SIGA is a de novo assembler designed to assemble large genomes from high coverage short read data. It is designed as a modular set of programs, which are used to form an assembly pipeline. A description of the SIGA design is found here.

It is highly recommended that you run the 'preqc' module on your data prior to assembly. This module will give you information about the read quality and genome characteristics. See this page for more information.

The source directory contains examples of real assemblies using SIGA. You should read these scripts or (better) download the data for one of the smaller genomes (I recommend the C. elegans data set) and run the example yourself. This will help you get understand the SIGA pipeline so you can run the assembler effectively on your own data.

It is highly recommended that you read the SIGA FAQ page.

There is a mailing list for siga on google groups.