Fv 4.4 review

The fv software distribution ships with everything you need to run fv

License: BSD License File size: 4385K Developer: Fv Team

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The fv software distribution ships with everything you need to run fv. (i.e. you do not need Tcl/Tk already installed on your machine). fv currently runs on many Unix platforms, including Mac OSX/Darwin, SUN Solaris, Dec OSF, PC Linux and Mac Linux.

A Windows version is also available. fv 4.2 is currently not available for Mac users who are not running OS X, so we continue to offer fv 3.0 for those users. We hope to support fv 4.2 on older versions of the Mac OS in the near future.

Here are some key features of "Fv":
fv runs under most major operating systems: Unix/Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.
Basic fv functions -- open, display, plot data, sort, save, close -- can be accessed from simple TCL scripts. With the XPA package (available separately from SAO) for unix, fv can be controlled by other programs. On Mac OS, fv can be controlled with AppleScript. Sample programs written using XPA (C, Tcl, and Csh), Tcl, and AppleScript are included.
Added more XPA scripting command for controlling fv from external processes, including create (create an image or table file or extension), export (export hdu to a Fits file or a text file), opentool (open skyview, catalog, vizier or ftools dialog panel) and preference (set up FV preferences). See Scripting for more information.
Adding support for Cartesian projection.
Adding record capability for profile of FITS image.
Enhanced capabilities for printing and saving FITS image or plot, including the ability to preview the image before printing.
A row selection function was added to fv. User can select/deselect row(s) by clicking on the row index in the table with the mouse's left button (or clicking left button then right button to select row range). Row(s) also can be selected using selection condition and expression.
fv's plot, calculator, histogram and statistics tools now can perform on the selected rows.
Export command can export the selected rows and columns from a table to fits file or text file.
Delete command will now delete the selected rows and cols.
Add short cut on the selection panel to allow users access fv preference quickly.
Files can be opened (read-only) across the internet (http and ftp protocols). FTP sites can be browsed from the "Open File" dialog box.
The SkyView online database can be searched for images of and object lists for a region of the sky. Results are downloaded in FITS format which then can be plotted.
Filename completion eases browsing large directories and typing long names... type the first few letters of a filename and then hit TAB.
A summary window lists the contents and size of all the extensions in the FITS file. Entire extensions can be copied, cut, and pasted to/from the clipboard which can be saved to a new FITS file. New, empty FITS files can be created. Empty extensions of any of the 3 basic types -- image, ASCII table, and binary table -- can be appended to existing files.
Enhanced support for ds9 image display. User can choose to display images or plots using either DS9 or POW as the primary display tool.
Function buttons incorported to the File Summary window to provide short cuts to common operations: 'Hist' (displays a histogram image of 1 or 2 columns in a table), 'Plot' (plots table columns), 'Table All' and 'Table Select' (The first button displays all the columns in a table, whereas the second button allows the user to select which columns to display).
When displaying Hierarchical grouping tables, a new 'OPEN' button is available at the beginning of each row which can be used to open the corresponding group member file.
Can display and edit images that are compressed with the new FITS 'Tile Compression' algorithm.
FITS headers may be displayed in a scrolling text window. Keywords may be edited, inserted, or deleted, and an ASCII text listing of the header may be generated. Checksum keywords can be created or updated when a file is modified.
Selected columns in a FITS table may be viewed in a scrolling spreadsheet. The values in the table may be edited, and rows and columns may be inserted or deleted in the table. Tables can be sorted using multiple keys and rows with identical keys optionally deleted. Table rows can be selectively deleted using a boolean expression evaluated for each row. The contents of a table may be saved to an ASCII text file.
Line plots of one or more columns (or arithmetic expressions involving one or more columns) in a table may be generated and displayed in the POW widget. Data can be extracted from a subset of rows; each row of a vector column can be plotted as a separate curve. Individual columns or pairs of columns can be used to produce 1D or 2D histograms, respectively, and plotted in POW.
A spreadsheet calculator function allows you to create new columns by performing arithmetic on existing columns.
FITS images may be displayed with the usual pan, zoom, and color table manipulation facilities. Users may choose to use the SAOtng or DS9 image display tools (available separately from SAO), or the internal image display widget called POW that is supplied with fv. Double clicking an image displayed by POW will bring up a fv table of the image data with the clicked pixel highlighted.
FITS image data also may be displayed as a table, allowing individual pixels to be edited. Selected rows or columns can be averaged and their pixels plotted in a line graph. Image data can be smoothed using a boxcar filter.
On Unix machines with FTOOLS installed, one can select and execute an FTOOL from within fv.

What's New in This Release:
Column reordering has been added.
Column sorting has been enhanced.
Issues with specifying paths and printing contour maps under Windows have been fixed.
There is improved consistency in the handling of rotation angles.