From owner-fitsbits Fri Sep 5 20:56:30 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA20168 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:56:30 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA20165 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:56:27 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id UAA21662 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:56:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA18757 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:57:15 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id NAA21246 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:57:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA04472; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:57:13 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 5 Sep 1997 13:15 EDT From: bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry M. Schlesinger) Message-ID: <5SEP199713150836 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!xfer.kren.nm.kr!newsfeed.kornet.nm.kr!nick.arc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov!bschlesinger Reply-To: fits at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Sources of FITS Information Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,sci.answers,news.answers Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk -------- 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://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/fits/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 is an update and expansion of the information that used to be in the FITS Basics and Information regularly posted to sci.astro.fits and sci.data.formats: o An overview of FITS o A discussion of FITS documents o A discussion of software packages that support FITS, including FITS <--> image converters for various platforms, and a list of sample FITS files o A discussion of on-line FITS resources Links are provided to many of the documents, software, and network locations listed. It continues to be 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. From owner-fitsbits Fri Sep 5 20:56:47 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA20173 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:56:47 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA20170 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:56:44 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id UAA21666 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:56:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA18972 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 14:54:57 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id OAA21300 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 14:54:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA06854; Fri, 5 Sep 1997 14:54:55 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Fri, 05 Sep 1997 14:40:34 -0400 From: Wayne Landsman Message-ID: <34105222.7F1A at mpb.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.ecrc.net!news.new-york.net!news.columbia.edu!osiris.giss.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!usenet Subject: IDL/FITS Web Page Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk A Web page describing the available options for analyzing FITS files with the commercial language IDL is now available at http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio.html Wayne Landsman landsman at mpb.gsfc.nasa.gov From owner-fitsbits Sun Sep 7 22:36:55 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA32183 for fitsbits-spinner; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:36:55 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA32180 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:36:52 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id WAA23804 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:36:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA26498 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 02:00:16 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id CAA23004 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 02:00:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA27817; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 02:00:14 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Sat, 06 Sep 1997 22:55:02 -0700 From: Mathew Gillespie Message-ID: <341241B6.537A at worldnet.att.net> Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!newsadm Reply-To: goldredger at postoffice.worldnet.att.net Subject: Fits files software? Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk I'm new to astronomy and want to know best software for viewing and study of fits files for astronomy courses. Is there some good shareware? From owner-fitsbits Mon Sep 8 11:16:35 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA02405 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:16:35 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA02402 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:16:31 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id LAA24393 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:16:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA02111 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:55:16 -0400 Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id JAA24293 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:55:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA04973 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:55:11 -0400 Received: from wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.50.20) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma004969; Mon Sep 8 09:55:10 1997 Received: from tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.127.109]) by wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.4) with SMTP id JAA12837; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:54:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA01163; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:54:36 -0400 Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:54:36 -0400 From: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Pence) Message-Id: <199709081354.JAA01163 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu, goldredger at postoffice.worldnet.att.net Subject: Re: Fits files software? Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk > From goldredger at worldnet.att.net Sun Sep 7 22:49:31 1997 > > I'm new to astronomy and want to know best software for viewing and > study of fits files for astronomy courses. Is there some good shareware? > Version 2.0 of the 'fv' interactive program for viewing, plotting, and editting FITS format images and tables is available via the web at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/fv.html This tool is being developed by the HEASARC at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. The next release of fv is planned for later this Fall and will have many new features, including better image display and plotting capabilities, the ability to sort FITS tables, and a calculator keypad that can perform spread-sheet type calculations on columns of a table. Fv currently runs on most Unix platforms. It will be ported to run on Windows 95/NT and Mac OS machines as soon as the necessary supporting Tcl/Tk libraries (mainly itcl3.0) become available, hopefully by the end of 1997. Bill Pence, on behalf of the fv developers. HEASARC, NASA/GSFC From owner-fitsbits Mon Sep 8 11:17:19 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA02421 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:17:19 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA02418 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:17:15 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id LAA24397 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:17:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA20708 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 17:20:56 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA04594 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 17:20:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA11220; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 17:20:53 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 18 Aug 1997 13:31:33 -0700 From: tjp at bottom.caltech.edu (Tim Pearson) Message-ID: <5tabf5$iqd at bottom.caltech.edu> Organization: Caltech Astronomy Department Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in5.uu.net!wnfeed!wnfeed!worldnet.att.net!205.252.116.205!howland.erols.net!infeed1.