This is an introduction. A full documentation is on Github Pages

The SEDMachine Simulator is designed to simulate many aspects of the design and operation of the SEDMachine instrument. As such, it endeavors to be an accurate simulation of the optical processes in the SEDMachine and to faithfully reproduce data which might be created by the SEDMachine. This program can simulate the different types of data images that the SEDMachine is likely to produce. Images can be simulated which are based on data-cubes, simple sources (with a fixed geometry inserted), or uniform sources. Potential uniform sources include sky spectra, flat lamps (similar to what a quartz lamp would produce), calibration lamps (based on a line list) and arbitrary uniform sources (specified in a data file, with R>1000). The simulator works by generating large FITS images, and doing spectral resolution and flux calibration math. It can take a little while to run each simulation (there are more than 5000 active lenslets in the SED machine!), so be patient, and test your simulation on a small number of lenslets first to ensure that it works.

The program is contained within the SEDMachine module. This module has two primary components: the Simulator, and the supporting classes. The SEDMachine.Simulator module has a single class, SEDMachine.Simulator.SEDSimulator which implements the control functions for the program. When you call SEDMsim, you are using this class's SEDMachine.Simulator.SEDSimulator.run() method. The program relies on the AstroObject module, which I've (Alex Rudy) developed to make lots of astronomy tasks a lot more "object-focused". AstroObject can be found online at Github.

There are also some support tools, including a basic data setup for the latest SEDMachine simulations. These support tools are kept in SEDTools.

This program is stored online at Github, and the documentation is available there as well.

This program uses a ray-trace output from an optical model of the SEDMachine to simulate data as it will appear when read from the SEDMachine's CCDs. The simulator is only focused on simulating the work of the integral-field-unit and does not simulate or produce rainbow-camera data. The simulator accounts for the resolution of the instrument, the spectral profile, and the point-spread function of the system.

The simulation makes a few assumptions and uses a few "fudge" factors. These assumptions are documented in the Model which gives an overview of the modelling system, step-by-step.

This program does not handle ray-tracing, in any form. The ray tracing (and as such, the layout and physics of the system) are modeled separately and then interpreted by this simulator. The simulator also does not do rigorous scattered light calculations, nor does it manage the subtleties of image geometry.

This is the bare minimum required to just run a simulation. For a more detailed tutorial, see Tutorial.

Assuming you have Matplotlib, Numpy and Scipy installed, run:

$ sudo python setup.py install
$ cd working/directory/path/
$ SEDMsetup *all *config-files
$ SEDMsim *all

to perform a basic simulation. Simulations can take quite a long time to run. As such, you might want to try:

$ SEDMsim -T *all

to perform the same simulation, but using only 50 lenslets.

If you can't find the documentation online (or it has moved), then:

1. Ensure you have Sphinx installed.
2. Navigate to the Docs/ directory in the source tree you downloaded
3. Run make html
4. Open Docs/build/html/index.html

You should then have a complete usable HTML copy of the documentation.

RCPipeline is a simple pipeline for basic reduction of Rainbow Camera data. It is far from complete, but demonstrates the operation of a pipeline in a pythonic way.

RCPipeline works much the same way that SEDMsim does. First, ensure that you have AstroObject installed with at least version 0.5-a1, so that it incldues IRAFTools. Then, install this module (using the same setup.py installation as SEDMsim. No need to run it twice.)

$ sudo python setup.py install
$ cd working/directory/path/
$ RCsetup *all *test
$ RCpipeline *all