--- Version 2.02 released November 3, 2006 ---
Today you can run SkyView on your own machine! You can get
SkyView's capabilities without going through SkyView's Web site
with the new SkyView-in-a-Jar tool.
Just download one file, the SkyView JAR, to get started.
The SkyView JAR is executable so that you can use it immediately, e.g., try
java -jar skyview.jar survey=dss position=3c273
after you download the file. This should generate a file output.fits with the an image
of 3C273 from the Digitized Sky Survey. [It may also leave a few
other files that help speed up subsequent requests in the same region.
See caching in the user's guide.]
You will need a recent version of Java (called V1.5 or 5 depending upon
whether whether you are talking about the development environment or language)
or higher which is available for all major
platforms. For Linux, Windows and SPARC platforms you can find the latest release through
the Sun Java web pages . A
MacOS/X version and installation instructions
are also available.
This application supports most of the functionality of the SkyView Web pages
for generating files. It includes almost all of the surveys available through the web.
You can generate FITS and graphic images.
The program lets you treat your own files as surveys and you can add other surveys linking
tp external data you might be interested in.
It is especially easy to add a survey when the data is available through
the Virtual Observatory Simple Image Access protocol.
Features include:
- 58 surveys
- Grid overlays
- Catalogs from HEASARC, VizieR, NED and other VO sources
- ImageJ data visualization capabilities
- Outputs in FITS and several graphic image formats including JPEG, GIF, BMP and TIFF.
- New high order resamplers including Lanczos and Spline resampling which
retain more information when using well-sampled images.
- An efficient exact-area flux-conserving reampler replacing the extremely
cumbersome and bug-ridden triangular-decomposition sampler.
- Several de-edging algorithms to match image backgrounds when mosaics
are made from images with disparate backgrounds.
- Several ways of choosing the source image to sample.
- Multi-order samplers (using a low order sampler near image defects)
- Smaller memory footprint which enables very large images to be generated.
(Though you may need to become familiar with the
-Xmx option of the java command.)
; - Ability for users to easily add in their own surveys.
- Easy linking to datasets described by the Virtual Obsevatory Simple Image Access
protocol
- Extensible design that allows users to plug in their
own samplers, projections, coordinate systems, mosaickers, ... to deal with any special
requirements they might have.
- Users needn't share the limited resources
of the SkyView Web server. The program can run on many clients simultaneously.
- Java source files included in the JAR for users who wish to modify or extend
functionality.
Highlights of V2.02
- SDSS upgraded to DR5
- CopyWCS feature allows you to copy the desired geometry from an existing file.
- The new Border Image finder should obviate the need for the StrictGeometry keyword by
doing much better job of finding source images to use even for complex
situations with arbitrarily sized and oriented inputs.
- ScaledBorder and MaxExposure image finders give choices of how to
pick the best image,
A User's Guide is available in Word (v2.02)
and HTML (v2.0).
The JavaDocs for the Java classes are also available.
Please contact Tom McGlynn or
Laura McDonald if you have questions
or comments about this package.
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