Source: PIAACMCsimul_GettingStarted.md in PIAACMCsimul/doc

1. Copy scripts to local directory

Create symbolic link to CLI in system or user path:

sudo ln -s /<srcdir>/bin/coffee /usr/local/bin/coffee

Create symbolic link to syncscripts into work directory:

cd <workdir>
ln -s /<srcdir>/src/PIAACMCsimul/scripts/syncscripts .

Import and setup scripts in work directory (run from <workdir>):

./syncscripts

Examples can be loaded in ./examples/ with:

./syncscripts -x

2. Configuration Setup

2.1. Setup from main script pre-defined configurations

Print help for top level script:

./runPIAACMCdesign -h

The quickest way to get started is to setup and modify one of the example design scripts provided:

./runPIAACMCdesign -e 0

This will configure all necessary files for a specific configuration. You can view parameters with :

./runPIAACMCdesign -l

If optimizing in APLC mode (no PIAA optics, type (after the -e command above):

./runPIAACMCdesign -a

2.2. Setup from example script

If examples are loaded, one of the example/setup_XXXX script can be copied in the working directory and executed to setup the corresponding configuration

3. Full Design

Design is done with the "-m" option. This command will execute all design steps from 0 to #step-1:

./runPIAACMCdesign -m <#step>

To run the full polychromatic design process:

./runPIAACMCdesign -m 200

Note that this may take a long time to run ... (days ?). The polychromatic design will:

Construct response to focal plane mask zones if it does not already exist. This step runs in tmux sessions, and will write a FPMresp...fits file
Execute a search for best solution.

4. Focal plane optimization

In the focal plane optimization mode, the search status appears in files:

tail -f piaacmcconf_i000/linoptval.txt
tail -f piaacmcconf_i000/mode13*.opt.txt

In the search mode, the code runs for a pre-determined amount of time. You can track progress in file timeused.txt. The first number is the search time elapsed, and the second number is the amount of total search time. To change / shorten the search time :

cat "3600" > searchtime.txt  # sets total search time to 1hr

You can also stop the search at anytime by:

touch piaacmcconf_i000/stoploop13.txt

5. Inspecting results

Modes 300 and 400-402 are used to evaluate solution performance:

./runPIAACMCdesign -m 300
         #         300  : compute polychromatic on-axis PSF -> psfi0.fits
         #         400  : evaluation, level 0 (on-axis PSF)
         #         401  : evaluation, level 1 (level0 + extended source with OPD errors)
         #         402  : evaluation, level 2 (level 1 + transmission curve)