FITSImageBrowser:
A Browser for Astronomical Images

This applet demonstrates a basic tool for the browsing FITS images.

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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.