Welcome to the Multi-Catalogue Multi-Cone Search (MCMCS) application. This program is a "Download Manager" permitting the user to submit queries to distributed astronomical catalogues that have implemented the Simple Cone Search (SCS) protocol of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). You may submit multiple queries to a selection of these catalogues and will receive the results in VOTable format, one per catalogue and query. You can save the configured catalogue table and your search specification to your local hard disk, for later re-load. This saves you typing efforts. The tables are stored as character-separated (CSV) files.
Since the MCMCS download manager is written in pure Java, it should run on any working implementation of JavaTM 2 SDK, Standard Edition.Hardware
You need about 2 MByte of free disk space for the installation.Operating System
The MCMCS download manager runs on operating systems that support JavaTM 2 SDK, Standard Edition. Below is a list of platforms that the MCMCS application has been tested on.The MCMCS application is expected to run on the following additional platforms:
- Linux Red Hat version 9.0
- Microsoft Windows 2000 and ME
If you know about any other platform that MCMCS runs on, please let us know.
- Mac OS X 10.1.1 or later
- Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT4, and XP operating systems
- Open VMS 7.2-1 or later
- OS/2
- Solaris operating system (SPARC® Platform Edition), versions 7, 8 and 9
- Solaris operating system (X86 Platform Edition), version 9
- other Linux distributions
- other UNIX® platforms, such as HP-UX
Software
Some parts in the MCMCS Graphical User Interface, written in Swing, require at least version 1.4.x of the Java SDK.
Unzip the gavo_mcmcs-1.2.zip file,
and move the resulting folder to a convenient location.
The distribution contains an executable jar file. On most operating systems you should be able to start the MCMCS application by double-clickinggavo_mcmcs-1.2.jarstored in thelibfolder. On a MS Windows system you can also simply double-click onstartup.bat, stored in thebinfolder. You can always start MCMCS with the command
java -jar gavo_mcmcs-1.2.jar
This download manager is a kind of 'path-finder' application. It helps to gather experience with new technologies, while aiming at offering new functionality to the astronomical community. At this early stage of development, the software has some known limitations and/or known problems.Please let use know of any further problems you may run into. Suggestions and positive feedback are also welcome, of course.
- In order to keep the load on the catalogue servers manageable (and for internal coding reasons, too) the number of queries that can simultaneously submitted is limited. While we have successfully submitted multi-queries containing several tens of sky-locations, we discourage everyone to try using the MCMCS download manager for simultaneously submitting hundreds or even thousands of queries.
- Catalogue list and query specification files passed as arguments must contain a pipe-separated ("|") table.
- When opening or saving catalogue or query tables, the user has to specify the table's separator.
The main source of information beyond this 'readme' document is the on-line help accessible from within the MCMCS download manager. There is also a poster paper "Astronomical Catalogues - Simultaneous Querying and Matching" describing the original motivation and goals behind the MCMCS application. For up-to-date information about the MCMCS download manager, you may consult the GAVO Web site. API Documentation
If the GAVO Web site can't meet your needs, or in case of any problems, please send e-mail to support at g-vo.org.