note that there should be no blank between the `>' or `>>' and
the filename!
Multiple commands per command line ­ KB 940119
As in interactive mode, you can now also write several commands per line in a Midas procedure. Please, recall that
commands are separated by a semicolon (`;'). If you want the char. `;' not interpreted as a command separator,
write `\;' instead.
MIDAS filenames ­ KB 940126
Due to popular demand we removed the restrictions on Midas filenames, e.g. you can use again an image like `qua­
sar01+12.bdf'. However, if you want to use such an image in a COMPUTE/IMAGE command you have to enclose
the full name in quotes, e.g.: comp/ima &a = ``quasar01+12.bdf''­12
SET/MIDAS=INSERT_MODE ­ KB 940126
A new option INSERT_MODE has been added to the command SET/MIDAS_SYSTEM in order start up always in
InsertMode when editing a Midas command line. See the help of SET/MIDAS_SYSTEM for details.
EXECUTE/CATALOG ­ KB 940128
The command EXECUTE/CATALOG has been updated to be more flexible. Also the related SETUP commands,
like WRITE/SETUP CATALOG, have been updated and documented completely.
Input and output
TIFF images ­ KB 940107
Now, images in TIFF format can be converted to MIDAS files via the command `@a intiff'. See `HELP/APPLIC
intiff' for details.
ASCII input ­ KB 940113
Any suitable Midas command can now obtain its input from an ASCII file in a very similar way to e.g. in Unix by
using the string ` the filenames lola.bdf, mimi.bdf and petrita.bdf, then Midas > read/descr command for all the 3 files. To be more explicit, the command will be executed for each line of the file, taking as
parameters the contents of that line. Please, note that there should be no blank between the `<` and the filename!
Compressed images/tables ­ KB 940119
Now, Midas supports compressed images or tables (by compressed we mean the files xyz.bdf.Z created with the
Unix `compress' command). Therefore, this facility is only available for Unix systems not for VMS!! E.g. use
``READ/DESCR itest.bdf.Z'' to read the standard descriptors of the compressed image itest.bdf.
Table file operations
EXECUTE/TABLE ­ KB 931220
A new command EXECUTE/TABLE has been added. This command executes Midas commands which are stored
in a table row. See the help for details.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 15
frame or not. Also, two new filters, FILTER/MIN and FILTER/MAX have been added. See the help for details.
COMPUTE/IMAGE ­ KB 930105
The no. of possible operands in the expression has been increased to 21 (i.e. also 20 operators max.). Furthermore,
you can specify the frame from which you want to copy the non­standard descriptors (used to be always the 1. input
frame). See the help for details.
Graphical User Interfaces
CREATE/GUI DISPLAY ­ KB 930715
The new version of the Graphical User Interface for the display functions in MIDAS is now implemented. It fol­
lows the ESO GUI Common Conventions and incorporates modifications and enhancements forwarded to us by the
users of the first prototype.
CREATE/GUI ­ PB 930811
The version 93NOV of MIDAS incorporates a set of four MOTIF based interfaces: XHelp for the on­line documen­
tation, XDisplay for display­related commands, XLong for 1D and long­slit spectroscopy and XAlice for spectral
analysis. All these interfaces conform to the ESO GUI Common Conventions which define the Look and Feel of all
ESO interfaces in the fields of telescope and instrument control, archives and data analysis. The version 92NOV
incorporated many Athena based interfaces (XSpectra, XEchelle, XFilter, XStella). Some of them (XEchelle, XFil­
ter, XStella) have not been yet ported to MOTIF and compiled versions for Sun and HP will be available under
anonymous ftp account on our host ``ftphost.hq.eso.org''.
CREATE/GUI HELP ­ PB 930811
A new version of the XHelp Graphical User Interface has been implemented. It incorporates several new functions
like a history, print, report/problem and the possibility to add and remove contexts. Like the initial version distrib­
uted in 92NOV, it is a standalone application.
CREATE/GUI LONG ­ PB 930811
A Graphical User Interface XLong has been implemented in complement to the refurbished package Long. This
interface replaces the previous XSpectra interface.
CREATE/GUI ALICE ­ CL 930811
A Graphical User Interface XAlice has been developed for interactive analysis of spectral data. The main features
are: flux integration, interactive filtering, red­shift rebinning and multi­gaussian fitting.
Context LONG and SPEC
CONTEXT LONG ­ PB 930811
The package Long has been totally refurbished since the 92NOV release. It incorporates 1D and long­slit spectros­
copy and presents all functionalities previously spread in three different packages (Spec, Spectra and Long). A
tutorial (command TUTORIAL/LONG) describes the commands of the package.
CONTEXT SPEC ­ PB 930811
The functions of the context Spec for reduction of 1D spectroscopy data are now covered by the package Long.
The context Spec still exists but includes only some low­level commands used by both main spectroscopy packages
Long and Echelle.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
14 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
Since MIDAS executes its applications in a child process (subprocess for VMS) which leaves no traces after termi­
nation, you cannot simply use the host command ``$cd ...'' (``$SET DEF ...'' in VMS) to change the default directory
once you are in a MIDAS session. The only way to change from one data directory to the next was to exit from
MIDAS via `BYE', change the directory while under the host operating system, and go back into MIDAS via
`gomidas'. Now, the MIDAS command CHANGE/DIRECTORY will change the default directory inside the
MIDAS session, i.e. you don't have to go through the procedure described above anymore. See the help for details.
Immediate Commands ­ KB 930620
Up to now, only for keywords could one issue MIDAS commands like keyword = key + {table,col,­
row} ­20 for descriptors, image pixels and table elements one was restricted to commands like table,col,­
row = value Even worse, something like table,col,row = 20 + key would not display an error
message but just fill the table element silently with the constant 20... Now, you can do things like table,col,­
row = 20 + key­{image[@20,@30]} or image,descr = {table,row,col}+{im­
age[@10,@10]} ­ {keyword} but only for NON­Character descriptors and table elements. For e.g.
descriptors of type CHARACTER no calculations as described above are supported.
inmidas,gomidas ­ CG 930811
New versions of the shell commands ``inmidas'' and ``gomidas'' has been developed to start a MIDAS session. They
now accept several options in the command line. The man pages describe the syntax of these new scripts.
helpmidas ­ PB 930811
A new shell command ``helpmidas'' has been developed to start the GUI XHelp out of a MIDAS session. A man
page describes the syntax of this command.
Input and output
INDISK/FITS ­ KB 931105
A new command has been added to simply and easily read FITS files into MIDAS. Consult the on­line Help for
details.
