Release Notes

Unreleased: first RASCIL-free release

These notes describe the current source tree after the v0.35.0 transitional release. They do not announce a published release or completion of the final release-validation checklist.

Removed

  • RASCIL simulation and imaging implementations, backend enum members, adapters, direct imager/cleaner classes, and transitional deprecation helpers.

  • The RASCIL dependency from the Conda environment and recipe, and RASCIL-only tests and examples. Legacy configuration strings now fail with migration guidance instead of selecting an implementation.

Supported workflows

  • Simulation through InterferometerSimulation with SDP or OSKAR.

  • Dirty, PSF, and CLEAN/restored imaging through get_imager with SDP or WSClean, including matching backend configuration passed through the factory.

  • Measurement Set I/O and FITS import without RASCIL; Karabo’s power-spectrum calculation retains its validated normalization and angular-scale convention.

  • Updated common-imaging and SDP line-emission notebooks, plus controlled scientific regression checks in place of retired RASCIL parity/golden tests.

Corrections and configuration

  • SDP channel images are preserved when the compatible-dirty-image helper is called with combine_across_frequencies=False.

  • SDP restoration passes fitted beam axes in degrees, fixing the extra division by 3600 that made the restoring beam too small.

  • WscleanBackendConfig.weighting accepts "natural" or "uniform". Its default remains None, preserving the executable’s weighting default.

  • python-casacore is explicit, and astropy>=5.1,<5.2 records the pinned SDP data-model compatibility requirement. The NumPy <2.0 bound remains.

The simulation default remains OSKAR; imaging defaults to SDP unless overridden by IMAGING_BACKEND. See Migrating from RASCIL for removed values, unit conversions, and supported replacements, and Backend Overview for the backend matrix.

Validation and follow-up

Fresh RASCIL-free installation and selected simulation, imaging, downstream, and notebook checks have passed during removal. The final broad clean-environment suite and external scientific user validation remain release gates.

NumPy 2, upgrades of the pinned scientific stack, and ARM64/HPC support are not claimed by this change. They require separately scoped implementation and validation after removal.