June 11^th, 2001 APT Visit Planner Meeting at 3:00pm in N310

Jesse, Ron, Mark Fishman, Andy, Jeremy Jones, Chris, Karla, Rusty, Leslie

I've included my notes for the demo. Please pass on any additional points or corrections and I'll add them to the minutes.

• VOLT is the "Visual Observation Layout Tool".
• VOLT is designed to be an SEA plugin.
• VOLT is a prototype for coordinated observing across multiple observatories, but works fine for single observatories. Currently, it supports HST using Spike, FUSE using CGI scripts and Chandra using a java interface.
• VOLT can give advice on how to relax constraints to allow a visit to schedule.
• Scheduling constraints can be imported from proposal files such as RPS2 prop files for HST.
• Jeremy had a nice slide showing the major features in VOLT and the SEA Visit Planner

  [[[I'll see if I can get us access to such a feature list, either from the VOLT web site or from Jeremy]]]

• VOLT uses a free third-party package called JSolver which is a constraint manager which has richer capabilities than those in the SEA Visit Planner.
• The SEA folks are working on a Web interface to VOLT. Someone mentioned that the ETC is working on the same thing and that it might be good for the ETC group to exchange ideas with the SEA group.

  [[[Chris, can you pass this on to the ETC group.]]]

• VOLT is what the SEA Visit Planner would have become. But, VOLT became a separate project that has its emphasis on coordinated observing.
• Observations can be entered into VOLT via manual entry or imported from files.
• On each timeline, VOLT can show ranges of values for a constraint that will allow the visit to schedule.
• Access to the server (such as Spike for HST) is only needed if constraints are changed. Otherwise, JSolver is used to find scheduling solutions with the local data already generated from the server.
• Karla asked if different "scenarios" or scheduling solutions can be cached. That capability isn't there. But, you can save one solution and play around with scenarios while the saved one is visible. They are working on undo/redo capabilities.
• Relative constraints are handled locally with JSolver rather than using the observatory specific servers. This is mainly for performance reasons.
• Users can import arbitrary timelines indicating times of allowed and disallowed schedulability.
• A couple of wizards:
  • A duplication wizard allows the user to copy visits or groups of visits.
  • An apply wizard allows constraints to be applied to visits or groups a visits.

• JSolver is an integer based constraint mananger. It is hard to get arbitrary granularity. It will search every possible scenario depending on how the granularity is set. VOLT compromises at 1 hour.

  JSolver can only do "and" relationships between different timelines, but does not support "or".

  But, JSolver is free and is in Java.

• We can get a hold of the VOLT code for the asking and design documents.
• The SEA Visit Planner is good for rough drafts with relative constraints.
• WebSites for VOLT are:
  • Main Site:
    http://pioneer.gsfc.nasa.gov/public/volt
  • Software:
    http://pioneer.gsfc.nasa.gov/public/volt/Installer/install.htm

http://ra.stsci.edu/apst/apt/apt-visit-planner/

http://ra.stsci.edu/apst/apt/apt-visit-planner/