Installing modsIDL
Version 1.0 - 2019 Feb 10  

System Requirements
-------------------

The modsIDL pipeline was developed on a Linux machine with 8 Intel Core i7
3.4GHz processors and 8Gb of RAM.  It has also been tested and run on a
MacBook Air with 2GHz Intel Core i7 and 8Gb of RAM.  We recommend a system
with at least a 3GHz processor and 8Gb of RAM.  The modsIDL pipeline has also
been run successfully on machines with slower processors and less memory than
this recommended limit.  However, given the large size of processed MODS files
(~300Mb after sky subtraction), a minimum of 4Gb of RAM is recommended.

You need your own copy of and license for IDL.  We developed and tested
modsIDL with IDL version 8.1.

For Python we recommend the free Anaconda distribution of Python 2.7, which we
have found works best for most Linux distributions and Mac OS/X computers.

   Anaconda (www.anaconda.com)

Note that this code is not tested or verified to work under Python 3.

The modsIDL programs are incorporated into the XIDL software developed by
Jason X. Prochaska and Joe Hennawi and many others.

   XIDL (github.com/profxj/xidl)

This makes use of the numerous tools that have already been tested by numerous
projects.  This version of modsIDL was developed using the older SVN
installation of XIDL from the fall of 2012(!)  We are currently providing the
entire XIDL package that was used in developing modsIDL to ensure
compatibility.

Advanced XIDL users may wish to install the MODS scripts into their versions
of XIDL.  This is only recommended for those users who are familiar with the
structure of XIDL and are aware that changes may have occurred in XIDL that
may not work with the current pipeline. For users who wish to employ this
option, the MODS files are located in the appropriate directory under the
Longslit branch of XIDL.


Downloading modsIDL
----------------------

The tar file for modsIDL is available at

    www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/MODS/Software/modsIDL

This webpage has links to the latest release and older versions, and copies of
the user's manual.

In addition to the pipeline software, this webpage will also include links to
training data.  The training data set has been broken into different bundles
that represent the different stages of data products either created or used in
the pipeline.  A log file lists all the reduction commands used to process
that data set.


Unpacking
---------

Unpack the tarball (e.g., modsIDL.linux.v1.0.tgz) in the usual way

    tar -xvzpf modsIDL.linux.v1.0.tgz

This will create the modsIDL/ directory and fill it with ll of the various
programs and support files.

The modsIDL directory has four (4) subdirectories:

   coyote/    -  a version of the Coyote IDL Library
   idlspec2d/ -  IDL package built by  David J. Schlegel & Scott Burles
   idlutils/  -  (djs) IDL package built and distributed by David J. Schlegel
   xidl/      -  the XIDL package built and distributed by Jason X. Prochaska


Installation
------------
	
To install the modsIDL package, the modsIDL directory must be in your IDL
path.  In general, most IDL codes are kept together in a top level directory
such as ~/myidl.  All code is then placed under this directory.  The user will
also need to define the necessary environment variables and update their
IDL_PATH as necessary.  The following is recommended to be added to your
.cshrc file:

   if ( -d ~/myidl/modsIDL ) then
      setenv IDLUTILS_DIR ~/myidl/modsIDL/idlutils
      setenv IDLSPEC2D_DIR ~/myidl/modsIDL/idlspec2d
      setenv XIDL_DIR ~/myidl/modsIDL/xidl
      setenv LONGSLIT_DIR $XIDL_DIR/Spec/Longslit
      setenv IDL_PATH +$IDL_DIR\/lib:+$IDL_DIR\/examples:+~/myidl:+pro
   endif

Or alternatively, add the following to your .bash file:

   if [ -d ~/myidl/modsIDL ] then
      export IDLUTILS_DIR=~/myidl/modsIDL/idlutils
      export IDLSPEC2D_DIR=~/myidl/modsIDL/idlspec2d
      export XIDL_DIR=~/myidl/modsIDL/xidl
      export LONGSLIT_DIR=$XIDL_DIR/Spec/Longslit
      export IDL_PATH=+$IDL_DIR\/lib:+$IDL_DIR\/examples:+~/myidl:+pro
   endif

To verify that modsIDL has been included in your path you can type:

   env | grep –i modsIDL

At this point you are ready to use the modsIDL pipeline.


Updates
-------

At present updates must be obtained by checking the modsIDL github repository
and updating by hand. We are discussing how to (or whether to) incorporate
later versions of modsIDL into the GitHub distribution of XIDL, but have not
yet committed to a particular course of action.


------------------------------
R. Pogge, OSU Astronomy Dept.
pogge.1@osu.edu