OPUS Update for January 2020 - Add All to Cart, New API Guide, and Much More

This month we are pleased to introduce a host of improvements, including:

• The ability to add all current results to the cart
• Thumbnails in the table view
• Improved handling of surface geometry target constraints
• A new API Guide and minor changes to the API itself
• Support for directly creating PDF files from the Help menu
• New search fields for HST STIS and Cassini
• A change to HST OPUS IDs

There's a lot to cover, so let's get started!

Add All Results to Cart

In addition to the current ways of adding a single observation to the cart (Ctrl+Click, the shopping cart icon in the gallery view / checkbox in the table view, or the Add to Cart menu option) or multiple observations to the cart (Shift+Click to select the start and end of the range or the Start Add Range menu option), it is now possible to add all of the observations in the current search results to the cart. This is useful if you have narrowed your search to just the observations you care about downloading. Note that there is a limit of 10,000 observations in the cart, so you must add search constraints to get your result set down below this number before attempting to add them.

There are two ways to add all of the current observations to the cart. The first is the Add all results to cart menu available on any thumbnail or table row; it doesn't matter which observation you use as they all do the same thing. The second is the shopping cart icon available at the left edge of the header of the table view. Both will ask for confirmation before performing the operation.

Thumbnails in the Table View

Rows in the table view now contain a small thumbnail to the right of the cart checkbox and menu. This thumbnail can be enlarged by simply hovering your mouse over it.

 

Improved Handling of Surface Geometry Constraints

Surface Geometry fields are available by selecting a Surface Geometry Target Name under the Surface Geometry Constraints category. Only one surface geometry target can be selected at a time. Now, when you change the surface geometry target, all of the search fields related to the previous target that you created will automatically switch to the new target while keeping their old search values. This is useful if, for example, you are looking for observations of a set of moons at a particular range of phase angles. Just choose your first target, set the phase angle range, and add all of those observations to your cart. Then change the target and the same phase angle range will automatically be used for the new target. Then you can add all of those observations to the cart as well.

In addition, when you change targets your list of selected metadata fields will automatically be updated. If you have any fields related to the current target, then when you change targets a new set of fields for the same metadata fill be added for the new target.

For example, let's start with high phase angle and high resolution images of Enceladus and select a few metadata fields:

Now let's change the target to Titan:

Note that when performing the search, all surface geometry targets other than the one selected have "--" as their result count. Normally a number is provided that tells you how many results will be available if you select the given option. However, in this case selecting an option actually changes other search fields, so such a number is much harder to compute and is confusing to interpret so it is not provided.

New API Guide and API Changes

OPUS provides a comprehensive API for third-party applications to search its database and retrieve information. The associated API Guide has been completely rewritten. It is now much more complete and easier to read. It is available under the Help menu or directly from https://tools.pds-rings.seti.org/opus/apiguide.pdf

The API itself has also undergone minor changes to make it more consistent. Most of these changes will not affect current users, and in many cases backwards compatibility is provided. Please refer to the API Guide for the most authoritative description of the API calls and the format of their return values.

Creation of PDF Files

Most documents available under the Help menu now allow you to create and download a PDF version. This PDF version is created live and is always up-to-date with the current version of OPUS.

New Search Fields for HST STIS and Cassini

There are two new search fields:

• STIS Optical Element under Hubble Mission Constraints gives the optical element (grating, mirror, or prism) used for an HST STIS observation. It is NULL for all other instruments.
• Cassini Original Target Name under Cassini Mission Constraints gives the original TARGET_NAME field supplied by the instrument teams. The meaning of this field varies by instrument and observation and should only be used by researchers familiar with these details. Normally, Intended Target Name gives a better representation of the actual primary target of the observation. OPUS creates Intended Target Name from a variety of sources to give the most useful results for most researchers.

Change to HST OPUS IDs

All HST OPUS IDs now include the full 9-character filename. This was done to make interaction with the MAST archive more seamless.

As always, we actively solicit all feedback, comments, and suggestions.