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!199.120.150.5!news.ridgecrest.ca.us!nntp-server.caltech.edu!bottom.caltech.edu!not-for-mail References: <33EF7781.1DC11185 at nrao.edu> <13AUG199709361040 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> <33F1DCA6.70 at nrao.edu> Subject: Re: Floating point NaN values as Keywords Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Personally, I think the correct thing to do, when the value to be associated with a FITS keyword is unknown, is to omit the keyword altogether. Well-written FITS readers must be prepared to cope with this eventuality anyway. I can see no advantage in writing an explicit "unknown" or "NaN" value, to recognize which readers would need to be upgraded. Tim Pearson (Caltech) -- Dr Timothy J. Pearson Astronomy Dept 105-24, Caltech, Pasadena, California 91125, USA Internet: tjp at astro.caltech.edu, http://astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/ Telephone: +1 626 395-4980 FAX: +1 626 568-9352 From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 9 13:33:42 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA08674 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:33:42 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA08671 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:33:39 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id NAA25944 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:33:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA08449 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:47:21 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA25878 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:47:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA07928; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:47:19 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 9 Sep 1997 11:46 EDT From: bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry M. Schlesinger) Message-ID: <9SEP199711462883 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!feta.direct.ca!newsfeed.direct.ca!novia!nick.arc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov!bschlesinger Subject: Revision/reorganization of FITS Support Office web site Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk The FITS Support Office World Wide Web pages have been extensively revised: o The former FITS Basics and Information has been split into four pages: - an introduction to FITS - documentation - software and sample data - on-line network resources o Some FITS Support Office documents and software (including the Standard and User's Guide) are now available directly from the home page as well as from the pages that are replacing Basics and Information. o The discussion on all topics has been expanded and brought up to date, in particular, there are new sections on the ESO eclipse and the CFA WCSTools packages. A copy of the current Basics and Information will be kept for some time to permit notification to those who have links to it, but it will not be updated. Maintaining only one form of the FITS information in the future -- the html pages -- will facilitate more frequent updates. The home page is, as before, at http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_home.html . The other pages mentioned above can be reached directly from the home page. Barry Schlesinger FITS Support Office GSFC/ADF From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 9 13:34:04 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA08683 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:34:04 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA08680 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:34:00 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id NAA25948 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:33:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA08450 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:47:22 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA25879 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:47:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA07929; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:47:19 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 9 Sep 1997 12:05 EDT From: bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry M. Schlesinger) Message-ID: <9SEP199712055291 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!feta.direct.ca!newsfeed.direct.ca!novia!nick.arc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov!bschlesinger Subject: Correct Web address for FITS Support Office Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk The home page is at http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/fits/fits_home.html ----------- which is where it has been before. Barry Schlesinger FITS Support Office GSFC/ADF From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 16 03:58:03 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA12709 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 03:58:03 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA12703 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 03:57:58 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id DAA04292 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 03:57:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA20653 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:55 -0400 Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id SAA29345 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA14626 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:48 -0400 Received: from wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.50.20) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma014624; Thu Sep 11 18:13:47 1997 Received: from tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.127.109]) by wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.4) with SMTP id SAA07521 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id SAA06063; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:20 -0400 Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:20 -0400 From: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Pence) Message-Id: <199709112213.SAA06063 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: New CFITSIO Release Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk New Release of CFITSIO 1.30 --------------------------- 11 Sept 1997 A new release of the CFITSIO C library for reading and writing FITS format data files is now available. The main new features in this release are: 1 FITS files may be read and written in memory (including shared memory and memory-mapped files). Since the I/O speed for files in memory is much faster than for magnetic disk files, this feature may improve the performance of I/O intensive tasks. 