Overview

Welcome to the documentation for CWITools!Here, you will find a list of the modules, sub-modules and functions within the package.

Executable Scripts

For most users, the core functionality of CWITools is contained in the Scripts Module (cwitools.scripts).
This module proides a number of high-level, executable Python which provides a number of high-level scripts (e.g. coadding a list of cubes). These can be executed directly from the command line, e.g.:
$ cwi_crop cube1.fits cube2.fits cube3.fits -out my_coadd.fits
or from within a Python session, e.g.:
>>> from cwitools.scripts import cwi_coadd
>>> cwi_coadd(["cube1.fits", "cube2.fits", "cube3.fits"], out="my_coadd.fits")

Core Modules

The package structure of CWITools is designed as a modular set of tools from which observers can construct data analysis pipelines to suit their own scientific needs.

The flow of such data analysis pipelines for IFU data tends to follow a universal pattern:
  1. reduction: cropping and coadding the pipeline data cubes
  2. extraction: isolating a target signal and removing foreground/background
  3. synthesis: making emission maps, spectra, and other products
  4. modeling: fitting emission line profiles, radial profiles etc.
  5. measurement: obtaining final, scalar quantities such as size and luminosity.
In CWITools, each of these broad steps is represented by a top-level module:

Helper Modules

In addition to these core modules, there are two library modules for useful functions:
  • The Coordinates Module (cwitools.coordinates) contains commonly-used functions relating to coordinate systems and FITS Headers (e.g. obtain the wavelength axis from a 3D header).
  • The Utilities Module (cwitools.utils) is mostly a set of tools for internal use, but contains several functions that observers may find useful, such as obtaining an auto-populated list of nebular emission lines or sky lines.

Indices and tables