Display and graphics
SET/CURSOR, GET/CURSOR ­ KB 930112
It is now possible to use also circular Region­of­Interest (ROI) in the XWindow environment. Use SET/CURSOR
to define it and GET/CURSOR with the 2­cursor option. See the help for details.
CREATE/DISPLAY, /GRAPHICS ­ KB 930219
There is now the possibility of creating `shadow' display/graphics windows, i.e. windows which copy the activity
of another window. See the help for details.
GET/CURSOR ­ KB 931007
A continuous read­out mode has been added. Whenever you move the cursor (mouse) inside the display window
the cursor coordinates are read and the corresponding world coords. and intensities displayed. See the help for
details.
PLOT/HISTOGRAM and OVERPLOT/HIST ­ RHW 930514
An extra option has been included to facilitate hashing of the histogram. Also different types of histograms can be
plotted: the usual staircase type and various bars types. For more info: read the help.
LABEL/GRAPH, OVERPL/LINE, OVERPLOT/SYMBOL ­ RHW/JV 930514
Using the graphics cursor, these commands now offer the possibility to define and re­define the position of the
label, line, resp. symbol to be drawn. Again read the help texts of these commands.
PLOT/HISTOGRAM and OVERPLOT/HIST ­ RHW 930515
Once more. The commands now also give you the possibility to avoid plotting the excess bins. Since we were run­
ning out of parameters, to include this possibility the syntax is slightly modified: the parameters for binsize, mini­
mum and maximum are combined in one parameter, and hence these values should now be separated by comma's.
OVERPLOT/GRID ­ RHW 930516
Overplotting of a grid is available again. You can choose between connecting the large tickmarks or all tickmarks.
Also, it is possible to plot the grid in the x, the y, or in both directions.
Image arithmatic, filtering
FILTER/... ­ KB 921214
All FILTER commands (except FILTER/COSMIC) have now an additional option in order to expand the input

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 13
The MIDAS 93NOV News File
The following text contains a detailed summary of revisions and changes in the MIDAS application soft­
ware during the period between the previous 92NOV and the new 93NOV release. MIDAS users can pro­
duce this text with the MIDAS HELP [NEWS] command.
System control
Midas Command Language Debugger ­ KB 921214
The command `pause' has been added for Mdb, the Command language debugger, which similarly to the PAUSE
command interrupts the debugged procedure and brings you back to the interactive level.
Then you can execute any MIDAS command. To continue with the debugging of the procedure use the CON­
TINUE command.
CREATE/DEFAULTS ­ KB 921216
There is no more limit on the number of commands for which you can define your own defaults.
SET/CONTEXT ­ KB 921218
The contexts have been restructured and are not hierarchically ordered anymore. Therefore, you can now clear any
enabled context, not just the last one or all of them, as before. Also the total no. of enabled contexts has been raised.
See the help for details.
IF command ­ KB 930118
We now also support .AND. and .OR. of two logical operations (e.g. IF op1 .EQ. op2 .AND. op3 .GT.
op4 THEN ..... ENDIF ) is now possible in a procedure. Please, note that only one .AND. or . OR. is possible
since the max. no. of tokens per MIDAS command line is 10.
DO command ­ KB 930120
Start, end and stepsize of the DO loop may now also be names of integer keywords not just integer constants. See
the help (via HELP/CL DO) for details.
DEFINE/LOCAL ­ KB 930222
The local keywords are now really ``local'' in the sense that they are by default not known at other procedure levels
than the one where the defining MIDAS procedure is executing in. Before, they were also `known' at all lower pro­
cedure levels, i.e. in procedures called from the procedure which has the DEFINE/LOCAL command. If you really
want that, you have to use a new 4th parameter. Use the MIDAS command HELP/CL DEFINE/LOCAL to get the
details.
Character descriptors/keywords ­ KB 930316
Finally, character arrays in descriptors and keywords are supported in MIDAS, i.e. either via MIDAS commands or
the standard interfaces.
DEFINE/MAXPAR ­ KB 930322
New command DEFINE/MAXPAR has been added, to also check if too many parameters are passed to a proce­
dure. See HELP/CL DEFINE/MAXPAR for details.
SET/MIDAS_SYS ­ KB 930323
Another option: debugger= has been added to this command (mainly useful for Unix systems where different
debuggers are available). E.g. entering: SET/MIDAS debugger=ups will change from `dbx' to the public domain
Xwindow­based debugger `ups'.
Just for MIDAS hackers: MAP,UNMAP/IMA ­ KB 930331
The undocumented, but nevertheless existing commands MAP/IMAGE and UNMAP/IMAGE have been removed.
Caching of image file openings in MIDAS procedures is now done automatically and transparently to the user.
Help/Comments for descriptors ­ KB 930525
Now we support help­text for descriptors of MIDAS files. Adding help­text to an existing descr. is done via the new
command: WRITE/DHELP. The descr. help is displayed via: SHOW/DESCR and also via: READ/DESCR with
the option FULL (therefore the output from these commands has changed slightly). To access the help­text from
Fortran or C programs two new standard interfaces have been implemented: STDRDH (SCDRDH) and STDWRH
(SCDWRH) to read and write the help text.
CHANGE/DIRECTORY ­ KB 930616
(with minor modifications and grouped by subject)

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
12 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
Another way to create MIDAS images is to con­
vert images from another format into the MIDAS
format. The most important format for transport­
ing data between different systems (at least in the
astronomical community) is the FITS format. Use
INTAPE/FITS to get FITS files from tape or
disk into MIDAS. The command INDISK/FITS
is built on top of INTAPE/FITS to read FITS
files from disk only. It offers options like wildcard
characters and makes it easier to read in FITS files
created by other data systems which employ file
names not compatible with the ESO standard.
There exist several public domain packages like,
e.g. pbm or ImageMagick which convert between
many different image formats like GIF, TIFF, etc.
­ so, we don't need this functionality in MIDAS.
The FITS format is also listed as a supported for­
mat in ImageMagick, however, the current version
at ESO has problems with the FITS format. There­
fore and since digital scanners usually produce
TIFF files (at least as one of the available options),
an application procedure intiff.prg(*) has
been implemented to read TIFF files into MIDAS.
This enables us to convert printed images into
MIDAS. Besides the obvious 2­dim grayscale
images it is desirable to get scanned 1­dim curves
or spectra converted into the internal MIDAS for­
mat. This problem is addressed by the application
procedure scanima.prg(*). For example, the
command @a intiff vallenar gets the
scanned plot of a spectrum as the 2­dim image
vallenar.bdf into MIDAS. Then, the command
@a scanima.prg vallenar laserena
will recreate a 1­dim spectrum laserena.bdf (also a
result table is possible).