2 In a related development, CFITSIO can now read FITS files piped in on the 'stdin' stream and write them out to the 'stdout' stream. Simply specify the FITS file name as "-" when opening or creating the file to read from stdin or write to stdout, respectively. Using this mechanism to pass FITS files between processes via pipes instead of creating intermediate disk files may provide a simple means of speeding up processing pipelines. 3 Two new routines were added to read and write the keyword unit string, using a convention of enclosing the unit string in square brackets at the start of the keyword comment field, as in this example: VELOCITY= 66.5 / [km/s] radial velocity of object 4 Improved the support for null-valued keywords, i.e., keywords that have an 'equals sign' in column 9 but have a blank value field, as in this example: KEYWORD = / the value is undefined See the CFITSIO User's Guide for more details on these new features. CFITSIO is available from: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio or by anonymous ftp from: legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov in the /software/fitsio subdirectory. _________________________________________________________________________ William Pence HEASARC - High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center NASA/GSFC e-mail: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov phone: (301)286-4599 From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 17 03:25:43 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA17878 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 03:25:43 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA17875 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 03:25:40 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id DAA05696 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 03:25:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA15076 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 14:25:33 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id OAA04948 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 14:25:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA01826; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 14:25:30 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 10:52:34 -0800 From: "Frederic Taugwalder" Message-ID: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!131.103.1.102!iagnet.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!nntp-server.caltech.edu!news Subject: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Would it be possible to be able to retrieve the FITS documentation in Adobe Acrobat format in the near future ? As a user, I find this multiplatform format the more reliable for document exchange. It's not so simple from an Windows NT machine to retrieve and print them in postscript format. Fred From owner-fitsbits Mon Sep 22 03:43:32 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA13434 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 03:43:32 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA13431 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 03:43:29 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id DAA12418 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 03:43:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA25430 for ; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 10:36:13 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA07473 for ; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 10:36:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA08213; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 10:36:12 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 15:32:31 +0100 From: Peter Bunclark Message-ID: <34213B7F.15B6 at ast.cam.ac.uk> Organization: Royal Greenwich Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!fu-berlin.de!wuff.mayn.de!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!not-for-mail Subject: WCS problems on Optical Telescopes. Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk WCS on Optical Telescopes. WCS failed to mature into a standard at ADASS'97, and it seemed to me that despite optimism over the progress made, the consensus churned rather than converged. Since we're obviously not going to reach even a sub-optimal consensus in the short term, I feel we should discuss some of the issues that came out of discussion at ADASS. 1. the WCS draft proposal seems to consider all wavelengths except optical, or at least it is causing considerable difficulties applying it to optical imagery. 2. I was a little surprised to realize that at least a few people are expecting WCS to support high-accuracy astrometry, as opposed to arcsecond-type stuff for object id and map-presentation. There isn't enough power in the suggested transformations to do that. 3. Probably the worst case of everything is the Schmidt plate. To do `real' astrometry, for example to configure a fibre spectrograph, you must fit the distortions with a `rubber-mat' for example, which APM software does. Polynomials won't do because there are bends and wobbles on one side of the plate that are often uncorrelated with those on the other side; you need an unacceptably high-order polynomial to follow that kind of stuff; splines would be better. Much Schmidt-telescope imagery is now taken on film. You can get nearly as good results as glass, but your mapping function has to hack it. Our friends at ST tell us they have to use the correction matrix under the WCS proposal to do this kind of stuff; but it is clearly quite inelegant to use a transformation which was designed to regularize the image at the 0.1 pixel level to adjust it by 1-2 arcsec (15mu sampling is approx 1 pix per arcsec) which should be done in the projection stage. 4. The PC matrix wants you to put 1's on the diagonal and zeros elsewhere. This is hard to arrange for a ccd, and furthermore most optical instruments are mounted on rotators, and so can move to arbitrary angles from exposure to exposure; hence the PC matrix will have to have arbitrary values in the real world. Also, with long-slit spectroscopy one will want the spatial axis to be at an arbitrary PA. 5. There is an engineering issue with optical telescopes. The geometry of the detectors can change on shortish timescales, eg when you incorporate bigger and better chips; however, the geometry of the detector can be measured, and hence represented parametrically, to extremely high accuracy. On the other hand, the mapping of the focal plane to celestial coordinates will stay fixed for the lifetime of the telescope which is usually many decades, but can be somewhat imprecise; even worse is the zero-point if that is determined at the time of observation from the telescope encoders (of course it can be tweaked to higher accuracy offline). It would be illuminating to include a discussion of errors in the WCS document; ideally a solution could be found which separates out high-precision factors from those with observational error. The point of this is that I would like to separate the complete transformation of pixels to celestial coordinates into two stages: (1) transform pixels on the chip/plate to `engineering units', ie Cartesian meters at the focal-plane. You can imagine inscribing a pair of axes on the instrument mounting-plate to which these coordinates correspond. For a synthesis map this step could have unit scaling. Then step (2) is to transform linear measure in the focal plane to celestial coordinates. I believe a side-effect is to satisfy many people's requirements for multiple-WCS's in headers; for example, this would give the physical relationship between the members of a CCD mosaic to high accuracy, and would help greatly in stitching together mosaic images; whereas the transformation to celestial coordinates, which contains higher-order errors, is common to all the chips in the mosaic. When you do an instrument change, half the transformation remains valid, and the other well-defined section is specific to the alternate instrument. 