[Spice_announce] Upcoming SPICE Training Class

[Charles H. Acton]

                             Advance Notice
                         SPICE Training Class
                               May 2007

NAIF is beginning to make plans for the next annual SPICE training 
class. This class will be intended for consumers of SPICE data, as 
opposed to producers of SPICE data, although producers could also 
find it useful. The class will interleave presentations of SPICE 
tutorials by the NAIF staff and "hands-on" programming lessons 
undertaken by the students using their own laptop computers. NAIF 
will provide the programming lessons, including problem statements, 
needed data, tips, and complete solutions. The programming lessons 
will be offered in four languages: ANSI FORTRAN 77, ANSI C, 
Interactive Data Language (IDL) and Matlab.

The exact dates have not yet been picked, but this should be done 
rather soon. The current target time frame is the week of May 14th 
2007. The class is likely to be about three days long. It will be 
held in a hotel in the Pasadena, California area.

The class will be open to all interested persons (both U.S. and 
foreign--no ITAR restrictions), but attendance could be restricted if 
interest exceeds what can be reasonably supported by the NAIF staff 
and the room size.

The class will be offered without charge, but attendees will be 
responsible for their own travel, lodging and related expenses, and 
must be able to bring a laptop computer with installed software 
needed to do the programming lessons. (The sharing of a computer 
between two or three colleagues, with teaming on the programming 
lessons, is allowed and even encouraged.)

Some familiarity with writing programs in one of the offered 
languages, and in building and running executables on the laptop 
brought by the student, is needed to make this class useful. It will 
also be helpful if the student has some prior experience in dealing 
"space mission observation geometry." (Technical management types 
might find the first half-day to be useful.)

A subsequent posting will provide the official class announcement and 
additional details. Advance registration will be required, as will be 
preparation of your computer for SPICE-based programming before 
coming to the class.