RDGEN is a collection of routines for data handling, display, and adjusting, with a facility which helps to set up files for using with VPFIT (ascl:1408.015); it is included in the VPFIT distribution file. It is useful for setting region boundaries and initial guesses for VPFIT, for displaying the accumulated results, for examining by eye particular redshift systems and fits to them, testing that the error array is a true reflection of the rms scatter in the data, comparing spectra and generally examining and even modifying the data.

The VPFIT program fits multiple Voigt profiles (convolved with the instrument profiles) to spectroscopic data that is in FITS or an ASCII file. It requires CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001) and PGPLOT (ascl:1103.002); the tarball includes RDGEN (ascl:1408.017), which can be used with VPFIT to set up the fits, fit the profiles, and examine the result in interactive mode for setting up initial guesses; vpguess (ascl:1408.016) can also be used to set up an initial file.