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Last modified: 23 November 2018

URL: https://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/chips/convert/index.html

Conversion Guides

[New] New in CIAO 4.11: converting ChIPS to Matplotlib.

The ChIPS Gallery and ChIPS threads provide a large number of examples to help you produce your desired visualization.

CIAO 4.8 to CIAO 4.9

Scripts and ChIPS state files created in CIAO 4.8 should work with the Python 2.7 version of CIAO 4.9. The state file (created with the CIAO 4.8 version of the save_state function) can be loaded into either a Python 2.7 or 3.5 session. Scripts may require some changes to run in Python 3.5, but those created with the make_script function will work in either version if they have not been edited.

CIAO 4.7 to CIAO 4.8

Scripts and ChIPS state files created in CIAO 4.7 should work in CIAO 4.8.

The location for user customizations to the ChIPS IPython profile has been changed from $HOME/.ipython-ciao45/ to $HOME/.ipython-ciao/. Any customizations will have to be manually copied over.

CIAO 4.6 to CIAO 4.7

Scripts and ChIPS state files created in CIAO 4.6 should work in CIAO 4.7.

The major change is that ChIPS now sets the window.smoothing preference to true and that this is now used when writing out bitmap (PNG and JPEG) formats. The ChIPS preference file may need to be removed to see this change; that is, if the following does not return true for the setting: 

unix% grep smoothing ~/.chips.rc
window.smoothing       : true

CIAO 4.5 to CIAO 4.6

Virtually all ChIPS scripts and code from CIAO 4.5 should work in CIAO 4.6. Note that ChIPS state files - created by save_state - created by CIAO 4.5 can be loaded into CIAO 4.6, but files created in CIAO 4.6 can not be loaded into CIAO 4.5.

The major changes are:

  1. Scripts that change the label.angle field of an axis in CIAO 4.5 need to be updated to use the x.label.angle or y.label.angle field instead.

  2. Images or contours of files with a non-tangent plane projection will no longer be drawn with incorrect WCS axes in CIAO 4.6, instead falling back to the physical or logical system. A warning message will be displayed if this happens: for example 

    chips WARNING: Unable to use world transform - RA---SIN, DEC--SIN is an unsupported type. Using physical transform.

CIAO 4.4 to CIAO 4.5

Virtually all ChIPS scripts and code from CIAO 4.4 should work in CIAO 4.5. Note that ChIPS state files - created by save_state - created by CIAO 4.4 can be loaded into CIAO 4.5, but files created in CIAO 4.5 can not be loaded into CIAO 4.4.

CIAO 4.3 to CIAO 4.4

Virtually all ChIPS scripts and code from CIAO 4.3 should work in CIAO 4.4. If you have used Crates commands to read in data files then you may need to make some changes, as discussed in the Crates ahelp page.

The interactive pan command and the interactive version of the zoom command have been removed since the functionality is now directly available from the ChIPS GUI.

CIAO 4.2 to CIAO 4.3

Python scripts should require little, if any changes to run. There are several changes, listed in the upgrade guide that may result in differences to the output.

S-Lang scripts will no longer work in CIAO 4.3. Please see the FAQ entry for advice on converting S-Lang scripts to Python.

CIAO 4.1 to CIAO 4.2

Scripts and state files from CIAO 4.1 should work without change in CIAO 4.2. If the visualization contains contours, then the output may not quite match, since contours are now created with a data-aspect ratio of 1:1, which means that limits commands may need to adjust the given values to retain the aspect ratio of the plot.

The simplest change is to remove the ratio after a contour is created using add_contour or make_figure. For example 

add_contor("img.fits")
set_data_aspect_ratio("")

although you may wish to retain the setting and change the calls to limits.

Of note in the CIAO 4.2 release - other than the support for images - is the make_script command that is available to Python users. This can be used to convert a state file from CIAO 4.1, or the current ChIPS visualization, into a Python script.

CIAO 4.0 to CIAO 4.1

The major compatibility change in CIAO 4.1 is that ChIPS state files from CIAO 4.0 - i.e. the files created by save_state and loaded by load_state - can not be loaded into CIAO 4.1.

Most ChIPS code written for CIAO 4.0 will continue to run in CIAO 4.1. However some code will need updating, as described in the upgrade guide.

CIAO 3.4 to CIAO 4.3

The CXC is committed to helping ChIPS users transition to new syntax as smoothly as possible. If you have existing ChIPS scripts or save files, submit them to us via the CXC Helpdesk and we will provide the CIAO 4.11 ChIPS syntax to you. Relevant data files may be placed on the FTP site (FTP Instructions).

[NOTE]
SherpaCL

Note that the sherpacl application - provided in CIAO 4.2 as part of the CIAO scripts and module package - is not available in CIAO 4.3 or later.

SM to CIAO 4.11