[Spice_announce] New NAIF Toolkit is Available

[Charles H. Acton]

                                  March 5 2008
                       Announcing the SPICE Version N62 Toolkit

Dear SPICE users--

The NAIF Team is pleased to announce the availability of the Version 
N62 generic SPICE Toolkit. You can find the Toolkit packages for the 
various programming "environments" supported by NAIF at the usual 
location on the NAIF server:

   http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/toolkit.html

Consistent with normal practice of NAIF, this Toolkit is backward 
compatible with previous Toolkits, meaning you should be able to 
re-link an application linked against an older Toolkit's libraries 
with the new N62 Toolkit libraries without problems. Nevertheless we 
suggest you be prudent and do a regression test before using the new 
executable.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that you carefully read the "whats.new" file 
available from the download area of the NAIF website and also 
included in each Toolkit. This comprehensive list of all additions 
identifies a number of changes and bug fixes that could affect your 
program's operation or its numeric results. It also describes a 
number of new high-level APIs (subroutines) that could be useful to 
you.

The major addition to SPICE in N62 is the first official release of 
"Mice"--the MATLAB interface to SPICE. Mice is available in four 
environments:

    Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C     / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
    Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C     / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
    PC           Linux         gCC         / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
    PC           Windows       MS Visual C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit


Also available as a new environment is:

    PC           Linux         Intel FORTRAN


Several new high-level routines have been added in this Toolkit. 
Support for new built-in ID-to-name mappings for a number of 
spacecraft and natural bodies have been added, and IDs for some of 
Jupiter's satellites have been revised consistent with changes made 
by the IAU.

Some new Icy interface modules are provided.

Permuted indexes are now provided for Icy and Mice, in addition to 
those for the FORTRAN and C Toolkits.

All Toolkit documents, including the source code headers, are now 
hyperlinked; this feature alone could make acquiring the N62 Toolkit 
worthwhile! The hyperlinked documentation is also available from the 
NAIF website.

The Toolkit software has been extensively tested by NAIF *ONLY* in 
the environments specifically called out on the NAIF web pages and in 
the "whats.new" file. Experience has shown that code that works under 
a particular platform/OS/compiler environment does not necessarily 
work under a similar environment. You are advised to contact NAIF if 
you are interested in porting the Toolkit to a non-supported 
environment; in such a case we may or may not be able to assist you.

NAIF encourages you to upgrade to the N62 Toolkit--this will give you 
new and better capabilities, better documentation, some (small) 
accuracy improvements, and easier access to important documentation. 
It will also make both your and our jobs easier if you run into 
problems for which you need help from NAIF.

If you do decide to download and install one of the N62 packages be 
sure to read the instructions provided in the "README" (text) file, 
and review the contents and organization of your new Toolkit in the 
"dscriptn.txt" file.

Feel free to forward this announcement to any of your colleagues who 
might be interested but who might not be signed up for SPICE 
announcements 
(http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/spice_announce).


                            Getting Help from NAIF

Please read the support information provided on the NAIF website at:

   http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/support.html


                            Rules on Use of SPICE

The rules pertinent to use of SPICE, including U.S. Export status, 
may be found at:

   http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/rules.html


                                Beyond N62

The NAIF Team's tentative plan for the subsequent Toolkit, N63, is to 
release it in the Fall 2008 time frame, with the major addition being 
the first official release of the geometric events finding subsystem 
now under development, an outline of which is provided in the SPICE 
tutorial named 45_event_finding_preview.

The following Toolkit, N64, would contain the first official release 
of the new shape modeling subsystem, an outline of which is contained 
in the SPICE tutorials named 44_shape_model_preview. Perhaps N64 
would be released about one year from now.

Caution: with a small team of four, and with flight project support, 
data archiving, and customer support taking priority, we cannot 
commit to these dates.


                                Questions?

Should you have any questions please contact NAIF manager Charles 
Acton or any member of the NAIF Team.