What is the ESO Data Processing System (EDPS)?
EDPS is the official graphical environment for data reduction of VLT data. All current and future instrument pipelines for VLT and ELT will be supported by EDPS. The development of the older EsoReflex environment with similar functionalities has stopped in 2018. Support for it is provided on a best effort basis.
EDPS automatically organises data from ESO instruments for pipeline processing and orchestrates the execution of the various pipeline recipes on them. It can be easily configured and executed via a graphical user interface, which offers visualisation of the results and re-execution of selected processing steps. A command line interface and direct access to its python budling-block functions are also available.
If you make use of EDPS for research that leads to a scientific publication, we request to reference Freudling, Zampieri, Coccato et al 2024, A&A 681, A93.
EDPS is the recommended environment for data reduction of VLT data. All future instrument pipelines for VLT and ELT will be supported by EDPS. Support for the older EsoReflex einvironment with simlar functionalities has stopped in 2018.
Installation
EDPS can be executed from a command line or with a GUI.To install the GUI, the following pre-requisite are necessary:
- Recent Firefox or Chrome browser, Python 3.11 or higher (but there are issues with Python 3.14).
- At least one ESO pipeline with EDPS workflow should be in your system.
To install the desired ESO pipelines, follow the instructions in the ESO pipelines pages.
NOTE: the apptainer installation method is currently not supported.
After the installation, the esorex command must be in the path. To test whether the installation was successful, type on a terminal:
$ esorex --recipes
A list of available recipes should appear.
Install graphviz, which hasto be included in the system path (definying aliases not enough):
$ sudo apt install graphviz (Debian, Ubuntu)
$ sudo dnf install graphviz (Fedora)(Optional) Install also fv and ds9, to be able to visualise output plots. To install them, follow the instructions in corresponding webpages.
You can test whether these three packages are installed and their path are correctly set by typing on a terminal:
$ fv -version
$ ds9 -version
Documentation
The EDPS GUI Quick Guide describes how to reduce data with the EDPS GUI. Tutorials for single instruments are also available, providing easy plug-and-play guidance tailored to each instrument (and mode).
A tutorial for executing EDPS from the command line is also available.
A tutorial on how to write EDPS workflows is also available. The general principles of workflow designs and workflow syntax are also described in Freudling, Zampieri, Coccato et al 2024, A&A 681, A93. We recommend users to first look at this paper.
Feedback
Please direct any and all feedback concerning installing or using EDPS to the EDPS support team.