skyviewer
This is an OpenGL based program to display HEALPix -based skymaps, saved in FITS format files. The loaded skymaps can be viewed either on a 3D sphere or as a Mollweide projection. In either case, realtime panning and zooming are supported, along with rotations for the 3D sphere view, assuming you have a strong enough graphics card.
- Features
- Requirements
- Download
- Compiling
- Usage
- Change Log
- To Do
- Credits
=> Features
- Realtime rotation, zooming and panning of map
- Choice of 3D sphere or 2D Mollweide projection
- Pixel Texture aligns with HealPix pixel boundries
- Select pixel and get information for the pixel
- Adjustable mapping from pixel value to color table range
- View Temperature, Polarization or NumObs field
- Save screen shots to image file
- Contextual Help
- OS agnostic
=> Requirements
- Qt <http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/index.html>, >= v3.1.2
- CFITSIO <http://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/fitsio.html>, A FITS File Subroutine Library, >= v2.440
- HEALPix <http://www.eso.org/science/healpix/>, >= v1.20
- libQGLViewer <http://artis.imag.fr/Members/Gilles.Debunne/QGLViewer/>, >= v1.3.8
Note: For HEALPix, I do not need the entire package, just the C library. So enter the directory /path/to/Healpix_1.20/src/C/subs/ and make and make install. This should be enough. Not to say the rest of the HEALPix package isn't worth building, just that is all I need.
=> Download
Source code:
http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/toolbox/skyviewer/skyviewer-0.2.2.tar.gz
=> Compiling
I have developed this on a Red Hat 9 system, but this should work with Windows and Mac OSX as well. At least all the above libraries claim to be able to be built on them. Let me know if you have any success.
Ungzip and untar the file in a convenient location, qmake and make:
tar xfz skyviewer-0.2.2.tar.gz
cd skyviewer-0.2.2/
qmake
make
If everything goes as it should, you should have the binary skyviewer.
Put it where you like to keep your binaries and enjoy looking at skymaps
in full 3D glory. Please email us with any successes or failures you
encounter: Suggestions
<http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/contact/contact.cfm>. We would be delighted
to hear of anyone's success in making builds under either Windows or Mac
OSX.
The documentation is here http://hires.gsfc.nasa.gov/~ngphillips/skyviewer/doc/ Can be generated from source via Doxygen (http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/index.html)
=> Usage
Using this program is straightforward. After starting, you are prompted to select a FITS to load. Once the map is loaded, use the mouse to rotate/pan/zoom and select display options from the buttons on the left. Use the Help, , and WhatsThis, , buttons for further help.
To select pixel, "Shift" + "Left-Mouse-Button". Information will appear on the left, under the "Sphere Resolution" button.
=> Change Log
Feb 22, 2005
- Release: 0.2.2
- Initial LAMBDA release
- Minor documentation fixes
Oct 6, 2004
- Release: 0.2.1
- "Reload" added
- Bugfix for identifying Polarization data
Sept 25, 2004
- version 0.2
- Texture "aligns" with HealPix pixel boundries I have changed the texturing code so the OpenGL texture now maps one-to-one with the underlying HealPix pixelization scheme. This means each HealPix pixel is now its own color-mapped pixel when displayed.
- For 3D Sphere mode, can select pixels and get information Now that each image pixel is a HealPix pixel, I can now map the cursor location to the corresponding map pixel. I use this to allow the selection of a pixel and then list the information of the pixel. Currently, this only works while in the 3D Sphere mode. To use, "Shift" + "Left-Mouse-Button".
- Reload for current map
Mar 30, 2004
- Initial public release: 0.1
=> To Do
Planning on adding:
- Overlay coordinate grid
- Load multiple files, one per tab
Please let us know what you think of this viewer, including suggestions for improvements and complaints over its use. This is a new project and we are by no means done.
Suggestions http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/contact/contact.cfm for Nicholas Phillips / Nicholas Phillips' Homepage http://hires.gsfc.nasa.gov/~ngphillips
Nicholas Phillips, phillips@friday.gsfc.nasa.gov
SSAI/NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt MD.
http://hires.gsfc.nasa.gov/~ngphillips