[lsst-dm-stack-users] Pipeline and sensor routines

[Chris Walter]

Dear All,

After following this advice from Jim in another message to someone else on the list:

> As I said before, the documentation isn't great, but you'd be better off looking at the bin directory of the pipe_tasks package, rather than what's in pipe_base, and then following those to the docstrings of the Task classes they invoke (in pipe_tasks/python/...).

I think I now have an OK understanding of how the abstract base CmdLineTask and processImage classes etc are put together to make a commandline task like processCcd etc.  I have two quick questions I'm a bit unclear on:

- In trying to understand the software I read the two-year old "Scientists guide to the LSST applications software".  In that document all of the pipeline tasks are described through using a clipboard and running with "runStage" etc.  I still see that code in lsst::pex::harness.  Is that code used in a different context, an alternative way of handling things, or is it now deprecated?

- Before I write them myself I wanted to check that something like this doesn't already exist: I would like routines to determine, based on the pixel I am in etc, where I am physically located on a sensor chip (in mm or something in the reference frame of the sensor) along with constants describing the dimensions of the chip and possibly routines determining offsets from physical characteristics (like an edge).  Does anything like this already exist for the different camera descriptions?

Thanks for all the help,

-Chris