HIC Data Processing Routines

This document details the various levels of processing HIC data. The information available here is intended for anyone who needs to understand the format of HIC data products, such as rate plots, histograms, and spectra, and how these came to be from raw, binary data. While the utility of this document may mostly be as an internal reference guide of sorts to the HIC science team members, it should be useful to anyone who is working with HIC data.

Packet File Processing Flowchart

 The following flowchart illustrates the process of reducing both realtime and playback IPF format data, as well as the EDR format data used in the earlier phase of the Galileo mission. Descriptions of the various levels of data and the software tools used during each step are given, with further details made available by following the associated links.

Level 0 Data Binary, IPF Format HIC Data from the Galileo Science VAX Cluster (GLLSVC) Binary, Experimental Data Record (EDR) format data from CD-ROM
REALTIME Data PLAYBACK Data
Tools to convert raw binary, level 0 data to ASCII format, level 1a data files ipftoaRT.c ipftoascii.c edrtoascii.c
Level 1A Data ASCII format, realtime raw HIC packet (RHP) ASCII format, playback raw HIC packet (RHP)
reformatRT.c: restructures format of level 1A data file for further analysis Text editor (i.e. - VI, emacs, Text Editor (Sun Openlook), etc.) to fix RHP, removing gaps and extraneous tags, fixing synchronism.
Level 1B Data ASCII format, realtime reformated HIC packet ASCII format, playback fixed HIC packet (FHP)
getrateRT.c: Extracts desired rate data polish.c: Decompresses HIC packet and checks CRC; outputs either rates, events (pulse heights), or both
Level 1C Data Files Containing Data for Individual Rates Polished, decompressed HIC packets
Rates Only Polished HIC packet Events Only Polished HIC packet
Texteditor to hand fix events only packets
Programs to perform rate averaging avrateRt.c rate_average.c ecal.c, zcal.c, and rngfun.c, wrcspni.c
Level 2 Data Realtime Average Rate Data Playback Average Rate Data Energy and Mass Data from pulse heights
Plotting Programs (IDL tools, Super Mongo) histo.c, livetime.c, flux.c, shell programs sh.shisto, shisto.ITEL
Level 3 Data Rate Plots Histograms Spectra
Archived to Planetary Data System

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Last Modified: Tuesday 3 June, 1997