OFT: Open Source Flux Transport

Predictive Science Inc.

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OVERVIEW

Open-source Flux Transport (OFT) is a software suite for generating full-Sun magnetograms through acquiring & processing observational data, generating realistic convective flows, and running them through a surface flux transport (SFT) model.

OFT includes the data acquisition/mapping code MagMAP, the convective flow generation code ConFlow, and the surface flux transport code HipFT as submodules.

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HOW TO BUILD OFT

Check out the repository using git's recursive option:

git clone https://github.com/predsci/oft --recursive

If forgotten, initialize the submodules with:

git submodule update --init

When pulling updates, to ensure you get the submodule updates as well, use:

git pull --recurse-submodules

Once you have the OFT repository including submodules, follow the installation instructions within each submodule folder.

All executables/scripts need to be in your PATH for OFT to work.
For BASH, we have provided a script that can be sourced to do this:

. ./load_oft_env.sh

The script can also be used as a reference for making an equivalent script for other shells.

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HOW TO RUN OFT

First, make sure all OFT tools and scripts are in your PATH (see above).

OFT has three main components:

 - MagMAP:  Obtain, process, and map HMI magnetograms, and prepare them for data assimilation in HipFT  
 - ConFlow: Generate a sequence of convective flows for use in HipFT  
 - HipFT:   The flux transport model.  

Depending on the use case, using MagMAP and/or ConFlow can be optional (for example, when running HipFT without HMI data assimilation and/or without convective flows).

See the run instructions in each submodule for further information.

OFTSWA for Space Weather Applications (OFTSWA)

OFTSWA (bin/oftswa.py) is a flexible Python tool that links the various software components of OFT. It allows users to easily create ensembles of full-Sun magnetic field maps from start to finish, ready for ingestion into space weather models. A YAML-formatted text file is used to specify the requested details of the full OFT run including post-processing and re-binning of the maps. A default YAML file is included and used to allow user YAML files to be trimmed down for specific tasks.

A sample OFTSWA run including pre-computed MagMAP and Conflow datasets is provided in the zenodo package:

OFT Sample Run of Convective Flows and Data Assimilation

Documentation for OFTSWA is provided in doc/oftswa.

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