Next Previous Up Contents
Next: Usage
Up: Command Reference
Previous: Usage

## B.9 `mocshape`: Generates Multi-Order Coverage maps from shape values

`mocshape` takes a list of sky region and/or time interval descriptions from an input table and generates a Multi-Order Coverage map (MOC) that describes the union of their coverage on the sky and/or in time. It can generate Space, Time or Space-and-Time MOCs (SMOC, TMOC or STMOC), as determined by the `moctype` parameter.

It does a similar job to the older `pixfoot` command, but it can generate TMOC and STMOC as well as SMOC output, and it can cope with input shapes that are more general than just points or circles; it also understands polygons, STC-S strings and other MOC or UNIQ specifications. It is also implemented using some different and more flexible code. It offers more output options for the calculated MOC via the `mocfmt` parameter, and a choice of MOC construction implementations via the `mocimpl` parameter. In most cases you can ignore this flexibility, but performance characteristics may be different for the different choices, and it may be worthwhile to experiment when working with very large tables.

By default, `mocshape` uses multiple threads for better performance. In certain circumstances (large `order`, many cores, limited memory) this could lead to running out of memory. In this case, if adding more heap memory (`-Xmx<NN>G`) is not an option, then reducing the parallelism by adjusting the value of the `runner` parameter may help.

See also the Coverage class for MOC-related functions.

- B.9.1 Usage
- B.9.2 Examples

Next Previous Up Contents
Next: Usage
Up: Command Reference
Previous: Usage

STILTS - Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library Tool Set
Starlink User Note256
STILTS web page: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/
Author email: m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Mailing list: topcat-user@jiscmail.ac.uk