PrepServer Documentation
From RHESSI Wiki
PrepServer Introduction
The PrepServer is a system that allows for remote pre-processing of solar data. Instead of performing the necessary computations on the local machine, a request for remote pre-processing is sent to the PrepServer, where the data is processed and sent back to the local machine. Thus, there is no need for a complete SSW installation on the local machine anymore; only the SSW gen tree must be installed.
This capability is beneficial if multi-wavelength and/or multi-instrument data is analyzed. The online data files for most instruments require special software and calibration data to provide fully corrected photon flux maps with all instrumental effects removed. This software may be available on SSW or not but it can be non-trivial for users outside the specific instrument teams to know how to set it up and use it correctly on their own computers. The advantage of the PrepServer is that all the necessary software is available on the remote server, and the user has only to send simple standard requests to use it for specific instruments.
There are currently three ways to use the PrepServer -
- In SolarSoftware IDL: The recommend tool to work with is show_synop as it allows for data searching, data pre-processing, and data visualization. For command-line users vso_prep is the more suitable choice. In both cases, there is no need to include instrument-specific software packages in your SSW library, nor are any calibration data needed.
- In Java: There is a Java PrepServer library that can be used to remotely pre-process data from within a Java application. See the documentation for the PreprocessorClientRequest.
- Other languages: There are currently no other clients available. However, the PrepServer service offers a Web-service Description Language (WSDL) file on Hesperia and Wilco. WSDL parsers are available for many different languages. Those parsers generate template files from the WSDL file that can be used for in a client implementation.
