Running brutus

The spirit of brutus is that each user can choose, depending on the object at hand & the quality of the data, what processing steps are warranted. These are governed by the brutus_execute.py file. In parallel, the user can define all relevant parameters using the brutus_params.py file.

For each project, I suggest making a local copy of both files, while leaving an original copy at brutus/exec_scripts/ for safekeeping.

Setting parameters with brutus_params.py

All parameters (with a scientific role) relevant to the brutus functions can be specified inside brutus_param.py, via the dictionary brutus_params.

Todo

A detailed list of what everything is/does would be nice. Until then, look at the comments inside the file.

Once everything is set as it should be, run the script

>>> run brutus_params.py

This exports all the parameters to the pickle file pickle_fn, defined in brutus_params.py.

Launching the post-processing with brutus_execute.py

brutus is designed to batch process all the individual spectra inside a given IFU individually, exploiting multiple cpus (when available) to gain speed.

The different steps to be executed in sequence by brutus are defined in brutus_execute.py, via the proc_steps list of dictionaries.

Steps can be toogle on/off via the run keyword, which can be set to True or False. Some steps also accept specific parameters, such as whether to save plots or not. One should note that unlike the parameters defined in brutus_params.py, the parameters present in brutus_execute.py will NOT influence the final scientific output itself, only the processing speed and/or the type of output, etc ...

Once all the steps are setup and enabled as required, you are ready to start crunching numbers:

>>> run brutus_execute pickle_fn

where pickle_fn is the filename defined in brutus_params.py for exporting the various parameters.

If all goes according to plan, brutus will start processing your data, one step after the other. Some steps will take time (up to several hours) ! Just be patient - progress indicators will help you monitor each task, if you set 'verbose': True inside brutus_params.py.