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Persistent URL http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/30321
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Record Id 30321
Title The Common Pipeline Library Standardising Pipeline Processing
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Abstract The European Southern Observatory (ESO) develops and maintains a large number of instrument-specic data processing pipelines. These pipelines must produce standard-format output and meet the need for data archiving and the computation and logging of quality assurance parameters. As the number, complexity and data-output- rate of instrument increases, so does the challenge to develop and maintain the associated processing software. ESO has developed the Common Pipeline Library (CPL) in order to unify the pipeline production effort and to minimise code duplication. The CPL is a self-contained ISO-C library, designed for use in a C/C++ environment. It is designed to work with FITS data, extensions and meta-data, and provides a template for standard algorithms, thus unifying the look-and-feel of pipelines. It has been written in such a way to make it extremely robust, fast and generic, in order to cope with the operation-critical online data reduction requirements of modern observatories. The CPL has now been successfully incorporated into several new and existing instrument systems. In order to achieve such success, it is essential to go beyond simply making the code publicly available, but also engage in training, support and promotion. There must be a commitment to maintenance, development, standards- compliance, optimisation, consistency and testing. This paper describes in detail the experiences of the CPL in all these areas. It covers the general principles applicable to any such software project and the specifc challenges and solutions, that make the CPL unique.
Organisation CCLRC , SSTD
Keywords Engineering , Common Pipeline Library , Data Flow System , Very Large Telescope , Software
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Language English (EN)
Type Details URI(s) Local file(s) Year
Paper In Conference Proceedings In Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2004, Glasgow, UK, 21-25 Jun 2004, (2004). spie_cpl_v20.pdf 2004