man mImgtbl (1): Generate metadata from a set of FITS images

SYNOPSIS

mImgtbl [-rcadb] [-s statusfile] [-f fieldlistfile] [-t imglist] directory images.tbl

DESCRIPTION

mImgtbl extracts the FITS header geometry information from a set of files and creates an ASCII image metadata table which is used by several of the other programs. It only collects data from headers that comply with the FITS standard, but reports a count of images that fail that check.

OPTIONS

-r: mImgtbl can also be used as a standalone program to gather image metadata for other purposes (to populate a database, as a basis for spatial coverage searches, etc.) In this case it is often desirable to collect information on all the files in a directory tree recursively. The "-r" (recursive) flag instructs mImgtbl to search the given directory and all its subdirectories recursively.
-c: The "-c" (corners) option in mImgtbl will cause eight extra columns to be added to the output metadata table containing the RA, Dec coordinates (ra1, dec1, ... ra4, dec4) of the image corners. The output is always Equatorial J2000, even if the input is some other system. Though not required for the core proessing modules, we recommend using this option, as some of the utilities may require corner locations to function properly.
-C: The original version of mImgtbl ignored cube structure in the files; it only looked at the first two dimensions and associated WCS parameters. When cube processing was added to Montage, it was necessary to examine the third and fourth dimensions (if they exist) and so some additional columns were added to the mImgtbl output (e.g., NAXIS4, CRVAL3). It is still often the case where all of the new columns would be blank, so to save space the old mode output can be invoked using the "-C" (no-cube) option. This is cosmetic for the most part, since the "four-dimensional" output is perfectly valid for further processing of 2D data.
-a: By default, mImgtbl ignores FITS files with names ending in _area (i.e. name_area.fits), assuming them to be Montage-created area images. If you want to generate information on these images, or if you have images with _area in the title other than those generated by Montage, you should turn on this flag to force mImgtbl to look at all images in the directory.
-d: Turn on debugging
-b: When this switch is set, mImgtbl will explicitly output each FITS file it finds that does not appear to be valid, along with information on the error.
-s statusfile: Output and errors are written to statusfile instead of being written to stdout.
-f fieldlistfile: Used to specify a fieldlist, which will list additional keywords to be read from the FITS headers and included in the output table. Fieldlists should specify the keyword name, type (int,char,double), and size. Example: example.fieldlist.
-t imglist: mImgtbl will only process files with names specified in table imglist, ignoring any other files in the directory. Example: example.imglist.

ARGUMENTS

directory: Path to directory containing set of input FITS files.
images.tbl: Path of output metadata table.

RESULT

Output table contains metadata information from all readable FITS files in the directory specified by directory. count is the number of records in the table, and badfits is the number of files for which FITS metadata could not be extracted.

OUTPUT COLUMNS

cntr: A unique counter (row number)
ra,dec: Image position in decimal degree format
cra,cdec: Right ascension in HHMMSS.SS format. Declination in DDMMSS.S format
naxis1, naxis2: The size of the image in pixels for dimensions 1 and 2
ctype1, ctype2: The coordinate system (the first four characters) and WCS map projection (last three characters) for dimensions 1 and 2
crpix1, crpix2: The pixel coordinates of the reference location (can be fractional and can be off the image) for dimensions 1 and 2
crval1, crval2: The coordinates of a reference location on the sky (often at the center of the image) for dimensions 1 and 2
cdelt1, cdelt2: The pixel scale (in degrees on the sky per pixel) at the reference location for dimensions 1 and 2
crota2: The rotation angle from the "up" direction to the celestial pole
equinox: Precessional year associated with the coordinate system
hdu: Numerical identifier for the FITS extension that the image info is extracted from, for FITS files with multiple HDUs.
size: Filesize (in bytes) of the input FITS file
fname: The path to the input FITS file

MESSAGES

OK: [struct stat="OK", count=count, badfits=badfits]
ERROR: Illegal argument: -arg
ERROR: Cannot open status file: statusfile
ERROR: Cannot open field list file: fieldlistfile
ERROR: Cannot open image list file: imgfile
ERROR: Image table needs column fname/file
ERROR: Illegal field name: string]
ERROR: Illegal field type: string]
ERROR: Cannot access directory
ERROR: directory is not a directory
ERROR: Can't open output table.
ERROR: Can't open copy table.
ERROR: Can't open tmp (in) table.
ERROR: Can't open tmp (out) table.
ERROR: Can't open final table.
ERROR: FITS library error

EXAMPLES

The following example runs mImgtbl on a directory containing 14 2MASS images:

$ mImgtbl input/2mass images.tbl: [struct stat="OK", count=14, badfits=0]

Output: images.tbl.

Running mImgtbl on a directory that contains 3 bad FITS images, with the -c switch on:

$ mImgtbl -c input/2mass-bad images-corners.tbl: [struct stat="OK", count=14, badfits=3]

The output file is identical to the first example, but with the addition of 8 "corners" columns: images-corners.tbl. The badfits counter in the output message reports on how many images were found containing invalid header information.

When passed a field list file like this example, extra columns are extracted from the FITS headers and inserted in the table:

$ mImgtbl -f example.fieldlist input/2mass images-expanded.tbl: [struct stat="OK", count=14, badfits=0]

The output file has additional columns as specified: images-expanded.tbl.

BUGS

The drizzle algorithm has been implemented but has not been tested in this release.

If a header template contains carriage returns (i.e., created/modified on a Windows machine), the cfitsio library will be unable to read it properly, resulting in the error: [struct stat="ERROR", status=207, msg="illegal character in keyword"]

It is best for the background correction algorithms if the area described in the header template completely encloses all of the input images in their entirety. If parts of input images are "chopped off" by the header template, the background correction will be affected. We recommend you use an expanded header for the reprojection and background modeling steps, returning to the originally desired header size for the final coaddition. The default background matching assumes that there are no non-linear background variations in the individual images (and therefore in the overlap differences). If there is any uncertainty in this regard, it is safer to turn on the "level only" background matching (the "-l" flag in mBgModel.

We recommend use of the "-c" option when running mImgtbl to include the locations of the four corners of each image in the output metadata table. Some other modules may require the corner locations to function correctly.

COPYRIGHT

2001-2015 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

If your research uses Montage, please include the following acknowledgement: "This research made use of Montage. It is funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number ACI-1440620, and was previously funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Science Technology Office, Computation Technologies Project, under Cooperative Agreement Number NCC5-626 between NASA and the California Institute of Technology."

The Montage distribution includes an adaptation of the MOPEX algorithm developed at the Spitzer Science Center.