The conversion of an image in ASCII format was
already discussed above. In case your input image
data is not equally spaced (e.g. event lists for
X­ray data), you can use MIDAS tables to get
your ASCII data converted into an image. CRE­
ATE/TABLE accepts formatted or free­form
ASCII files as input and generates a MIDAS table.
This table can then be converted into an image via
the CONVERT/TABLE command which employs
different methods like, e.g. polynomial fitting or
spline interpolation for that. Also, the command
INTERPOLATE/TI transforms table data to an
image via an interpolation scheme.Whereas the
command COPY/TI makes a straightforward
copy to an image interpreting the input table as a
data matrix.
Let's also look at how we can create 1­dim images
from 2­dim images and vice the versa, in which
case the EXTRACT commands offer many possi­
bilities. EXTRACT/IMAG can be used to extract a
single vector along an axis from a 2­dim or 3­dim
image, e.g. the command EXTRACT/IMAG
copiapo = iquique[10.5,<:10.5,>]
will extract a column (at x = 10.5) of the 2­dim
frame iquique.bdf. EXTRACT/LINE pulls a line
out of a 2­dim frame at any direction (using bilin­
ear interpolation), e.g. EXTRACT/LINE val­
divia = osorno[@10,@20:201,@30].
The application procedure slicube.prg
extracts 2­dim slices along any of the axes of a
3­dim frame.
With the command GROW/IMAGE you can build a
2­dim frame from a 1­dim one by repeating the
single line as the rows or columns of the result
image. Another method is employed in the com­
mand ROTATE/1DIM which rotates a 1­dim
profile around its startpoint in the z­plane. For
example, if you want to build a pointspread func­
tion you just need the cross­section of it (as a
1­dim frame) and then use ROTATE/1DIM to cre­
ate the 2­dim psf. Currently, there is no corre­
sponding single command to build 3­dim frames
from e.g. a 2­dim frame. You would have to use
CREATE/IMAGE to get a constant cube and then
apply INSERT/IMAGE repeatedly to fill the dif­
ferent planes.
With an image loaded into the MIDAS display
window there are several possibilities to extract a
1­dim frame from it. Via EXTRACT/RTRACE
and EXTRACT/CTRACE you extract rows or col­
umns from the displayed image. With the com­
mand EXTRACT/TRACE you extract a line in any
direction (using the mouse and the arrow keys as
second cursor to give the trace line the desired ori­
entation). The commands EXTRACT/ROTATE­
D_IMAGE and EXTRACT/SLIT extract 2­dim
subframes which are not aligned with the x­ or
y­axis of the display (again bilinear interpolation
is used). Whereas EXTRACT/CURSOR pulls out
subframes which are aligned.
Also, the VIEW/IMAGE command has options to
extract a row, a column or a 2­dim subframe of the
displayed image.
Please note, that the procedures marked with an
(*) are only available from the 94MAY release on.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 11
Expeditions in the MIDAS Jungle: Creating Images
Klaus Banse, European Southern Observatory
This time we will explore the different possibili­
ties for creating images in MIDAS. Almost all
commands in MIDAS which operate on images
also produce a new result image, but here we want
to concentrate on those commands that create a
new image from scratch.
The first choice in that category is naturally (?) the
CREATE/IMAGE command which creates
1­dim, 2­dim or 3­dim MIDAS images.This com­
mand uses the start values and step sizes of the
image to calculate for each pixel its coordinate
pair (x,y) which is then taken as argument for dif­
ferent functions to obtain an intensity for that
pixel. For 3­dim images, however, you can only
set all pixels to a constant value. The default func­
tion is a polynomial in x and y. Use the MIDAS
help facility to list all the possible functions; here
we just want to highlight a few options which are
somewhat special.
With the option NODATA you create a reference
image, an image with all the standard descriptors
but no pixels. Several MIDAS commands need a
reference image for specific options, e.g. to get the
no. of axes and pixels for an operation but need no
image data from that reference image. For exam­
ple, CREATE/IMAGE itself is such a command.
With the option SEQUENCE, which is only valid
for 1­dim images, you create a linear scale for a
given interval [a,b], i.e. a ramp connecting points
a and b. This is then a useful input image for
building up functions via the COMPUTE/IMAGE
command.
Another useful option is ASCII_FILE, that creates
a MIDAS image which obtains its pixel values
from data stored in an ASCII file (in free format),
i.e. that is the way to get ASCII images into
MIDAS. If none of the offered functions in
CREATE/IMAGE is suitable for your specific
needs, maybe you can build the image with the
application procedure func2d, where you can
use any combination of the usual mathematical
functions. For example, @a func2d arica
2,256,256 ? cos(x)*(x­y)*sin(x)*­
ln(y) would build a 256x256 image arica.bdf
according to the specified function. If you need
randomly distributed data values the command
CREATE/RANDOM_IMAGE is the right one for
you. The syntax is the same as for CREATE/
IMAGE but the function option selects a random
distribution 1 . For example, the command CRE­
ATE/RANDOM temuco 2,100,100
20.,18.,2.2,2.2 will create a 100*100
image temuco.bdf with start values = 20.,18., step­
sizes = 2.2,2.2 and the pixel values of temuco.bdf
will be determined according to a uniform distri­
bution over the interval [0,1].
More closely related to astronomical needs is the
command CREATE/STAR which creates the pro­
file of a reference star as well as the context
GEOTEST with commands to create artificial
spectra and specific background images. For crea­
tive minds this context also includes the command
CREATE/ART_IMAGE which offers options to
experiment with Mandelbrot and Julia sets.
In case you work with Fourier transforms and
need to do filtering in the frequency domain you
can construct filter images via CREATE/FIL­
TER. This command will create a Butterworth or
exponential low/highpass filter.
Working with a display and/or graphics window
gives you some more possibilities to construct
new images in MIDAS. One special option of the
CREATE/IMAGE command discussed above is
CREATE/IMA vallenar = GCURSOR,
where you choose the pixel values for a 1­dim
frame vallenar.bdf via the cursor on the currently
plotted image in the graphics window.
The command GET/IMAGE will create a MIDAS
image from the contents of the display window,
i.e. the pixel values will be between 0 and (lut­
max­1), where lutmax is the maximum number of
colours available. With COPY/DISPLAY you get
the contents of the display window and also all
drawings/labels from the overlay plane merged
into the resulting image (you actually do not need
to send it to an output device if you are only inter­
ested in the image frame).
