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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: 3 Oct 1997 16:07:56 GMT
From: wmo at wansor.jpl.nasa.gov (Bill Owen)
Message-ID: <61358s$dth at netline.jpl.nasa.gov>
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech
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References: <34213B7F.15B6 at ast.cam.ac.uk> <DWELLS.97Sep26171353 at fits.cv.nrao.edu>
Subject: Re: WCS problems on Optical Telescopes.
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In article <DWELLS.97Sep26171353 at fits.cv.nrao.edu>, dwells at nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes:
> ... A Chebyshev polynomial is a sufficient representation of the pixel
> regularization map; the number of terms needed is essentially the same as
> the number of spline coefficients that would be needed for the same
> precision of representation. The Chebyshev expansion, which is orthogonal
> and has the equi-ripple property, can be converted to the equivalent
> conventional polynomial for interchange. I expect that the alternative FITS
> keyword notation which I mentioned in the BoF at Sonthofen will support up
> to 9999 polynomial coefficients per axis.

True, but it's not the only possible set of basis polynomials.  I use the
Legendre polynomials, because if the reference stars are uniformly distributed
the resulting model coefficients will be uncorrelated.

-- Bill Owen, wmo at wansor.jpl.nasa.gov


From owner-fitsbits  Sat Oct  4 09:04:24 1997
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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:55:37 -0600
From: David Alisch <dmalisch at hughes.cg.hac.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.91.970929204201.16986A-100000 at hughes.cg.hac.com>
Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company
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Subject: Looking for: FITS-->DICOM 3 image file converter
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Hi all

I was hoping I wouldn't have to bother anyone about this, but it seems 
that even with all the well-structured net-documentation by the FITS 
community, I still can't find what I'm looking for.

I need a small but robust (well, preferably) image conversion utility that
takes 16 bit FITS images and converts them directly to DICOM 3 format.  So
far I've only been able to find one utility that supports both these formats
(Imaging Control Center by GKR Computer Consulting), but I'm not sure if I
want to shell out $1K for functionality that we could probably develop here
locally for much less.  Image Magick would be great too but we need a utility
for the Windows95/NT platform.  Has ANYONE heard of an application that
sounds like it might fit the bill here for the above platform?  I'm sure 
I must be just looking in the wrong place. 

Any tips at all would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

------------------------------------------------------------------
David Alisch      dmalisch at hughes.cg.hac.com  |  Ph:  403/295-6648
Hughes Aircraft of Canada        Calgary, AB  |  Fax: 403/295-6676




From owner-fitsbits  Tue Oct  7 09:50:52 1997
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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 12:57:48 +0200
From: "Markus Jnsson" <markus at st.se>
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Subject: New (simple) FITS viewer for Windows
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Hi all!

An astronomy crazed friend of mine convinced me to add FITS support
to my shareware image viewer app called 'Image Eye'. I though this might
be a good place to announce it's availability. It is a small and fast,
multi-
format image viewer for Windows 95 and Windows NT.
If this sounds interesting, point your www browser at:
    http://hem.passagen.se/fmj/fmjsoft.html
Regarding the FITS support; it is quite simple. Any 2D FITS data are
displayed as a grayscale bitmap where the value range from minimum
data value to the maximum data value has been linearly stretched to
cover the entire range from black to white.

Best regards,

/ Markus J.





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Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 11:19:43 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Don Wells <dwells at nrao.edu>
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Subject: Re: WCS problems on Optical Telescopes.
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References: <34213B7F.15B6 at ast.cam.ac.uk>
	<DWELLS.97Sep26171353 at fits.cv.nrao.edu>
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"BO" == Bill Owen <wmo at wansor.jpl.nasa.gov> writes:

BO> In article <DWELLS.97Sep26171353 at fits.cv.nrao.edu>,
                dwells at nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes: 
>> ... A Chebyshev polynomial is a sufficient representation of the pixel
>> regularization map.. The Chebyshev expansion, which is orthogonal
>> and has the equi-ripple property, can be converted to the equivalent
>> conventional polynomial for interchange..