6. I feel it would be more elegant to include a mapping which adds radial- distortion onto a classical tangent plane, even though arc+radial probably gives about the same result. 7. Can you imagine a WCS that describes the coordinates on an objective- prism plate? Peter. From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 23 02:53:16 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA18681 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:53:16 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA18678 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:53:12 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id CAA13844 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:53:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA16177 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 15:07:19 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA13252 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 15:07:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA05292; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 15:07:17 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 22 Sep 1997 18:17:22 GMT From: thompson at orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov (William Thompson) Message-ID: <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!128.230.129.112!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.dacom.co.kr!newsfeed.kornet.nm.kr!nick.arc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov!thompson References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Lucio Chiappetti writes: >On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Frederic Taugwalder wrote: >> Would it be possible to be able to retrieve the FITS documentation in Adobe >> Acrobat format in the near future ? > Please don't. > Or at least continue to supply good old Postscript as well. I think that supplying the FITS documentation would be very helpful to users, since for many platforms the PDF viewers are more capable than PostScript viewers, and since the PDF files are smaller than the PostScript files. However, I would agree with the statement that the PDF files should augment rather than supplant the PostScript files--not everyone has a PDF viewer, and there are still platforms that Adobe Acrobat does not run on. William Thompson From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 23 02:54:46 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA18696 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:54:46 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA18693 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:54:42 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id CAA13848 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:54:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA16395 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:06:37 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id QAA13337 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:06:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA08079; Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:06:35 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 15:37:51 -0400 From: Doug Mink Message-ID: <3426C90F.2B97 at cfa.harvard.edu> Organization: Harvard University University Information Systems Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in2.uu.net!144.212.100.12!news.mathworks.com!gatech!purdue!oitnews.harvard.edu!news References: <34213B7F.15B6 at ast.cam.ac.uk> Subject: Re: WCS problems on Optical Telescopes. Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Peter Bunclark wrote: > > WCS on Optical Telescopes. > > WCS failed to mature into a standard at ADASS'97, and it seemed to me > that despite optimism over the progress made, the consensus churned > rather than converged. ... > 6. I feel it would be more elegant to include a mapping which adds > radial distortion onto a classical tangent plane, even though > arc+radial probably gives about the same result. ... I have a program, IMWCS (http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools), which automatically fits a plane-tangent WCS to a FITS image, usually an optical telescope image. It has worked fine on single chip CCD images, but the vagaries of CCD mosaic astrometry are causing me to add a polynomial. I proposed to Don Wells and Eric Griesen that a tangent plane plus polynomial projection be added to Mark Calabretta's WCSLIB, and they said go ahead and propose it. I am going to add it to my own software first, to make sure it works, then more formally propose it to the keepers of the WCS (of which I am sort of a member). Lindsay Davis at NOAO is using a TAN plus polynomial projection to do astrometry with the NOAO mosaic and agrees that this is a good idea. I propose a TPN projection similar to the ARC plus polynomial (ZPN?) projection in the Calabretta library. I think that there could be consensus in the optical community about the importance of such a projection, and would like to hear from others who might be interested, especially those who weren't at ADASS. -Doug Mink Telesecope Data Center Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Cambridge Massachusetts USA From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 19:51:38 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA28442 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:51:38 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA28439 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:51:34 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id TAA16461 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:51:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA19391 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 04:32:38 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id EAA13912 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 04:32:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA03728; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 04:32:36 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 23 Sep 1997 07:47:15 GMT From: tim at lothar.as.arizona.edu (Tim Pickering) Message-ID: Organization: The University of Arizona Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in5.uu.net!fu-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!nntprelay.mathworks.