After untaring the ximgfit and xassist tar files in an appropriate location, add the ximgfit/ and xassist/scripts directories to your PATH system variable and be sure that LHEASOFT is initialized (and hence the LHEASOFT system variable is set) before running xassist (not necessary for just running ximgfit by itself). If you are only interested in source detection, ximgfit is not necessary.
There is now a Configure script that can be run (run it in the xassist/scripts directory) that creates tha ciao and xmm-sas setup scripts, modified xassist/scripts/xassist with the value of LHEASOFT to be used as a default in case the user forgets to set LHEASOFT before running XAssist, and copies the xspec tcl scripts to $HOME/.xspec.
If Configure didn't set up $HOME/.xspec properly, copy or link the tcl scripts found in xassist/xspec to your .xspec directory, e.g., if xassist is untarred into /opt,
cd /.xspec
ln -s /opt/xassist/xspec/* .
If you are running Solaris and don't have bash installed and in your PATH, rename the ximgfit.sol and xassist.sol files to ximgfit and xassist.
By default, (ASCA and ROSAT) data are downloaded from ftp://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov. If you would prefer a different location, then edit the
self.ftp_host = ``legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov''
line in xassist/scripts/xa_acquire.py
If the directory structure of your archive site is different from that of legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov, then the ``remote_path'' functions in xa_acquire.py will also need to be modified, which may require some knowledge of python (however it may be obvious enough how to do this based on the current examples).
Proper setup of LHEA CALDB is also necessary for complete ASCA and ROSAT PSPC functionality, most notably for event reprocessing and spectral analysis (but most other functions should work ok without it). This can be either a locally installed version, or (better for most users) a remote user setup as described at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/caldb/caldb_remote_access.html
For Chandra ACIS analysis, the file xassist/setup_ciao.sh must be set up to work with your local setup or the parameter ``CIAOSetupScript'' must be set to a script similar to xassist/setup_ciao.sh (see ``Configuration'' below on how to set parameters). The Configure script should have done this properly, but if necessary edit this file manually. Chandra data must be downloaded manually but there is a separate tool, cda.py, available at http://xassist.pha.jhu.edu for this.
Some early data Chandra data may have been distributed without bias files (*bias0.fits) and parameter block (*pbk0) files. If these files were downloaded separately, then set ACISBiasPath to point to the directory containing them. Otherwise set this parameter to ``''.
For XMM-Newton analysis, the CCFPATH parameter must be set to the location of where CCF file. The script setup_sas.sh must be set to the location of the XMMSAS distribution (again, currently this file is created by Configure). Default values are for these to be installed in /opt/CCF and /opt/xmmsas/v5.4.1, respectively.
If you want fluxes to be computed from count rates, the pimms executable must be in your PATH variable (note that fluxes are computed without pimms once the ``reassess'' stage of the processing is reached).