1. This application uses the NAG library

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
10 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
table. For example, this command allows to docu­
ment a completely reduced image or spectrum
with the values of all calibration/reduction key­
words.
Standard Orientation
The command ROTATE/SPEC (94MAY) ena­
bles rotating and/or flipping single images or cata­
logues, and in order to save disk space allows to
remove each original frame after processing.
Therefore the operation can be performed in one
go on a catalogue of images and requires addi­
tional disk space for only one image. This solution
was the preferred one compared to the option of
allowing the different calibration/reduction rou­
tines to process the data in all orientations, which
would have added unnecessary complexity to the
code.
Wavelength Calibration
The previous version (92NOV) of the package
included two different schemes for the wavelength
calibration, namely a row­by­row and a two­di­
mensional calibration. The row­by­row scheme
has been generalized: the arc spectrum is searched
at equidistant steps (YSTEP). For each step a cer­
tain number of lines are averaged before detection
(YWIDTH).
The wavelength calibration can be performed
from initial identifications or in guess mode, using
a previously saved session (command CALI­
BRATE/LONG). A two­pass wavelength calibra­
tion is performed by CALIBRATE/TWICE. Both
methods generate a block­by­block table of coeffi­
cients to represent the dispersion relation.
The dispersion relation can be applied with the
command REBIN/LONG which generates an
image or with the command APPLY/DISPER­
SION which involves no data resampling and pro­
duces a table. A two­dimensional dispersion
relation can be computed optionally (option
TWODOPT=YES) and applied with the command
RECTIFY/LONG.
Arc Line Identification
An experimental command ESTIMATE/DIS­
PERSION is included in the package. This com­
mand avoids initial interactive arc line
identifications and allows to start the wavelength
calibration process from coarse estimates of the
central wavelength and average dispersion. The
syntax and implementation of this command will
probably be changed in future versions. All feed­
back and comments will be welcomed.
Flux Calibration
In the revised version, the flux calibration
involves three operations: In the first one the
spectrum is corrected for atmospheric extinction
with the command EXTINCTION/LONG. An
instrumental response is generated in tabular for­
mat with INTEGRATE/LONG. This table can be
plotted and interpolated (RESPONSE/LONG) to
produce the response image. The science spectra
can be calibrated in flux with CALIBRATE/
FLUX.
Batch Reduction and GUI
Batch reduction is performed by the command
BATCH/LONG. This command involves a large
number of parameters and options and can be bet­
configured better with the Graphical User Inter­
face XLong. The interface provides visibility over
the session keyword values and all available com­
mands and options. Commands are generated and
sent to MIDAS.
Deadline for the next ESO­MIDAS Courier
The next issue of the ESO­MIDAS Courier, Volume 4, Number 1, will be published in the coming
month October. This issue will include information concerning on­going projects of the MIDAS Group.
Also, we hope to include a number of contributions by MIDAS users or software developers. Please,
send your contributions, preferably in computer­readable format, to the MIDAS account or to the editor
before September 30 (see back page for mail address).

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 9
covers the following functionalities:
. control over the graphics setup. The setup is
controlled by a number of MIDAS graphics
specific keywords, whose contents can be
changed by a number of interface routines.
Similar to the command SET/GRAPH the val­
ues in the graphics keywords are accessed by
name. Therefore, in case the graphics keyword
structure needs upgrades in the future, the
application code, i.e. the calling sequence to
the interface routines, is not affected.
. open and close graphic devices and plot files.
The open routine reads the graphics setup, ini­
tializes the device, and opens the plot file
which will contain the graphics information
written by subsequent calls to drawing rou­
tines in the graphics library
. plot a coordinate box. The library provides two
routines for plotting a coordinate box: one that
behaves similar to the command PLOT/AXES;
the second offers a large number of options and
makes use of the AGL axes routine;
. plot data. Data can be represented by symbols
or lines or, via a separate routine, can be drawn
in histogram format;
. plot text; This routine can be used to draw
additional text on the graph;
. graphics cursor interactions.The graphics cur­
sor routine returns coordinates referring to the
current active coordinate system.
The set of interfaces is intended to cover the basic
needs for doing software development for graph­
ics data representation in MIDAS. If required, the
lower level AGL library can still be used for func­
tionality not provided by the MIDAS Graphic
Library. However, when using routines from the
AGL library, information about the graph, in parti­
cal the graphics setup, is not always saved. Hence,
mixing calls to the MIDAS Graphic Library and
the AGL library should be avoided.
The complete description can be found in the new
version of the MIDAS Environment document.
The Long­Slit Package
Pascal Ballester, European Southern Observatory
Introduction
This article describes the latest 94MAY version
which includes a few additional features, indi­
cated hereafter by (94MAY).
The Long package now provides about 50 com­
mands to perform all steps of the calibration/
reduction process and includes a MOTIF­based
graphical user interface XLong, realized by
C. Levin. One­dimensional spectra are handled by
the package as a simpler case of long­slit spectra.
An extension of the package for multiple­object
spectroscopy is in preparation and should nor­
mally be available in the 94NOV release. A tuto­
rial procedure demonstrates the different
commands of the package.
Session Management
The Session Manager has been implemented in
the context Long and provides a consistent set of
commands to handle session keywords. This facil­
ity is now available in most of the standard reduc­
tion packages (CCD, Echelle, MOS and IRSPEC).
All keywords of the package can be visualized by
the command SHOW/LONG. Since there is an
important number of keywords involved in the
package, the command SHOW/LONG is organized
in sections. For instance, SHOW/LONG w will
display only wavelength calibration keywords.
Information can also be obtained on the keywords
with HELP/LONG, which is able to search key­
word names as in HELP/LONG wlcmtd or to
scan the keyword descriptions (e.g. HELP/
LONG pixel D (94MAY)).
Keywords can be initialized using the command
SET/LONG. Keyword names are checked and the
syntax is flexible, allowing name truncation, arbi­
trary spaces and multiple assignments.
All sessions can be saved and retrieved with the
commands SAVE/LONG and INIT/LONG. The
lower level command SAVINIT/LONG can be
used in read/write mode and allows saving all ses­
sion keywords as descriptors of an image or a

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
8 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
The MIDAS Graphics Library
Richard van Hees, Rein Warmels, European Southern Observatory
Introduction
As announced in the Application News, the
94MAY release will contain a major upgrade of
the MIDAS Graphics software. This upgrade was
due in order to satisfy the increasing needs for a
more flexible plot package, to lift limitations of
some commands, and to enhance the PLOT/
TABLE command to enable the graphical repre­
sentation of MIDAS 3­dimensional tables. In
order to finish this job successfully the complete
graphics code was rewritten in C while in addition
the MIDAS graphics keywords were restructured.