BO> True, but it's not the only possible set of basis polynomials.  I use the
BO> Legendre polynomials, because if the reference stars are uniformly
BO> distributed the resulting model coefficients will be uncorrelated.

Yes, the Legendre polynomials are better for astrometric numerical
mapping over rectangular fields than are conventional polynomials,
because the orthogonality property means that the correlation between
the coefficients in the least-squares regression approaches zero as
the number of reference stars approaches infinity. Of course, for any
finite number of reference stars, even if uniformly distributed, the
correlation is nonzero (but smaller than the correlations between
coefficients of the equivalent conventional polynomial). I have never
understood why many/most astrometrists persist in using conventional
polynomials in their numerical mapping regressions.

An interesting question is the (dis?)advantages of using Chebyshev
polynomials instead of Legendre polynomials in astrometric numerical
mapping of rectangular fields. Both sets of polynomials are
orthogonal, so both have the uncorrelated-coefficient property. I
prefer Chebyshev polynomials because I consider the form of their
error-of-fit (the Chebyshev equi-ripple/minimum-maximum-error
property) to be desirable in astrometric numerical mapping
applications.  Comments?

For circular fields there is no question about the ideal functions to
use: the Zernike polynomials are the only reasonable choice among sets
of polynomials which are orthogonal on the unit circle. Indeed, when
doing least-squares fits of radial distortion functions in optical
systems, such as telescopes with corrector lenses, I believe that we
should use the radial polynomials from the Zernike set instead of
conventional polynomials.

The choice of which polynomials to use for FITS _interchange_ is
independent of the choice of which to use for regressions. At
ADASS'97, when I suggested transmitting Chebyshev coefficients in FITS
headers, I immediately got a comment from the floor (from Rodney
Warren-Smith?)  saying that it would be better to use conventional
polynomials because many programmers will be confused/intimidated by
Chebyshev polynomials.  A least-squares fit using a set of orthogonal
polynomials (Legendre, Chebyshev, Zernike,..) can always be recast as
a conventional polynomial for FITS interchange purposes, with no loss
of accuracy. The use of conventional polynomials will be easier to
describe in FITS standards documents, and will leave all of us free to
make our own choices of numerical mapping functions for regressions.
-- 
  Donald C. Wells         Associate Scientist         dwells at nrao.edu
                    http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory                +1-804-296-0277
  520 Edgemont Road,   Charlottesville, Virginia       22903-2475 USA


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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: 29 Oct 1997 09:46 EDT
From: bschlesinger at ndadsb-f.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry M. Schlesinger)
Message-ID: <29OCT199709461725 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA
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Reply-To: fits at ndadsb-f.gsfc.nasa.gov
Subject: Sources of FITS Information
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Archive-name: astronomy/fits/info-sources
Last-modified: 1997/10/27


--------
		Sources of FITS Information 

Preface 	

This material on sources of Flexible Image Transport System (FITS)
information is posted and updated periodically by the FITS Support
Office at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).  It discusses
where general FITS information, including some answers to frequently
asked questions, can be found, and provides sources for detailed
information on FITS software and documentation. 

 -------

FITS Support Office

The FITS Support Office maintains a library of FITS information
accessible via http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_home.html or
ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/fits/.  The material available includes 

o	"Definition of FITS", a codification of FITS for the 
	NASA/Science Office of Standards and Technology (NOST),
	available in LaTeX, uncompressed PostScript, compressed 
	PostScript and (often) ASCII text

o	"A User's Guide to FITS", published by the FITS Support Office, 
	in LaTeX, uncompressed PostScript, and gzipped PostScript 

o	Revisions to version 1.0 of the "Definition of FITS" covering the
	specification of units, which were incorporated 
	into version 1.1 (text)

o	A current list of the extension type (structure) names
	registered with the International Astronomical Union FITS
	Working Group (IAUFWG) (text)

o	Rules for physical blocking on various media adopted by
	the IAUFWG (text)  

o	The proposal under consideration by the IAUFWG for a format
        providing for a four-digit year and both date and time for
        DATExxxx keyword values (text) 

In the same directory as fits_home.html and accessible from it 
are four files that contain an update and expansion of the
information that used to be in the FITS Basics and Information:

o	fits_intro.html: An overview of FITS

o	documents.html: A discussion of FITS documents  

o	software.html: A discussion of software packages that
	support FITS, including  FITS->image converters for
        various platforms, and a list of sample FITS files

o	info_sources.html: A discussion of on-line FITS resources

Links are provided to many of the documents, software, and network
locations listed. This FITS Support Office on-line material is
continually revised to reflect current FITS developments. 

