ISIS Documentation

Introduction

This reference document describes the elements of the ISIS User Preference file. See Environment and Preference Setup for detailed information.

User Interface

The user interface group in the preference file allows you to customize the way your applications run, and how they look in graphical form. The user interface in either graphical or command line mode supplies a progress indicator to the user. The increment of the progress bar can be customized to increase the bar by 10%, 5%, 2%, or 1%. Additionally, in the command line mode, the user can turn off the progress bar if desired. The GUI will always update the progress bar. The style of the GUI can be customized to have a windows, cde, kde, etc. look to it. The browser fired up from the GUI can also be specified, along with the size of the GUI, and its font type and size. By default, all history files are stored in the users home directory under .Isis/history. This can be customized to save the history files in the users current directory (using '.') or any other directory. The history recording can also be turned off if the user does not wish to record any history on the programs being run.

Group=UserInterface
  ProgressBarPercent = 10 | 5 | 2 | 1
  ProgressBar        = On | Off
  GuiStyle           = windows | motif | cde | motifplus | platinum | sgi | kde | aqua
  GuiHelpBrowser     = firefox { your preferred browser, may need path }
  GuiFontName        = helvitica | times | charter | any legal font
  GuiFontSize        = 10 | 12 | 14 | any font point size
  GuiWidth           = 460 { your preferred gui width }
  GuiHeight          = 600 { your preferred gui height }
  HistoryPath        = $HOME/.Isis/history { your preferred location for the application .par files }
  HistoryRecording   = On | Off
  HistoryLength      = your preferred count of history entries to remember
EndGroup

Error Facility

Errors can be written in either standard (single line) or PVL format. Additionally, the source file and line number identifying where the error occurred can be suppressed. Stack traces can also be displayed when running ISIS in debug mode.

Group = ErrorFacility
  Format   = Standard | Pvl
  FileLine = On | Off
  StackTrace = On | Off
EndGroup

Session Log

These parameters control the session log. Logging can be completely turned off, directed to a terminal, to a file, or both. The name of the log file is customizable and content can be either overwritten or appended.

Group = SessionLog
  TerminalOutput = On | Off
  FileOutput     = On | Off
  FileName       = print.prt
  FileAccess     = Append | Overwrite
EndGroup

ShapeModel

These parameters control which ray-tracing engine is used for working with shapemodels. To use the ISIS default, omit or comment-out the ShapeModel group. The tolerance is to check the visibility or occlusion of a point and is in kilometers.

Group = ShapeModel
  RayTraceEngine = Bullet | Embree
  OnError = Continue | Fail
  Tolerance = 0.001
EndGroup

Cube Customization

The user can control how specific attributes of cube I/O are performed. In particular, they can specify whether programs will 1) automatically overwrite an existing cube or issue and error message, 2) generate a single attached file containing labels, history, and cube data or detached cube with three files (label, history, data), 3) automatically gather statistics as the data is written to disk and record the computations in the labels, and 4) record a history entry of the program in the cube file.

Group = CubeCustomization
  Overwrite  = Allow | Error
  Format     = Attached | Detached
  Statistics = On | Off
  History    = On | Off
EndGroup

Data Directories

ISIS supports many missions that require various data such as SPICE kernels or calibration files. Because these files can be quite large it may be required to move the data into a different directories from the normal distribution. This customization supports that requirement. The ISIS system manager would generally modify this group in the system-wide preference file.

Group = DataDirectory
  Base      = $ISISDATA/base
  Galileo   = $ISISDATA/galileo
  Cassini   = $ISISDATA/cassini
  Chadrayaan1   = $ISISDATA/chandrayaan1
  Messenger = $ISISDATA/messenger
  Mgs       = $ISISDATA/mgs
  Mro       = $ISISDATA/mro
  NewHorizons = $ISISDATA/newhorizons
  Odyssey   = $ISISDATA/odyssey
  Viking1   = $ISISDATA/viking1
  Viking2   = $ISISDATA/viking2
  Voyager   = $ISISDATA/voyager
  Temporary = .
EndGroup