It was realized that the refurbishment of the
graphics application code was an ideal moment to
fulfil a long existing wish of those who want to
develop their own MIDAS graphics applications:
to provide, in addition to existing MIDAS plot
commands, a MIDAS graphics high level library,
callable from Fortan and C programmes as an
extra easy­to­use­library on top of the low level
Astronet Graphics Library (AGL).
Functionalities provided
The new MIDAS Graphics Interfaces library ena­
ble graphiical data representation in a reasonable
flexible way. It can be used for graphical represen­
tation of most of the MIDAS internal data struc­
tures: bulk data frames (BDF), table files,
keywords, and descriptors. Graphics created by
application code that use routines of this graphical
library are completely compatible with those cre­
ate by MIDAS plot commands.
The interfaces are provided for both Fortran and
for C. The library does not make reference to
other libraries than the MIDAS Standard Inter­
faces and the low­level AGL library. Currently, it
format can store a full array in a table entry and
not just a single value. This and a special pointer
type for columns open the way for transport of
complex data structures (e.g. collections of spectra
or images with full descriptions) when proper
conventions are defined.
IMAGE Extension
The IMAGE extension is similar to a basic FITS
header with data matrix. However, it makes it pos­
sible to store associated images of different size
or/and scaling in the same FITS file (e.g. a
detailed PSF or quality flags for the prime image).
Blocking Proposal
The Blocking proposal gives rules for physical
recording of FITS files on different media. In gen­
eral, FITS files may be written with a blocking
factor between 1 and 10 of the logical FITS
records size of 2880 bytes. For fix­block devices
with an incompatible block size (e.g. QIC tapes
with 512 bytes blocks) a FITS file is recorded as a
byte stream.
INTAPE/OUTTAPE
The INTAPE/OUTTAPE commands in the
93NOV release were upgraded to accept these
new FITS extensions. The new BINTABLE exten­
sion is used by default for tables due to its much
higher efficiency. The ASCII table format can still
be written by OUTTAPE using its type=B option.
The MIDAS table file system was also signifi­
cantly enhanced to provide storage structures sim­
ilar to the BINTABLE definitions.
The original file name is saved in the FITS key­
word FILENAME by OUTTAPE and will therefore
be available in a descriptor FILENAME after
restoring the file with INTAPE. An automatic
rename is not done because it could give problems
e.g. due to different naming convention for VMS
and UNIX, or by overwriting existing files. The
command RESTORE/NAME can be used explic­
itly. The new INDISK command provides an easy
way to convert FITS files on disk. It includes both
wild­card and automatic rename options.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 7
. July 1994: freezing of the alpha­release. This
version is installed and verified on SunOS
4.1.3 and HP­UX A.09 which are the main sys­
tems maintained at ESO Garching and
La Silla
. August 1994: installation on other systems.
The alpha­release (only the core of MIDAS) is
installed and verified on other platforms avail­
able at ESO and via Internet: Solaris, SG, VMS
OPEN/VMS, DEC/Ultrix, IBM, Convex, OSF/
1, PC/Linux.
. End August 1994: Beta­release. The new
beta­release of MIDAS is distributed to beta­
test sites (10­12 sites for 93NOV). They are
supposed to test installation, documentation
and MIDAS packages.
. Till End October 1994: Reports from beta­test
sites.
. November 1994: freezing of the official
release. MIDAS is tested and verified again on
as many systems as are available. For pack­
ages, tutorials are executed as verification. The
official release is made available to users of
MIDAS at ESO.
. End November 1994: First distribution.
MIDAS is made available on ftp accounts. It is
then officially announced via mail to all sites
with a signed User Agreement.
. December 1994: Start tape distribution of the
official release of MIDAS to sites which
explicitly issued a request, with a signed User
Agreement and no Internet access.
. 1995: Distribution of patches. Patches for the
official release are made available whenever
circumstances require so. They are only dis­
tributed via ftp and on newly generated tapes.
Distribution of ESO­MIDAS
For the latest release of MIDAS, the 93NOV
release, the distribution was done mainly via ftp
connection (~ 175 copies retrieved via ftp versus
60 tapes distributed). We strongly encourage the
use of ftp to retrieve the MIDAS release and docu­
mentation.
In the future distributions on tapes (QIC, DAT,
EXABYTES and MAGTAPES) will only go to
sites which explicitly have requested a tape, have
a User Agreement, and no access to Internet. Cur­
rently, the amount of code and data files distrib­
uted is: 9.5 Mbytes for sources of MIDAS, 3.0
Mbytes for documentation in PostScript (Volume
A, B and C), and 6.7 Mbytes for tutorial and demo
files.
On ftp the complete MIDAS code is only availa­
ble in a restricted account for registered sites with
a valid User Agreement. Using anonymous ftp,
i.e. without any restriction, MIDAS can also be
obtained in binary format (currently only for PC/
Linux). Till now a PC/Linux version of MIDAS
was obtained by 75 registered sites.
Distributed files are, in order to save disk space
and data transfer in the Internet, always in com­
pressed format, and sometimes available in small
chunked files to ease the transfer. These files are
unique and identical for both system VMS and
UNIX systems.
Introduction
Three new proposals to extend the FITS format
have reached the final stage of review and are
expected to be accepted as standards shortly. Two
of the proposals deal with new FITS extensions
(i.e. BINTABLE for binary 3D tables and IMAGE
for maps) while the third defines general rules for
physical blocking of FITS files.
BINTABLE Extension
The BINTABLE extension allows table data to be
stored in binary form and is therefore up to 3
times more efficient in storage space than the
TABLE extension format which requires all data
to be stored in ASCII characters. The CPU inten­
sive conversion between ASCII and binary for­
mats is also avoided. Further, the new BINTABLE
FITS Issues
Preben GrosbÜl, European Southern Observatory

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
6 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
. The interface XAlice is related to the new
spectral analysis package ALICE
. The interface Xlong is related to the new
long­slit spectroscopy package Long. The
interface allows the activation of calibration
commands and provides convenient panels for
arc lines identification, batch reduction, etc.