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ennfs.eas.asu.edu!noao!CS.Arizona.EDU!news.Arizona.EDU!tim References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk On 22 Sep 1997 18:17:22 GMT, William Thompson wrote: > >I think that supplying the FITS documentation would be very helpful to users, >since for many platforms the PDF viewers are more capable than PostScript >viewers, and since the PDF files are smaller than the PostScript files. >However, I would agree with the statement that the PDF files should augment >rather than supplant the PostScript files--not everyone has a PDF viewer, and >there are still platforms that Adobe Acrobat does not run on. > >William Thompson adobe acrobat is not a necessary prerequisite for viewing PDF files. recent versions (>4.00) of aladdin ghostscript can understand PDF as well as postscript. the latest version can be found at ftp.cs.wisc.edu:/ghost/aladdin. i know that recent versions of (>3) ghostview fully support these PDF capabilities and i think that for unix machines ghostview 3 or newer is far superior to acroread as a PDF reader. tim -- Time is like fingers Gesturing for me to stop --- A Quake Haiku Why is the sun up? From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 19:55:35 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA28473 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:55:35 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA28470 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:55:32 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id TAA16474 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:55:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA21116 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:06:38 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA14474 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:06:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA20747; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:06:36 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 23 Sep 1997 15:26:37 GMT From: thompson at orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov (William Thompson) Message-ID: <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in4.uu.net!144.212.100.12!news.mathworks.com!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!128.158.254.10!news.msfc.nasa.gov!centauri.hq.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov!thompson References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk tim at lothar.as.arizona.edu (Tim Pickering) writes: >On 22 Sep 1997 18:17:22 GMT, William Thompson wrote: >> >>I think that supplying the FITS documentation would be very helpful to users, >>since for many platforms the PDF viewers are more capable than PostScript >>viewers, and since the PDF files are smaller than the PostScript files. >>However, I would agree with the statement that the PDF files should augment >>rather than supplant the PostScript files--not everyone has a PDF viewer, and >>there are still platforms that Adobe Acrobat does not run on. >> >>William Thompson >adobe acrobat is not a necessary prerequisite for viewing PDF files. >recent versions (>4.00) of aladdin ghostscript can understand PDF as >well as postscript. the latest version can be found at >ftp.cs.wisc.edu:/ghost/aladdin. i know that recent versions of (>3) >ghostview fully support these PDF capabilities and i think that for >unix machines ghostview 3 or newer is far superior to acroread as a >PDF reader. Thank you. I'm in the process of building the lastest version of Ghostscript now. (It doesn't appear to be for the fainthearted.) I've used xpdf myself in the past, which is fairly primitive. I've also recently installed acroread on those machines which are running Digital Unix (OSF/v4) although it doesn't run on our OSF/v3 machines. It seems that there are PDF files that acroread can handle which xpdf cannot. I still stand by my opinion, which I hope you share, that supplying the documentation in PDF format is a good idea, but that they should also continue to be supplied in PostScript format. Bill Thompson From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 19:56:08 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA28487 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:56:08 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA28483 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:56:04 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id TAA16478 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:56:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA21257 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:48:03 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA14518 for ; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:48:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA22096; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:48:01 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 23 Sep 1997 09:22:46 -0700 From: sla at ucolick.borg (Steve Allen) Message-ID: <608qcm$ign$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in1.uu.net!157.22.1.2!news.zocalo.net!news.ucsc.edu!not-for-mail References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk In article , Tim Pickering wrote: >adobe acrobat is not a necessary prerequisite for viewing PDF files. I concur that ghostview/ghostscript make a better viewer than the one from Adobe, but it is admittedly a matter of taste. I offer that it is only by virtue of the facts that PostScript and PDF are openly published standards and that viewers are available from more than one source which make them acceptable as formats for distributing FITS information. -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 sla at ucolick.borg Voice: +1 408 459 3046 FAX (don't): +1 408 454 9863 WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla PGP public keys: see WWW Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated. -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 sla at ucolick.borg Voice: +1 408 459 3046 FAX (don't): +1 408 454 9863 WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla PGP public keys: see WWW Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated. From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 19:58:30 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA28531 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:58:30 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA28528 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:58:26 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id TAA16491 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:58:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA24489 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 03:32:30 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id DAA15286 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 03:32:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA24168; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 03:32:28 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 24 Sep 1997 05:42:36 GMT From: tim at lothar.as.arizona.edu (Tim Pickering) Message-ID: Organization: The University of Arizona Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!128.230.129.112!