WSClean version 3.6
===================

Released 2025-02-07

Summary:

Version 3.6 contains several new features, speed improvements and bugfixes: The result of 6 months of development.

WSClean has two important dependencies:

- WSClean now requires Casacore version 3.6 or newer. At the time of this release, casacore 3.6 is not shipped yet by the latest Ubuntu release, and it might therefore require manual compilation of Casacore.
- For imaging with beam models, WSClean 3.6 requires EveryBeam `version 0.6.0 <https://git.astron.nl/RD/EveryBeam/-/releases/v0.6.0>`_ or newer.

Full change list
----------------

* Add ``-no-solution-directions-check`` option, to support h5 solution files with more directions than those being imaged.
* Add ``-model-column`` option, which specifies the target column for predicted model data.
* Add ``-model-storage-manager`` option, which allows using Stokes I storage manager for predicted model data.
* Write facet-corrected primary beam model images, which makes sure that the result of imaging and prediction are consistent.
* Add ``-local-rms-strength`` option, for balancing the effect of local RMS.
* Add ``-asp`` option, which enables Radler's adaptive scale pixel algorithm.
* Set default nr of major iterations (``-nmiter`` option) to 12 instead of 20.
* Add ``-shared-facet-reads`` option, which avoids reading data multiple times when using parallel gridding with multiple facets.
* Various speed improvements in faceting mode, resulting from faster average correction calculations and gain applications.

Bug fixes and refactoring
-------------------------
* Support EveryBeam v0.7.x (besides v0.6.x).
* Enable C++20.
* Use newer XTensor library versions.
* Prefer to reorder when facetting.
* Fix a missing transpose in the average correction calculation.
* Explicitly initialize cfitsio to remove a race condition.
