The VIRMOS mask manufacturing tools: a) mask preparation software

摘要

VIMOS and NIRMOS are two multi Object Spectrographs being developed for theVLT. Their main scientific characteristic is the high multiplexing capability,allowing to obtain up to 800 spectra per exposure. To achieve such a highefficiency, a number of dedicated tools are necessary, from software tohardware. In part a), we describe the software tools which will be provided tosuccessful proponents to prepare observations. Paper b) will deal with thetechnical aspects of mask manufacturing