Infrared Imaging Data Reduction Software and Techniques

Developed to satisfy certain design requirements not met in existing packages (e.g., full weight map handling) and to optimize the software for large data sets (non-interactive tasks that are CPU and disk efficient), the InfraRed Data Reduction software package is a small ANSI C library of fast image processing routines for automated pipeline reduction of infrared (dithered) observations. The software includes stand-alone C programs for tasks such as running sky frame subtraction with object masking, image registration and co-addition with weight maps, dither offset measurement using cross-correlation, and object mask dilation. Although currently used for near-IR mosaic images, the modular software is concise and readily adaptable for reuse in other work. IRDR, available via anonymous ftp at ftp.ast.cam.ac.uk in pub/sabbey