All these interfaces conform to the ESO GUI
Common Conventions which define the Look and
Feel for all ESO interfaces in the fields of tele­
scope and instrument control, archives, and data
analysis.
Spectrocopy news
As announced in the previous Courier, the LONG
context for long­slit spectroscopy has been totally
refurbished in the 93NOV version. The 94MAY
minor release will include the latest version with a
few additional features. Functions previously pro­
vided by different packages (Spec, Long, XSpec­
tra) have been merged and the calibration process
reviewed. More details about the improvement in
the area of spectroscopy can be found in a sepa­
rate contribution.
ESO­MIDAS Distribution Procedures
Carlos Guirao, European Southern Observatory
ESO­MIDAS releases
ESO­MIDAS is officially released once a year,
normally at the end of November. At ESO­Garch­
ing there are, besides the official release, two other
releases available to users of ESO­MIDAS, an
internal frozen release and the development ver­
sion. The name convention chosen for all these
releases are:
. rels is the official release of MIDAS. It is offi­
cially named as yyNOV, where yy are the last
two digits of the year; e.g 93NOV is the cur­
rent official release of MIDAS. This is the
unique release of MIDAS which is distributed
to institutes who have signed a MIDAS User
Agreement with ESO (currently 230).
. new is the latest internal release. It is the test
release frozen normally three times a year
(February, June and October) and made avail­
able to MIDAS users at ESO­Garching and
ESO­LaSilla. It is a verified and reliable
release of MIDAS that contains the new devel­
opments and improvements not found in the
official release. The new release in June is
called beta­midas release and it is the one used
to generate the next official release in Novem­
ber. The beta­midas release is also distributed
to a dozen beta­test sites, mainly using ftp con­
nections.
. test is the development release. It is updated
every night and compiled from scratch every
week. This version of MIDAS has been made
available to users for the unique purpose of
having real users running and testing the latest
developments not available on other releases.­
Because of developments done every day, it is
announced to users as un­reliable and un­sup­
ported.
The generation of a new release of MIDAS is
done via a procedure called ``freezing''. The proce­
dure consists of the locking of all source files of
MIDAS with the SCCS (Source Code Control
System) tool. Then the delta (identifier for a given
release) is incremented on all source files under
SCCS.A new branch of the delta is also created (to
allow development of the same file in parallel). A
new directory with the name of the new release is
created and then populated with the source files of
the latest SCCS branch delta. The new version is
compiled, verified and distributed to other
domains at ESO. If the release is also the official
release it is also copied to our ftp account for dis­
tribution.
Schedule for 94NOV release
The tentative schedule for the next official
94NOV release is as follows:

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 5
These modifications were necessary in order to
provide a clean port of MIDAS to a CPU with a
64­bit architecture, e.g. the Alpha chip from DEC
running under the OSF/1 operating system (HP,
IBM and SUN are also currently working on
64­bit chips).
A notification of these changes and a more
detailed technical explanation were sent to all
MIDAS sites in the summer of last year to obtain
feedback from the user community and objec­
tions, if any. No negative response was received,
so the modifications were implemented as pro­
posed.
Nothing has changed with respect to the Fortran
implementation of the Standard Interfaces, there­
fore users who wrote MIDAS applications in For­
tran are not affected. Also the applications written
in C will not feel the impact of these modifications
as long as they are running on a 32­bit machine.
However, we strongly recommend to update the
relevant code as soon as possible.
The ESO­MIDAS Environment document which
describes the Application Programming Interface
for the MIDAS data structures will be upgraded
accordingly in the coming months.
Note, that the original definition of the Standard
Interfaces still applies to the 93NOV release of
MIDAS.
New Graphics Library in the
94MAY Release
New in the MIDAS Environment is a standard
MIDAS Graphics library. The library is meant for
those who want to incorporate graphics into their
Fortran or C applications that are fully compatible
with graphics created by MIDAS commands. The
library becomes available in the 94MAY release.
For more information, see elsewhere in this Cou­
rier.
Application News
Refurbishment of the PLOT package
The MIDAS PLOT package of the 94MAY
release is rewritten in C what you (hopefully) will
notice by its improvement in performance. Also a
number of limitations are lifted. For example, the
PLOT/CONTOUR command no longer has restric­
tions on the frame size, in particular PLOT/PER­
SPECTIVE is much faster, and PLOT/TABLE is
now ready for 3D tables. We have given it some
nice options ­­ also useful for 2D tables ­­ which
we will describe in following section.
Plotting of 3­dim tables
Lets start with good news for people with 2D
tables: the parameter list of the PLOT/TABLE
command is only extended and defaulted to give
the same result as before. Thus, as first parameter
you give your input table, as second and third you
specify your data in the table. This can now be a
combination of planes and vectors (in all 3 dimen­
sions) or one axes as sequence number. In the help
for this command you will find a detailed descrip­
tion for the syntax, rules and defaults applied to
them.
If you have defined a plane in your table you may
want to plot and/or connect points along one of
the axes with different symbols and line types.
This can be done in a rather awkward way by
doing an OVERPLOT for each vector in your plane
with different symbol and line types. With the new
PLOT/TABLE command you can do this in one
go, by giving a set of symbol and line types as
resp. the fourth and fifth parameter. For example,
if you have specified a plane with 5 vectors and
give as fourth parameter 2,3,6 (= STYPE) and
as fifth parameter 1,4 (= LTYPE), you will get 5
lines with resp. STYPE 2,3,6,2,3 and
LTYPE 1,4,1,4,1. The last parameter allows
you to read your plane with the vectors along the
second axis; your plane is flipped in X and Y on
the fly. This is important because it determines
which points are connected or shown with the
same symbol.
Graphical User Interfaces
The version 93NOV includes four OSF/Motif
based interfaces:
. XHelp provides access to the on­line documen­
tation. More functions have been implemented
since the 92NOV version, including a history
mechanism, string search, files printing, con­
text selection, and feedback (problem report).
. The new interface XDisplay implements a
number of display related commands. It
enables manipulation of images, LUTs, ITT,
and cursor commands in an easier way.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
4 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
are also available). For more information we refer
to the DOCREADME file in this directory which
gives an overview of the files available and their
contents.
Please note that due to the creation of a new Vol­
ume C (Detailed Command Description) and
merging of chapters in Volume B, the chapter
numbering in both Volume A and B has changed.
If you are a registered MIDAS user site working
with the 93NOV release and you have not
received a printed copy of the user guide updates
yet, please contact Resy de Ruijsscher
(resy@eso.org) at ESO.
