The XMM X-ray observatory is scheduled for launch by the European Space Agency in August 1999. The science analysis software is being developed jointly by the XMM Science Operations Centre (SOC) based at ESTEC, and the XMM Survey Science Centre (SSC) which is a consortium of research establishments in France, Germany, and the UK, led by the University of Leicester.
The XMM project is using a relatively simple data model: this can easily be represented by a FITS file, but other data formats are by no means ruled out. The description below is given using a generic terminology, but the FITS equivalent, where different, is shown in parentheses.
Data are organized in the form of data sets. A data set(file)is a collection of blocks. A block (header-data-unit) is either an array or a table; each block has a name. An array (primary image or image extension) is an N-dimensional array (N up to 4) of scalars, all of the same data type. The data types supported are: 8-bit logical, 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit integer, and 32-bit and 64-bit reals.
A table (binary or ASCII) is a collection of columns, where each columns in a table has have the same number of rows. A column is a vector of a particular data type: it may be a character string, or a scalar or N-dimensional array (N up to 4) of 8-bit logical, 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit integer, or 32-bit or 64-bit real. Each column has a name; numerical columns may also have physical units attached. A value in a column is called a cell (field).
Datasets, tables, arrays, and columns may have attributes attached to them. An attribute (FITS keyword) has a name and value, and optionally the physical units and a comments string. History records are also supported.
This simple data model appears to be adequate to represent all the data structures needed in our astronomical data analysis; it follows quite naturally from the data structures which have been devised for ROSAT and ASCA, and should also be compatible with those being developed AXAF and INTEGRAL. Some of the latter include support for more advanced features such as variable-length fields in tables, data sub-space and filtering syntax, dataset grouping, and indexing structures. At present the XMM data model does not have these built in (there are specific tools to take care of data filtering), but they may be the subject of future enhancements.
Where the XMM data model differs more notably is in its implementation, which is designed to avoid various problems experienced in past missions.
Secondly, the FITS file structure was designed for data interchange, and not for I/O efficiency. FITS data are stored in blocks of 2880 bytes, a length poorly matched to current disc sector sizes. Tables contain numbers which are generally not aligned on whole-word boundaries, nor are successive elements of a column stored contiguously. Even in binary tables the metadata are stored as text strings in the FITS header records and have to be converted to and from binary form. All these increase the cost of reading and writing FITS files.
Thirdly the FITSIO library is rather complicated, because it has to handle FITS files in all their glory. As a result, applications built directly upon FITSIO are somewhat more complicated than really necessary, given the simplicity of the basic data model. These complications could be hidden from the application programmer by using a data access layer based directly on the data model concepts.
type(ArrayT) :: arr
real(kind=real32), dimension(:), pointer :: x set = dataSet("test.dat",READ)
tab = table(set,"events",READ)
xCol = column(set,"x",READ)
x => real32Data(xCol)
write(*,*) x(1:100) call release(xCol)
call release(set) An important feature of the DAL is that it makes maximum use of central memory and encourages the processing of data column-by-column rather than row-by-row. This can be handled efficiently when the required data can all be held in memory, a situation which we expect to be true in most cases, now that memory is relatively cheap. In cases when the overheads of handling the FITS structure are considered excessive, the DAL can also read and write files in its own internal format, which is essentially a memory dump of its internal data structures. This is only intended for use as an interface between two tasks where the intermediate file does not need to be retained for further use. It is also possible to eliminate I/O altogether between two tasks: the top-level routines can be linked into a single executable and a dataset transferred from one to the other merely by passing a dataset pointer across. It is worth pointing out that the XMM DAL is based on CFITSIO, which can now handle data transfers to/from Unix pipes. This represents a further way of avoiding physical I/O.
The SSC Consortium has been using pre-release versions of the DAL over the last few months, and many applications have already been successfully built with it and tested. As a result we now have some confidence in the basic DAL infrastructure, and in the ability of our programmers to adapt to the programming style which it requires. However we have not yet had time to evaluate the more advanced options such as use of the internal file format, nor the direct transfers of datasets from one task to another via memory pointers. The interactive data analysis software and infrastructure will, of course, be available to all XMM users: the first external release is scheduled for early 1999, with a further release just before launch.Potential users will want to know which platforms are supported. The official ESA policy is that the XMM software will be supported only on Solaris, but we are doing our best to ensure that it will also run on other Unix systems such as PC/Linux and Alpha/Digital-Unix (indeed Linux is being used extensively for software development). Although Fortran90 and C++ can each be used to build very portable software, connections between the two are still rather compiler-specific. At present the software depends upon the GNU C++ compiler and NAG (or NAGACE) Fortran compilers, but some experiments have been carried using other compiler combinations. In the longer term it is worth noting that one of the important features expected to appear in Fortran-2000 is a standard way of interfacing Fortran with C and other languages. We are also considering the best ways of coping with large data files on systems with little memory. Much of the simplicity of the current software arises from the fact that data are accessed column by column, whereas FITS tables are stored in row order. This works well when there is enough physical memory available, otherwise the performance drops sharply. One solution would be to make use of an iterator mechanism, some support for which is already present in the DAL. Essentially this requires the application to include a subroutine which processes a single row of data: this routine is called repeatedly by the DAL. The DAL transparently handles the reading or writing of data in chunks, the size of which is matched to the amount of memory available (and may consist of an entire column). We have not yet had time to exercise the iterator mechanism in realistic applications, so cannot yet comment whether the performance gain is worthwhile, given that there is some additional coding effort. It is interesting to note, however, that an iterator mechanism has also been introduced in the latest version of CFITSIO, and we would be pleased to hear of experiences of its use. [Clive Page’s e-mail address is email@example.com]
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