IDL

Introduction

IDL is a high level language well suited to image processing and manipulation.

Currently licensing costs are paid by STFC for Astrophysics use only.

Documentation

IDL is provided by NV5 (formerly Harris Geospatial Solutions Inc) and their website is https://www.harrisgeospatial.com/

Initialisation

Typing 'idl' should give you the most recent version. If you want a specific version, you can set the IDL_DIR environment variable. To do this, please set the variable, either interactively or in your .bashrc/.cshrc file.

bash:
export IDL_DIR=/usr/local/exelis/idl82
csh/tcsh:
setenv IDL_DIR /usr/local/exelis/idl82

then run the command line version using idl or the developement environment using idlde.

You can set up a search path for subroutines, for example, the IDL Astronomy library can be found under /usr/local/idl set the IDL_PATH variable as below:

bash:
export IDL_PATH=+/usr/local/idl
csh/tcsh:
setenv IDL_PATH +/usr/local/idl

or to include IDL routines for the Coldrick Radio Telescope, you can do

bash:
export IDL_PATH=+/usr/local/coldrick_observatory/
csh/tcsh:
setenv IDL_PATH +/usr/local/coldrick_observatory/

or if you have already set IDL_PATH, you can append to it as below

bash:
export IDL_PATH=$IDL_PATH:+/usr/local/coldrick_observatory/
csh/tcsh:
setenv IDL_PATH ${IDL_PATH}:+/usr/local/coldrick_observatory/

The '+' sign denotes that subdirectories of the following pathname will be searched. The IDL Astronomy Library is in a subdirectory of /usr/local/idl

Versions

We have several versions of IDL installed by default, usually the most recent version if required and that should be the default.

The Current version is 8.9.

Testing

Start idl, then to get a simple line plot, type the following.

 plot,findgen(40)

Remote Use

You have several options to use IDL remotely.

If no graphics are required:

light usage: ssh to aquila and run idl.
heavier usage: ssh to aquila and then to your own machine and run idl.

If graphics are required:

light usage: ssh -XY aquila and run your idl code.
heavier usage: Use x2go remote desktop to run a full desktop on aquila.
heavy use with data on remote desktop or laptop: Log into UoB VPN, set LM_LICENSE_FILE variable (see below) and start idl on your remote machine.

Licensing

The current licensing method is via an activation code which lasts a year. Once you have the code from the Rhys, start up /usr/local/harris/idl88/bin/harrislicense or the same program on Mac or Windows, click on 'Activate Local License' and paste the license activation string into the box. You will need root privileges to do this.

Last modified: Tue Jun 23 11:48:01 BST 2015