Description

The Data Quality Initialization step in the calibration pipeline populates the Data Quality mask for the input dataset. DQ flags from the appropriate static mask reference file in CRDS are copied into the PIXELDQ object of the input dataset, because it is assumed that flags in the mask reference file pertain to problem conditions that are group- and integration-independent.

The actual process consists of the following steps:

• Determine what mask reference file to use via the interface to the bestref utility in CRDS.
• If the PIXELDQ and GROUPDQ objects of the input dataset do not already exist, which is the case for raw Level-1b input products, create these objects in the input data model and initialize them to zero. The PIXELDQ array will be 2-D, with the same number of rows and columns as the input science data. The GROUPDQ array will be 4-D with the same dimensions (nints, ngroups, nrows, ncols) as the input science data array.
• Check to see if the input science data is in subarray mode. If so, extract a matching subarray from the full frame mask reference file.
• Copy the DQ flags from the reference file mask to the science data PIXELDQ array using numpy’s bitwise_or function.