With the modification of the Standard Interfaces
and the inclusion of the MIDAS Graphics Library
(see below under System) as from May 1, 1994 a
new version of the MIDAS Environment docu­
ment (version 1.2) will also be available under
anonymous ftp. Printed copies of this document
will be mailed to the individual MIDAS user sites.
The document will apply from the ESO­MIDAS
release 94MAY onwards.
System News
MIDAS Control Language
Significant modifications and enhancements have
been implemented in the MIDAS Control Lan­
guage, e.g. an improved debugger for debugging
procedures, a more robust error handling and
direct access to all data structures from within a
procedure. To improve the information transfer,
the support of help text for descriptors in the data
files has been added. A prototype of communica­
tions protocols has been implemented to enable
interaction of any stand­alone programme with
MIDAS.
In/Output Redirection in the 94MAY
Release
For some time the MIDAS user community
expressed the wish for an easy and robust method
to communicate between MIDAS and the host
system. Thus, one could employ host system utili­
ties for MIDAS reduction tasks and on the other
hand system utilities could profit from MIDAS
functionality. Because we didn't want to introduce
a completely new twist to the MIDAS command
syntax, the input/output redirection for MIDAS
commands is implemented very similar to the
Unix concept.
Output to ASCII files
In order to redirect the terminal output from a
MIDAS command to e.g. a file mystuff.dat, one
appends `` >mystuff.dat'' at the end of the
``normal'' MIDAS command (with a leading
space). This is almost like in Unix, however, due
to the MIDAS parser there cannot be a space
between the ``>'' and the filename. For example, if
we read in a bunch of 1­dim and 2­dim FITS files
from disk and want to list only the 2­dim images,
then:
INTAPE/FITS 1­999 data image
>afile; $grep ``naxis: 2'' afile
would do exactly that.
Normally, the output is written to a new ASCII
file, if we want to append the data to an existing
file, we must use ``>>'' instead of ``>''. So, e.g. if
we want to save the contents of the descriptor
HISTORY of frames santa1.bdf, santa2.bdf and
santa3.bdf in the same file kukiwu, the commands
read/desc santa1 history >kukiwu
read/desc santa2 history >>kukiwu
read/desc santa3 history >>kukiwu
will do that.
Input from ASCII files
To use the contents of file mystuff.dat as input for
a MIDAS command, one appends
space between the ``<`` and the filename). So, if we
want to get the statistics of the 3 santa images, we
could type:
$ls santa*.bdf >kukiwu; statist/
image Note, that this redirection is also valid for VMS/
OpenVMS.
Changes in the Standard Interfaces
in the 94MAY release
This 94MAY release will be the first release in
which the modified type definitions of arguments
in the C­implementation of the Standard Inter­
faces are implemented. The modifications are:
. a change of the arguments of type ``long int'' to
``int'' in all SC and TC routines;
. a change of the type of the parameter `unit'
(e.g. in SCKRDC) from type ``char **'' to ``int
*''.

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994 3
had already been released at the time the tape was
generated. These patches for ESO­MIDAS are
included in the distribution tapes as a separate tar­
format file.
Patches will not be distributed on tape to sites that
have already received the distribution tape, except
for very particular cases (e.g. those sites without
access to Internet). Sites that have received and
installed the distribution tape are strongly recom­
mended to check for the existence of new patches
in our anonymous ftp account under the
midaspub directory on a regular basis.
New IP Number for ``ftp'' host
Due to organizational rearrangements in our Local
Area Network, our ftp host ``ftphost.hq.eso.org''
has changed its IP number to 134.171.40.2 (previ­
ously 134.171.8.4). On this machine we continue
to offer two different ftp accounts to access
MIDAS files: the ``anonymous'' and the ``midas''
ftp accounts.
The ``anonymous'' (also ``ftp'') account is our ftp
account to public domain ESO directories. In this
account and under the directory ``/midaspub'' you
will find the following files and directories:
. /midaspub/courier, which contains the
compressed PostScripts files of the ESO­MI­
DAS Courier;
. /midaspub/93NOV/doc, which contains
the LaTex and PostScript files for the complete
documentation of the 93NOV release of
MIDAS (Vol. A: System, Vol. B: Data Reduc­
tion, Vol. C: Command Description), as well as
the MIDAS Environment document. The total
size is around 3 Mbytes in compressed files;
. /midaspub/93NOV/linux, the 93NOV
release of MIDAS in binary format, all
MIDAS packages included, ready to run in a
PC/Linux system. The total size is 9 Mbytes in
compressed files that expand to 28 Mbytes
after decompression.
``midas'' is our restricted ftp account and is
restricted to a list of activated IP Hosts from regis­
tered ESO­MIDAS sites (those with a valid ESO­
MIDAS User Agreement). As such, this ftp
service requires a password. We encourage any­
one with access to the Internet to use it to retrieve
everything related to MIDAS documentation,
releases, patches, etc...
Not all our ESO­MIDAS sites are also registered
to use this ftp account. If you are one of these
non­registered sites, please contact Resy de
Ruijsscher (resy@eso.org) to activate your site
and to provide you with the corresponding pass­
word. Currently available under this account are:
. /courier, which contains the compressed
PostScript files of the ESO­MIDAS Courier;
. /93NOV/demo, contains demos and tutorials
of some packages for the 93NOV release of
MIDAS;
. /93NOV/doc, as in /midaspub/93NOV/
doc described above;
. /93NOV/unix, all you need to install the lat­
est patch­level for the 93NOV release of
MIDAS in UNIX systems;
. /93NOV/vms, all you need to install the latest
patch­level for the 93NOV release of MIDAS
in VMS systems.
Since February 1993 any user of MIDAS with
access to the Internet can now retrieve the latest
news about MIDAS releases and patches via the
finger command. Just try:
% finger midas@ftphost.hq.eso.org
or % finger midas@134.171.40.2
New Minor Release 94MAY
As announced in the Editorial, in order to provide
full support of the DEC Alpha machines running
OSF/1, we intend to provide a 94MAY minor
release. Currently this release is in its test state
and distributed to beta­test sites for its final test­
ing. It will be officially available to MIDAS sites
by the end of May. Although it contains a number
of new features and upgrades of the 93NOV
release, it is only recommended to those sites with
OSF/1 systems on which 93NOV cannot be
installed. The 93NOV release will be still the offi­
cial and fully supported release of ESO­MIDAS
for all other systems, until 94NOV becomes avail­
able.
MIDAS Documentation
The user documentation for the 93NOV release
has been distributed and is available under anony­
mous ftp (ftphost.hq.eso.org or 134.171.40.2).
