2004 Q2M3 Summary
-----------------

Good bits:

The main part of the WFCAM data processing hardware has been purchased,
software installed, pipeline components tested and rack mounted in a single
standard 19" rack.  All 6 machines, the data ingest server, the data
product server and the 4 data porcessing machines are twin Xeon processor 
3GHz PCs each with a 3ware 1 Tbyte RAID array and 2 Gbytes of memory.  
They all have hot swappable fans, disks and twin redundant power supplies.
The master processing software (/usr and /home) on the data ingest server 
is mirrored on the data product server (via rsync) every 24 hours, as a 
backup and spare.

MSB design has progressed to a sensible (and acceptable) prototype solution 
for all the UKIDSS surveys.  The current set of MSB designs will be 
processable with relatively simple stacking algorithms ie. no resampling. 
This will mean that the nightly MSB processing can be implemented using 
only the standard pipeline components, as originally planned.

NCH, JPE and MJI gave presentations at the SPIE meeting in Glasgow. No new 
issues were raised at the meeting.  MJI had a productive discussion over 
lunch with Tim Naylor which among other things included VISTA UK user 
requirements.

We have filled the post recently advertised to work on VDFS development.
After receiving several promising applications (and several not so promising),
two candidates clearly stood out above the others, and were shortlisted
and interviewed.  Both were unambiguously acceptable for the job.  The
candidate from ESO was offered, and accepted, the advertised post, and will 
start working on VDFS-related issues from January next year.  

Good progress on stacking and mosaicing algorithm development and trialling
in conjunction with continuum subtraction software.  The pixellation
problem has been solved and the current weighting schemes give
realible and competitive results.

The stage 1 (and elements of stage II) PSF estimation software is making
good progress and now looks on track for release by the end of the year
as originally planned.


Not-so-good bits:

Lack of a decent set of engineering test data is holding up development in
several areas related to final progression of the standard pipeline
processing.

The related uncertainty in the detector and camera characteristics will
inevitably lead to a knock-on effect around commissioning time, when we
suspect most of the answers we need will have to be derived during
commissioning.