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ennfs.eas.asu.edu!noao!CS.Arizona.EDU!news.Arizona.EDU!tim References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <608qcm$ign$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk On 23 Sep 1997 09:22:46 -0700, Steve Allen wrote: >In article , >Tim Pickering wrote: >>adobe acrobat is not a necessary prerequisite for viewing PDF files. > >I concur that ghostview/ghostscript make a better viewer than the one >from Adobe, but it is admittedly a matter of taste. acroread for win95/nt is pretty decent, but i find acroread for solaris and linux really painful to use. it's really slow to redraw (especially with font smoothing on) even on ultras and P6's whereas gv is fine on a 486. but i digress... >I offer that it is only by virtue of the facts that PostScript and PDF >are openly published standards and that viewers are available from >more than one source which make them acceptable as formats for >distributing FITS information. agreed. PDF is nice, but is not yet as firmly established as postscript so it's too early to switch over to it entirely. tim -- Time is like fingers Gesturing for me to stop --- A Quake Haiku Why is the sun up? From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 19:59:40 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA28557 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:59:40 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA28552 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:59:36 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id TAA16495 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 19:59:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA25320 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 06:07:10 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id GAA15570 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 06:07:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA29916; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 06:07:06 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:29:07 +0200 From: Lucio Chiappetti Message-ID: Organization: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!news-relay.ncren.net!gatech!howland.erols.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!eerie.fr!jussieu.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!newsserver.cilea.it!leonardo.area.mi.cnr.it!poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it!lucio References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Frederic Taugwalder wrote: > Would it be possible to be able to retrieve the FITS documentation in Adobe > Acrobat format in the near future ? Please don't. Or at least continue to supply good old Postscript as well. I would not encourage this proliferation of formats. > As a user, I find this multiplatform format the more reliable for document > exchange. It's not so simple from an Windows NT machine to retrieve and > print them in postscript format. As a Unix user, I definitely prefer Postscript, which I can lpr directly, and preview with a previewer bundled with my OS, without the need of installing a new viewer every other day. (BTW, our institute's NT server has a Ghostview previewer installed, I do not know if it came bundled or was installed by the administrator). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lucio Chiappetti - IFCTR/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fuscim donca de Miragn E tornem a sta scio' in Bregn Che i fachign e i cortesagn Magl' insema no stagn begn Drizza la', compa' Tapogn (Rabisch, II 41, 96-99) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more info : http://www.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 20:00:54 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA28584 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:00:54 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA28581 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:00:51 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id UAA16504 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:00:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA25886 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 08:47:40 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id IAA15697 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 08:47:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA02788; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 08:47:23 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 24 Sep 1997 13:15:40 +0100 From: Clive Page Message-ID: <60b09c$efo at owl.le.ac.uk> Organization: University of Leicester, UK Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!128.230.129.112!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!nntp2.news.xara.net!xara.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!server4.netnews.ja.net!bris.ac.uk!warwick!leicester!leicester!not-for-mail References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk In article <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov>, William Thompson wrote: > >I still stand by my opinion, which I hope you share, that supplying the >documentation in PDF format is a good idea, but that they should also continue >to be supplied in PostScript format. > I'm afraid that I agree with Lucio Chiapetti and others who don't like Adobe Acrobat. I get an increasing number of documents in this format and find them a real pain. On our Unix systems here we now have to keep two different versions of the Acroread program, because some .PDF files can be read on one and not the other, and vice-versa, and I also find that some documents can be read on my screen but not printed out. Presumably there is some non-upwards-compatibility in the Acrobat format, but I have no idea what it is and no idea in advance which incoming files require which version of the reader. As far as I know, the Acrobat format is proprietary and non-published. I very much hope that astronomers will stick to using formats which are easy to use and in the public domain, even if this means the files are a little larger. -- -- Clive Page, Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester. From owner-fitsbits Wed Sep 24 20:06:33 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA28649 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:06:33 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA28646 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:06:29 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id UAA16514 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:06:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA27012 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 13:27:52 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id NAA16011 for ; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 13:27:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA13318; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 13:27:50 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 24 Sep 1997 10:17:46 -0700 From: sla at ucolick.borg (Steve Allen) Message-ID: <60bhvq$kms$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!128.230.129.112!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!oleane!news.zocalo.net!news.ucsc.edu!not-for-mail References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <60b09c$efo at owl.le.