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casacore

The casacore package contains the core libraries of the old AIPS++/CASA package. This split was made to get a better separation of core libraries and applications. CASA is now built on top of Casacore.

The system consists of a set of layered libraries (packages) which can be seen best on the Modules page.
Included is a library (using Boost-Python) to convert the basic Casacore types (e.g., Array, Record) to and from python. Build of this library is optional.
This library is used in the package python-casacore (previously pyrap) that offers a high level Python binding to the Casacore functionality. The documentation of the python-casacore packages can be found here.

The main features of Casacore are:

- casa package (libcasa_casa) : Core functionality and data types like Array and Record.
- scimath package (libcasa_scimath) : N-dim functions with auto-differentiation and linear or non-linear fitting.
- tables package (libcasa_tables) : Table data system supporting N-dim arrays with advanced querying.
- measures package (libcasa_measures) : Values in astronomical reference frames using physical units (Quanta).
- ms package (libcasa_ms) : MeasurementSets for storing data in the UV-domain.
- images package (libcasa_images) : N-dim images in world coordinates with various analysis operations.

Casacore notes describe some parts of the system in more detail.

Casacore consists of the following subpackages:

casa | Core modules: N-dim arrays, quanta, OS, IO, HDF5, JSON, logging, and various other useful classes.
scimath | Mathematical modules N-dim functionals, linear/non-linear fitting, and miscellaneous.
tables | Database-like tables with advanced query language (TaQL).
measures | Quantities with references frames and their persistency.
lattices | Memory- or disk-based N-dim arrays (lattices) with masking, regions, expressions, and math.
fits | A C++ interface on top of cfitsio.
ms | The data format for visibility data as described in the MeasurementSet definition.
derivedmscal | Derived MeasurementSet quantities (like hourangle) that can be used as virtual table columns or as TaQL user defined functions.
meas | TaQL user defined functions to handle measures. It supports all conversions for epochs, positions, and directions.
msfits | Mapping of MeasurementSets to/from FITS.
coordinates | Coordinates for astronomical images.
images | N-dim images with masks, coordinates, and history.
python | N-dim python converters for basic Casacore data types.

Detailed build instructions are given on the casacore pages. It makes it possible to build selective parts of casacore.
When using a specific casacore package, it is useful to know the package dependencies when linking a program. They are as follows:

casa |
scimath | casa
tables | casa
measures | tables scimath casa
lattices | tables scimath casa
fits | measures tables scimath casa cfitsio
ms | measures tables scimath casa
derivedmscal | measures tables scimath casa
meas | measures tables scimath casa
msfits | ms fits measures tables scimath casa cfitsio
coordinates | fits measures tables scimath casa wcslib cfitsio
images | lattices coordinates fits measures tables scimath casa mirlib wcslib cfitsio
python | casa boost-python python numpy

mirlib is distributed and built as part of Casacore. wcslib and cfitsio are external packages that have to be installed before building all of Casacore. Boost-Python is required when building libcasa_python.