How do I run FESTVAL?

What do I do if I don't have data on my computer ?

I have data on my computer but FESTIVAL does not find them

How do I zoom in and out?

How do I pan across the composite?

Are the data calibrated?

How can I view the header of an image?

How do I save an image?

Why am I getting unreliable results in running difference mode?

Why is my mouse wheel inoperant in the selection GUI?

How can I speed up FESTIVAL?

Why did my search return no result?

Can I save images larger than 10000x10000 pixels?

Can I get rid of the FESTIVAL and SECCHI logos in the saved images and movies?

Simply type FESTIVAL at the SSWIDL prompt. The selection GUI will appear.

What do I do if I don't have data on my computer ?

Since version 3.0, FESTIVAL is able to make VSO (Virtual Solar Observatory) queries, so you do not actually need to have data installed on your computer to use FESTIVAL. The data will be automatically downloaded from VSO to the FESTIVAL_PROJECT/dowloaded_data directory. Note that the downloaded data are not erased at the end of a FESTIVAL session, so they won't have to be dowloaded again. If you want to use the same data the next time you use FESTIVAL, you can even tell it that your data are located in this directory using the "Search directory" GUI (see this FAQ).

I have data on my computer but FESTIVAL does not find them

You can tell FESTIVAL where to look for your data in the Search Directory GUI. Simply fill in the "Search in local directory" field. FESTIVAL will search this directory the next time you hit the Search button. If you prefer to use the SSW catalogues and the standard datadirectory structure, chose "SSW architecture".

Select the hand symbol (pan) in the menu bar on top of the visualization GUI, click on the composite and play with the mouse wheel (if you have one) or select the + (zoom in) or the – (zoom out) button and click on the composite.

How do pan across the composite?

Click on the hand symbol (pan) in the menu bar on top of the visualization GUI, then click and drag the composite.

Are the data calibrated?

By default, all known calibrations are applied. Although this is not recommended, you can can change the calibration options or turn it off completely. Select Calibration in the Options menu of the selection GUI. Then select the spacecraft (STEREO or SOHO) and the instrument(s). Click Save/Redraw to apply your changes.

How can I view the header of an image?

A right click in the visualization area brings up the contextual menus. Follow Data->Show header and select the instrument of interest. You can not display the header of an image that is not displayed in the visualization GUI.

How do I save an image?

Click the floppy button in the menu bar of a visualization GUI, and chose the name, format and dimensions out the output file.

FESTIVAL composite are multi-resolution. The visualization has to be rasterized before the image is saved.

Why am I getting unreliable results in running difference mode?

FESTIVAL is not able to properly compute differences of images if they have different sizes. It will not crash but will produce unreliable results. There are two workarounds for this:

1. You can force select only images of a given size by entering the desired values, say 2048x2048 pixels, in the search options GUI.
2. You can apply to the data a filter that resizes all the images to the same dimensions, e.g. congrid(image, 2048, 2048).

Why is the mouse wheel inoperant in the selection GUI?

If you are working under Unix (or Linux) this is normal. It is a limitation of IDL, not of FESTIVAL. If you are not running Unix, you may have found a bug, please report it!

FESTIVAL has two ways of handling its buffer of already visualized data. One mode is more memory efficient but a bit slower than the faster but more memory hungry mode. In the memory efficient mode, the redisplay of already visualized data is a bit slower, but more images can be kept in the buffer. The fast display mode will let you keep twice as less data in memory.

To set the working mode to fast display, you have to manually set the !FAST_DISPLAY variable in festival_data_types.pro to !TRUE:

DEFSYSV, "!FAST_DISPLAY", !TRUE

then exit IDL and restart FESTIVAL.

You can also increase the amount of memory allocated to the history stack of images stored in memory. This amount in MBytes is stored in the MAX_HISTORYSTACK_CAPACITY system variable defined in festival_data_types.pro. The default value is 300 Mbytes, but if your system has a lot of RAM, you can increase it. The following line will set the size of the stack to 1 Gbyte

DEFSYSV, "!MAX_HISTORYSTACK_CAPACITY", 1000

You'll then need to restart IDL and FESTIVAL.

The are several possibilities:

1. You don't have data installed on your machine (or via NFS mount).

2. Your SSW environment variables are not set properly. See the installation page.

3. You did not select any instrument.

By default, FESTIVAL does not allow you to same bitmap images larger than 10000x10000 pixels. The reason is that it needs to create a BYTARR(3, 10000, 10000) which is already 300Mb large. However, if you have enough RAM, you can change the values of the following variables in festival_data_types.pro

DEFSYSV, "!MAXBUFFERWIDTH", 20000
DEFSYSV, "!MAXBUFFERHEIGHT", 20000

to increase the maximum size. You'll then need to restart IDL and FESTIVAL.

Can I get rid of the FESTIVAL and SECCHI logos in the saved images and movies?

Yes. By default, a small FESTIVAL logo is added at the bottom left of the images, and a small SECCHI logo is added at the bottom right if SECCHI data are being visualized. This can be turned off by setting the !ADD_FESTIVAL_LOGO and !ADD_SECCHI_LOGO environment variables to !FALSE in the festival_data_types.pro file. The values can also be changed during a FESTIVAL session by entering at the command line prompt:

IDL> !ADD_FESTIVAL_LOGO = !FALSE
IDL> !ADD_SECCHI_LOGO = !FALSE