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk In article <60b09c$efo at owl.le.ac.uk>, Clive Page wrote: >As far as I know, the Acrobat format is proprietary and non-published. No. PDF is openly documented, else Peter Deutsch would have difficulty implementing it in ghostscript. See the Addison-Wesley page at http://www.aw.com/devpress/series/adobe.html -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 sla at ucolick.borg Voice: +1 408 459 3046 FAX (don't): +1 408 454 9863 WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla PGP public keys: see WWW Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated. From owner-fitsbits Thu Sep 25 13:08:55 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA32713 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:08:55 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA32710 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:08:51 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id NAA17960 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:08:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA20653 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:55 -0400 Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id SAA29345 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA14626 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:48 -0400 Received: from wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.50.20) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma014624; Thu Sep 11 18:13:47 1997 Received: from tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.127.109]) by wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.4) with SMTP id SAA07521 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id SAA06063; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:20 -0400 Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:13:20 -0400 From: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Pence) Message-Id: <199709112213.SAA06063 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: New CFITSIO Release Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk New Release of CFITSIO 1.30 --------------------------- 11 Sept 1997 A new release of the CFITSIO C library for reading and writing FITS format data files is now available. The main new features in this release are: 1 FITS files may be read and written in memory (including shared memory and memory-mapped files). Since the I/O speed for files in memory is much faster than for magnetic disk files, this feature may improve the performance of I/O intensive tasks. 2 In a related development, CFITSIO can now read FITS files piped in on the 'stdin' stream and write them out to the 'stdout' stream. Simply specify the FITS file name as "-" when opening or creating the file to read from stdin or write to stdout, respectively. Using this mechanism to pass FITS files between processes via pipes instead of creating intermediate disk files may provide a simple means of speeding up processing pipelines. 3 Two new routines were added to read and write the keyword unit string, using a convention of enclosing the unit string in square brackets at the start of the keyword comment field, as in this example: VELOCITY= 66.5 / [km/s] radial velocity of object 4 Improved the support for null-valued keywords, i.e., keywords that have an 'equals sign' in column 9 but have a blank value field, as in this example: KEYWORD = / the value is undefined See the CFITSIO User's Guide for more details on these new features. CFITSIO is available from: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio or by anonymous ftp from: legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov in the /software/fitsio subdirectory. _________________________________________________________________________ William Pence HEASARC - High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center NASA/GSFC e-mail: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov phone: (301)286-4599 From owner-fitsbits Thu Sep 25 13:15:41 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA32747 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:15:41 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA32744 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:15:37 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id NAA17965 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:15:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA32459 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 12:07:43 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA17905 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 12:07:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA31511; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 12:07:41 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 16:16:53 +0200 From: Lucio Chiappetti Message-ID: Organization: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in5.uu.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!128.230.129.106!news.maxwell.syr.edu!eerie.fr!cnusc.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!newsserver.cilea.it!leonardo.area.mi.cnr.it!poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it!lucio References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <60b09c$efo at owl.le.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk I enclose some results of a query to comp.lang.postscript I had a while ago (we were considering use of pdf vs postscript for documentation within a multi-institute project. We ended up sticking to ms-word and postscript) From daemon Fri Mar 28 16:06:33 1997 Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:04:09 -0500 From: pd at world.std.com (Peter F Davis) Message-Id: Posted-To: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Q: Postscript and PDF [This message has also been posted.] On Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:20:53 +0100, Lucio Chiappetti wrote: > - what would be the advantages and disadvantages of using PDF compared > with postscript ? PDF can be thought of as a dialect of PostScript. It was developed to use the PostScript imaging model, but to define a subset of the language which could be easily parsed and understood by applications without requiring a full-blown PostScript interpreter. Not everyone can read/print PostScript files. It requires either a PostScript printer or some kind of interpreter/viewer/printer software such as Ghostscript. PDF, on the other hand, can be viewed and printed with a free utility which can be downloaded from Adobe's Web site. This is available for Macs, Windows, and (I believe) many flavors of Unix. > - what are the implication in terms of word processors (as far as I know > MS Word or Latex can't produce it ; otherwise said, how is it > generated?) Some word processors are able to generate PDF. In other cases, a separate utility is needed. Adobe has Acrobat Distiller, which is a commercial utility. I believe Aladdin Ghostscript (freeware) can also do this, but it takes a little effort to set it up and make it work. If all the readers of your documents are also producers, there may be no advantage to PDF, since you need PostScript capable utilities to produce it anyway. PDF wins in a situation where you have a few authors, who can be equipped with the appropriate utilities so that a large number of people can read the documents with freely available software. > - what are the implications in terms of printing ? does one need to convert > to postscript to print it on the current printers ? The Acrobat viewer can print PDF documents. -- Peter Davis http://world.std.com/~pd "If you can't behave yourself, who can you behave?" From daemon Fri Mar 28 17:25:59 1997 Subject: Re: Q: Postscript and PDF Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Organization: Chebucto Community Net Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 12:22:22 -0400 In article you wrote: : Please reply also by e-mail since I won't be reading news during coming Easter : holidays ! : - what would be the advantages and disadvantages of using PDF compared : with postscript ? PDF was designed to overcome portability problems of PostScript. It is much more tightly controlled, and also has some features that make viewing more efficient (a table of offsets so the browser can jump to a page quickly). The files are binary, so a bit more care is needed in sending