FITSImageBrowser:
A Browser for Astronomical Images
This applet demonstrates a basic tool for the browsing FITS images.
The applet comes up initially ready to access a 3D images cube of
hydrogen cyanide (HCN) gas from the expanding envelope of the evolved
star, IRC+10216. The third axis in the cube represents velocity; each
slice along this access shows gas moving away from us or toward us at
a different velecity. Pressing the "Load" button will cause the data
to be loaded and displayed. Other FITS images can be viewed, by
either selecting another image from the applets choice menu or by
entering the URL to a valid FITS file in the text field. (To edit the
text field, choose "Enter URL above" from the choice menu.)
A number of controls are available from the viewer's menu bar. These
include:
- "Data=>Slice...":
- pops up a window for selecting 2-d slices
from the cube; the slice can be parallel to
any side of the cube.
- "Data=>Range...":
- pops up the Transfer Function panel which
allows one to restrict the data value range
that gets mapped into viewable colors.
- "Data=>Palletts":
- pops up a choice of five color maps that can
be used to visualize the data
- "Data=>Metadata":
- pops up a zoom control window
- "Control=>Zoom":
- pops up a zoom control window
- "Control=>Selections":
- pops up a window for editing data selections
- "Control=>Free Position":
- this allows the positions associated with
fractional pixels to be displayed.
- "Control=>Position On Select":
- When this is turned off, the postions are
updated whenever the mouse moves over the
image. When turned on, the positions are
displayed only on the last selected voxel.