Introduction
============

Level 2 and Level 3 :term:`Processing Element` produce higher-level data as processed by the :term:`OU`. They emulate the processing to produce idealized bypass data that can be used directly by OUs for debugging and optimization of their algorithms, independently from the prior OU algorithms. 

Currently, the only Level 2 :term:`Software Component` is TipsFast. It interacts with the SIM_Wrappers :term:`Software Component` in the same way as the Level 1 and Level Ext SC. All the input data are prepared by the SIM_Wrappers:

* Handling of the :ref:`WP-TU` (stars and galaxies)
* Extracting models from the :term:`Mission Data Base`

The SIM_Wrappers ingests input data products in different formats, depending on the targetted Level 2 SC:

* :ref:`SIMNisInputConfiguration` for TipsFast

For the output, the resulting spectra created by TipsFast are read and formated by the SIM_Wrappers, to produces OU-SIM official data products. Output data format is not defined yet.

**Currently TipsFast is deprecated.**