There is also a hypertext version of the List of Registered Extensions. 

Links from the Web page and subdirectories of the ftp directory contain
	
o	Software developed by the FITS Support Office.  

o	Error test files: primary HDUs useful for testing the ability
	of software designed to read FITS files to cope with files that 
	have errors or are non-standard.  These files should be 
	downloaded in binary form.

Printed copies of the material in the FITS directory can be obtained
from the Coordinated Request and User Support Office (CRUSO):  

(Postal) Coordinated Request and User Support Office
         Code 633
	 National Space Science Data Center
	 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
	 Greenbelt MD 20771 USA

(Electronic mail) request at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov

(Telephone)  +1-301-286-6695 8:00 A. M. - 4:30 P.M. U. S. Eastern Time
(-0500 from the last Sunday in October through the first Saturday in
April; -0400 the remainder of the year) 
	When no one is available, messages can be left on voice mail. 
(FAX) +1-301-286-1635

-------

National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)

A FITS Archive can be found at URL http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/ or 
at ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits, located at NRAO.  This machine supports a
WAIS server named nrao-fits which has an index of all of the
FITS-related text files in the archive; the file nrao-fits.src is
available at 
ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/wais-sources/nrao-fits.src.  

Some of the more noteworthy materials in this archive are 

o	Text of any detailed proposals currently being discussed by 
	the FITS committees

o	Drafts of other formally proposed additions to the FITS
        standard and of potential future proposals 

o	A collection of documents on World Coordinate Systems, 
	including the current draft proposal

o	Conventions specific to particular projects or disciplines

o 	Software for various environments and Usenet postings about
	code 

o	Sample data and special test files designed to measure the
        ability of a FITS reader to handle a wide variety of FITS files

o	Archives of traffic on FITS-related newsgroups and exploders

A separate NRAO site, http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~bcotton/fitsview.html,
provides information on the FITSview family of software packages for
display of FITS images on Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, Apple
Macintosh, and Unix/X-Windows, with links to the software. It also links to
a number of sources of astronomical FITS images.                                                 

-------

HEASARC

The NASA/Goddard High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research
Center (HEASARC) Web server at 
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits.html and the anonymous
ftp access through ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_info/ provide FITS
material.  HEASARC has developed the FITSIO package of software routines
for easily reading and writing FITS files, with FORTRAN and C versions
available, portable to a wide variety of machines.  There are also the
FTOOLS collection of software tools, the VERIFITS FITS conformance
verifier, and the fv FITS file viewer and editor. HEASARC software is
available directly through
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/tech_res_software.html or
ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_info/software/ . 

The HEASARC server also provides information from the HEASARC FITS
Working Group, (HFWG) the internal legislative body on FITS-related
matters within the Office of Guest Investigator Programs (OGIP) at
NASA/GSFC, at 
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/ofwg/ofwg_intro.html or at
ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_info/ in the directories ofwg_minutes
and ofwg_recomm.  The HFWG has developed a number of FITS conventions
that are more specific than the requirements of the FITS standards.
Proposed conventions are publicized to the FITS community as a whole,
with the goal of collaborative development of a set of conventions
that will be accepted throughout the community as well as within
OGIP/HEASARC. 

-------

Direct questions about this posting to 
				Barry M. Schlesinger
				Coordinator,
				FITS Support Office

Electronic mail: fits at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
Telephone:       +1-301-286-2899		

The FITS Support Office is operated under the guidance of the
NASA/GSFC Astrophysics Data Facility.