Our top priority since the IRAF V2.11 release last fall has been platform upgrades, so that everyone can make use of the new system without having to endure long delays for their platform to be supported. It has been a lot of work, but this process is nearly complete. Two additional IRAF platform upgrades were released in mid-March; these were for SGI systems running IRIX 6, and for IBM systems running AIX 4. These releases were for patch level V2.11.1, the same patch level available for all other current V2.11 distributions. These include SunOS and Solaris, the DEC Alpha running Digital Unix V4.0, the Hewlett-Packard running HP-UX 10.20, and PC-IRAF for Slackware Linux V3.3, Red Hat Linux V5.0, and FreeBSD V2.2.5.
The V2.11 updgrade for OpenVMS is nearing completion. We hope to make this port available in the early summer for both the DEC Alpha and the VAX. Additional support for PC-IRAF is planned for Solaris x86 and for MkLinux. The initial Solaris x86 port has been done for some time, but we are awaiting the release of MkLinux DR3 before proceeding further with these ports. A release for DECstation Ultrix is planned as well if our DECstation stays healthy, although we plan to drop support for this platform after V2.11.
All the IRAF distributions can be found in the IRAF network archive on iraf.noao.edu in the iraf/v211 directory. As new updates or releases for new platforms become available they will be announced on the IRAF mail exploder (newsgroup/mailing-list adass.iraf. announce) and on the IRAF Web pages. If you do not already receive adass.iraf.announce and wish to do so, you can sign up on the IRAF Web page, or by sending a subscribe request to the mailing list processor at listproc@iraf.noao.edu.
A new issue of the IRAF Newsletter highlighting features of the IRAF V2.11 release and related software (STSDAS, SAOtng, our new CCD Mosaic package, etc.) is now available off the IRAF home page (http://iraf.noao.edu/) in HTML format as well as in PostScript and PDF. All V2.11 users are encouraged to retrieve a copy of this informative Newsletter. It contains nearly 40 articles, including information about the V2.11 release, hints about using the new V2.11 system and application packages updates, and status reports from major IRAF projects.
With the V2.11 release and platform upgrades nearing completion our focus is shifting to more future oriented projects being driven by various NASA grants and contracts. These include the Open IRAF effort, an image server and GUI project being done with SAO, and providing IRAF support for AXAF (some significant work on Open IRAF was done last year as well, e.g., the message bus and distributed shared object research and prototype message bus implementation). Although we wished we were further along with this work by now, the critically important V2.11 release and CCD Mosaic project are in good shape now, and we are looking forward to being able to work on new stuff again. Some exciting new software is in the works, and it is going to be interesting developing this over the next several years.
An upgraded version of the Client Display Library (CDL) was released in early March. CDL is a library which allows host C or Fortran programs to do image display and graphics to any Ximtool compatible image display server. The new version includes improved text capabilities providing a number of font choices (including the Greek font), subscripting and superscripting, variable line styles and widths, full ANSI-C function prototyping, an experimental SPP language binding, and numerous bug fixes. This release also contains a "virtual" display server VXIMTOOL, which can be used for debugging client programs or as a `tee' for sending images to multiple servers. CDL V1.6 is available from our /iraf/x11iraf archive directory.
Frank Valdes represented the NOAO/IRAF CCD Mosaic team at the SPIE meeting in Hawaii in late March, and presented an overview paper on the NOAO Mosaic data system entitled "The NOAO Mosaic Data Handling System," by D. Tody and F.G. Valdes. The paper is available off the IRAF home page (look under "Projects") or at http://iraf.noao.edu/projects/ccdmosaic/.
Matt Cheselka has joined the IRAF group as a Scientific Programmer. Matt comes to us from Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona where he worked as a Research Specialist for the Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics (CAAO). Matt's main responsibility was to create programs and user interfaces for high resolution image processing and data reduction. Other projects included an `image calculator' called "OpC," an automated aircraft detection system, and an image acquisition and analysis user interface for a new 1024 × 1024 near-infrared array being developed by Don McCarthy. In addition to his programming responsibilities, Matt will be helping with IRAF technical support so you can expect to be hearing from him shortly. Welcome aboard, Matt!
For further information about the IRAF project please see the IRAF Web pages at http://iraf.noao.edu/ or send email to iraf@noao.edu. The USENET-based adass.iraf newsgroups (also available via mailing list subscription by filling out a form on the IRAF Web page) provide timely information on IRAF developments and are available for the discussion of IRAF related issues.
Doug Tody, Jeannette Barnes