Login as ftp or anonymous and give your e­mail
address as password. The directory is
midaspub/93NOV/doc. Here you will find a
number of ps­files which can either be printed
chapterwise or as complete volumes (LaTex files

Newsletter of the ESO­MIDAS Users' Community
2 ESO­MIDAS Courier, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1994
General News
New Major Release 93NOV
As announced in the Editorial, the 93NOV version
of ESO­MIDAS has been released in the last
month of 1993 and distributed in the first two
months of this year. Copies can be obtained on
magnetic tapes, written in either VAX/VMS
backup or tar format, or via ftp. For all requests
please send in the ESO­MIDAS request form. For
ftp users, please be aware that the IP number for
the ftp has changed to 134.171.40.2.
As usual, the ESO­MIDAS code is structured in
five big segments (sub­directories): the Core
(prim, including monitor and basic commands),
the basic applications (applic), the standard
reduction packages (stdred), the contributed
packages (contrib), and the graphics user inter­
faces (gui).
The 93NOV release of MIDAS has been installed
and verified on the following machines:
. IBM AIX Version 3 for RISC System/6000;
. Silicon Graphics IRIX Release 4.0.1 System V;
. Convex 3440, V10.1;
. DecStation ULTRIX V4.3 (Rev. 44);
. HP­UX A.08.07 E 9000/750;
. HP­UX B.08.00 A 9000/380;
. Sun SunOS 4.1.3;
. Sun Solaris 2.3;
. VAX/VMS V5.3 and V5.4;
. OPEN/VMS;
. PC/Linux Version 0.99pl12 and later.
In addition the 93NOV was partially installed on:
. DEC OSF/1 V1.3. From the minor release
94MAY on this OS is fully supported (see else­
where in this Courier);
. PC/SCO;
. MacQuadra 800/A­UX;
. Stellar Stellix Release 2.3.
This new release of ESO­MIDAS has substan­
tially gained in portability by using software
standards provided by most computer manufac­
tures. These standards are:
. Bourne Shell Language for scripts;
. Sockets for the Interprocess Communication
System;
. Standard POSIX.1 for the Operating System
Interface;
. Standard ANSI­C for the C code;
. Standard Fortran F77 for the Fortran code;
. Standard X11 R4/R5 as the window system;
. Standard Motif 1.1/1.2 for the graphics widget
library.
Clearly, portability cannot be separated from gen­
eral code quality and maintainability. Conse­
quently, tools that lead to portability will enhance
maintainability and code quality. For the 93NOV
release the following tools have been used:
. Source Code Control System (SCCS). All orig­
inal ESO­MIDAS sources are under SCCS
which maintains a record of updates and allows
to check when, why and who has made code
changes;
. Gnu ANSI­C compiler, to test the ANSI com­
pliance of the C code;
. Fortran Lint, a Fortran source code analyzer;
. Lint Plus, a C code analyzer;
. Purify, a run­time error detector for memory
access;
. Quantify, a profiler and analyzer for perfor­
mance evaluation.
Patches for the 93NOV release
A summary of patches for the 93NOV release of
ESO­MIDAS can be found in the back of this
ESO­MIDAS Courier. Currently, we are at patch
level 3 (93NOVpl3). Patches can be retrieved
from our ftp host. (ftphost.hq.eso.org or
134.171.40.2). To get the patches login under
midas, and use our password. The patches are
located in the directories 93NOV/unix (for
UNIX) and 93NOV/vms (for VMS).
The distribution tape contains, besides the latest
official release of ESO­MIDAS, the patches that
General, System and Application News
The MIDAS Group, European Southern Observatory

European Southern Observatory
Newsletter of the MIDAS Users' Community
MIDAS Courier
Volume 3, Number 2 March 1994
Editorial
As announced in the last issue of the ESO Messen­
ger (No.75, March 1994), as of the beginning of
this year a new Data Management Division is in
operation at ESO. One of the main motivations for
creating the division was to combine and coordi­
nate ESO's activities in data handling, including
calibration and archiving, and in providing scien­
tific information concerning the ESO facilities.
During the past months the main goals of the divi­
sion have been defined, on the basis of which pri­
orities are being set and manpower allocated.
In the new structure, the area of Data Analysis is
taken care of by one of the four division groups:
the Science Data Analysis Group (SDAG), previ­
ously known as the Image Processing Group
(IPG). Among the main responsibilities of the
group are the ESO­MIDAS project, the imple­
mentation of calibration and reduction software
for data coming from the ESO telescopes, and to
make, in collaboration with the other division
groups, preparations for data processing facilities
in the VLT era.
Clearly, these tasks will keep the SDAG rather
busy. We therefore hope to establish fruitful col­
laborations with users, that will enable us to fulfil
these tasks and the requirements of our, still grow­
ing, ESO­MIDAS user community.
During the last months of 1993 much work was
done to prepare the 93NOV version which was
finally released early December. Till now (21
March 1994) 236 copies of the new release
(including binaries for PC/Linux) have been dis­
tributed. We are happy to see that a growing
number of institutes (roughly 75% of the sites)
explore the possibilities of networking and have
obtained their MIDAS copy via ftp. In the mean
time, the printed version of the documentation
­ now consisting of three volumes ­ has been sent
out, finishing the release cycle for the 93NOV
release. The full documentation is also available
through anonymous ftp in PostScript format sepa­
rated in individual chapters.
Although in principle ESO­MIDAS is released
only once a year, on an exceptional basis we
decided to prepare a minor release in May 1994
(94MAY version). This decision was made to
fully support the DEC OSF/1 systems. The
94MAY minor release will only be available
through ftp. No special documentation will be
generated besides a new release of the ESO­MI­
DAS Environment document.
The usage of MIDAS at La Silla, in particular of
the installations at the telescopes, has grown sub­
stantially since the last few years. Consequently,
information concerning the status of MIDAS on
La Silla becomes relevant to the user community,
certainly, also in view of standard calibration pro­
cedures and quick­look facilities that will be
developed in MIDAS with high priority. There­
fore, starting with the next issue of the Courier,
we intend to include a separate column about
MIDAS on La Silla.
In this ESO­MIDAS Courier:
General, System, and Application News
ESO­MIDAS Distribution Procedures
FITS Issues
The MIDAS Graphics Library
The Long­Slit Package
Expeditions in the MIDAS Jungle: Creating
Images
The MIDAS 93NOV News File
The MIDAS 94MAY News File
The MIDAS 93NOV Patch File Summary