The Simulation Tools Handbook contains documentation for the tools and resources for planning observations and analyzing WFI image data with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope maintained by the Roman Science Operations Center at STScI.

This article contains:

Simulation Tools Handbook Table of Contents

The Simulation Tools Handbook contains the following articles:

• Simulation Tools Quick Start Guide
• WebbPSF for Roman
  • Overview of WebbPSF
  • WebbPSF Tutorials
  • Caveats of using WebbPSF for Roman
• STIPS - Space Telescope Imaging Product Simulator
  • Overview of STIPS
  • STIPS Tutorials
  • Caveats of using STIPS for Roman
• Pandeia for Roman
  • Overview of Pandeia
  • Pandeia Tutorials
  • Caveats for using Pandeia for Roman
• Simulation Development Utilities
  • pySIAF for Roman
  • Synphot for Roman
• Future Development of Simulation Tools

The Simulation Tools Documentation Ecosystem

For most elements documented in the Simulation Tools Handbook there are three types of documentation:

1. The User's Guide presented in the Simulation Tools Handbook,
2. The Code Repository presented in Github, which also hosts example notebooks, and
3. Developer documentation in readthedocs that is updated as code is updated. 

Each of these forms of documentation provide insight into the functioning of the Simulation Tool.  The Table of the Status and Locations of Simulation Tools Documentation provides a succinct description of each tool and catalogs the various forms of documentation that exist for each tool.

Simulation Tool	Tool Description	Roman User's Guide	Code Repository	Developer Documentation
WebbPSF	generates PSF from optical models	WebbPSF for Roman in RDox	WebbPSF on Github	WebbPSF on readthedocs
STIPS	fast simulator of astronomical scenes for full frame Level 2 (L2) data products	STIPS in RDox	STIPS on Github	STIPS on readthedocs
RomanISim	data simulator of full frame Level 1 (L1) data products	Not yet released in RDox	RomanISim on Github	RomanISim on readthedocs
Pandeia	exposure time calculator; high precision, small area astronomical scenes	Pandeia for Roman in RDox		Pandeia on STScI Outerspace
Simulation Development Utilities:
pysiaf	transformation tool between instrument, observatory, and sky coordinates	pySIAF for Roman in RDox	pySIAF on GitHub	pySIAF on readthedocs
synphot	synthetic photometry for input astronomical object	stsynphot for Roman in RDox	stsynphot on GitHub	stsynphot on readthedocs

Software Versions Used in this Documentation

• This documentation is written for  WebbPSF version 1.2.1 (released on August 11, 2023).
• This documentation is written for STIPS version 2.1.0 (released on November 15, 2023).
• This documentation is written for  Pandeia version 3.1 (released on December 11, 2023).

For additional questions not answered in this article, please contact the Roman Help Desk at STScI.