These draft notes cover the major updates made by Data Release Production to the LSST stack since release 12 (Winter/Extra 2016). Please add material here which should ultimately be incorporated into the notes accompanying the Fall 2016 release.
Major Functionality and Interface Changes
Add a measurement extension which performs Kron photometry
The KronFluxAlgorithm measures the flux in an elliptical aperture as defined by Kron (1980). The plugin is not enabled by default, but may be switched on by requesting ext_photometryKron_KronFlux in measurement configuration.
DM-3440 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Package version tracking and checking ("stack provenance")
A package version tracking and checking capability has been included in the stack and integrated with the ``CmdLineTask`` system. This keeps track of what versions of packages are being used in order to prevent the user from unwittingly processing data with multiple, subtly different, versions of the code. This provides a provisional implementation of a provenance tracking
system: it is essential for short-term use, but will be rendered obsolete before we move to operations. A more detailed description of this system is available on the LSST Community Forum.
DM-3372 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Bug Fixes
Correct CModel table schema units
Units for the time field changed from seconds to second to comply with the Astropy convention.
DM-6282 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Restore capability of calculating temporary local backgrounds in source detection
Our SourceDetectionTask provides the optional capability of fitting and temporarily removing a local background before detecting sources. This capability was accidentally disabled in the X/W16 release (v12); it has now been restored. It is disabled by default.
DM-5323 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Resolve a memory error in convolution
A memory handling error could cause our convolution code to generate incorrect results on some platforms (problems observed on OS X when the code is built without optimization; no errors seen on Linux, or when building with -O2 or -O3 on OS X). This appears to originate in the Boost Generic Image Library, an external dependency of the LSST stack. We have been unable to isolate the problem in Boost, but have worked around it for our particular use case.
DM-5822 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Build & Code Improvements
Migration from Boost to standard library equivalents
Continuing work started in the previous release, we have audited the stack for use of the Boost libraries. Where possible, Boost has been replaced with C++11 standard library equivalents.
DM-5880 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6089 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6090 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6091 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6092 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6093 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6094 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6095 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6096 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6097 - Getting issue details... STATUS DM-6325 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Properly log warnings in ObjectSizeStarSelector
Previously, non-fatal NumPy warnings of the form RuntimeWarning: invalid value encountered in less could appear on the console, but not be caught and logged anywhere. It was therefore easy to miss problems arising when running the algorithm. These warnings are now ingested into the LSST logging system, and are hence recorded properly.
DM-5428 - Getting issue details... STATUS