them around. If you aren't having problems with PS files, PDF is not so important. The Adobe viewers are pretty good on the platforms that support them, on other platforms (OS/2 2.1, some flavors of unix) you use ghostview or one of several other viewers. : - what are the implication in terms of word processors (as far as I know : MS Word or Latex can't produce it ; otherwise said, how is it generated ?) There is a new tex that can write PDF directly, or dvi. Currently it only handles PNG graphics, but people are working to support EPS and other formats. Once this is working there will really be no reason for many people to continue using .dvi files at all with TeX. The other problems are the lack of suitable fonts (e.g., type 1 ec fonts) for some people and tools to replace dvicopy, etc. for reordering pages, etc. Adobe Distiller is the mainstream way, and it can be used with dvips if you get type 1 fonts. There is a pdfwrite device in ghostscript, but it only supoprts the base Adobe fonts, and converts others to bitmaps or outline paths. Actually, it works quite well for docs that have only a little math if you use Times-Romand for the text font. I have used it for a number of texinfo manuals, and the results were quite useful. With Word, you can install a printer drive that creates PS (part of the Adobe distiller package). Many people have reported that some documents are converted to a raster format, which is also a problem with the PS driver. Maybe this has been fixed on the Win32 versions. : - what are the implications in terms of printing ? does one need to convert : to postscript to print it on the current printers ? You generally print from the viewer, which adds a header and strips some unwanted info. -- George White From: Uri Blumenthal Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Q: Postscript and PDF Date: 30 Mar 1997 15:25:09 -0500 Xref: leonardo.area.mi.cnr.it comp.lang.postscript:7278 >>>>> "Peter" == Peter Davis writes: >> - what would be the advantages and disadvantages of using PDF >> compared with postscript ? Peter> PDF can be thought of as a dialect of PostScript. It was Peter> developed to use the PostScript imaging model, but to Peter> define a subset of the language which could be easily Peter> parsed and understood by applications without requiring a Peter> full-blown PostScript interpreter. Yes. That was [is?] the intention. But the rest of the stuff you got exactly backward, I think. Peter> Not everyone can read/print PostScript files.......... Peter> PDF, on the other hand, can be viewed and printed with a Peter> free utility............... Not everyone can read/print PDF, as there's no printer capable of dealing with PDF directly and you have to have special software to do the viewing and conversion. The most widely known viewers are: Adobe AcroRead (available for several platforms free), Aladdin Ghostscript (free, runs on practically any platform) and xpdf (still somewhat buggy, especially wrt. PDF-1.2). Now to print PDF - well, that's the problem, since no printer undertstands it yet. AcroRead will convert it to Postscript for you though. At *this* time, there is no well-established way to WRITE PDF. One can use Ghostscript to convert Postscript to PDF, but the quality of the resulting PDF file is not great.Or one can buy Adobe Acrobat (or Exchange or whatever the correct name is - sorry I don't recall, nor do I really care) for (if my memory serves me) $295. On the other hand, anybody can read/print/write Postscript, as there's lots of freely available software to do so plus many printers on the market can print Postscript files directly - user just needs to send that file to the printer, and - unlike PDF - it will end up on the paper. ...........[AcroRead from Adobe]............. Peter> This is available for Macs, Windows, and (I believe) many Peter> flavors of Unix. Yeah, while Postscript software is available for Macs, MS DOS, Windows, practically all Unix flavors, VMS, and most of the laser printers. Peter> Some word processors are able to generate PDF. In other Peter> cases, a separate utility is needed. While practically all the word processors are able to generate Postscript; Postscript driver is included in the Windows and Macs were Postscript-based since ages. Peter> If all the readers of your documents are also producers, Peter> there may be no advantage to PDF, since you need PostScript Peter> capable utilities to produce it anyway. Again, not really. There is at least one project (pdftex) that produces PDF directly. However, today indeed, in order to get PDF you would have to produce Postscript first. Peter> PDF wins in a Peter> situation where you have a few authors, who can be equipped Peter> with the appropriate utilities so that a large number of Peter> people can read the documents with freely available Peter> software. Definitely not true. Because even more widely available free software allows viewing and printing Postscript, and most likely your large number of people *already has* that Postscript-reading software (unlike PDF, mind you!). >> - what are the implications in terms of printing ? does one >> need to convert to postscript to print it on the current >> printers ? Of course! [Or, if the printer does not understand Postscript, like several cheaper models nowadays, you would have to convert your Postscript to the printer native language.] Peter> The Acrobat viewer can print PDF documents. Oh yeah? The Acrobat viewer can convert PDF file to Postscript and spool it to the printer. Now - if your printer understands Postscript, all good and well. Otherwise - you guessed it. From owner-fitsbits Thu Sep 25 15:34:44 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA00602 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:34:44 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00599 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:34:41 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id PAA18256 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:34:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00571 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:31:08 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA18246 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:31:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA06537; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:31:06 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 25 Sep 1997 18:52:45 GMT From: seaman at noao.edu (Rob Seaman) Message-ID: <60ebtt$raj$1 at noao.tuc.noao.edu> Organization: National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ, USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in5.uu.net!news-hh.maz.net!news-fra.maz.net!newsfeed.ecrc.net!4.1.16.34.MISMATCH!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cs.utexas.edu!ennfs.eas.asu.edu!noao!seaman References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Lucio Chiappetti writes: > I enclose some results of a query to comp.lang.postscript I had a while ago > (we were considering use of pdf vs postscript for documentation within a > multi-institute project. We ended up sticking to ms-word and postscript) [various comments from various people - it wasn't always obvious who] >> One can use Ghostscript to convert Postscript to PDF, but the quality >> of the resulting PDF file is not great.Or one can buy Adobe Acrobat >> (or Exchange or whatever the correct name is - sorry I don't recall, >> nor do I really care) for (if my memory serves me) $295. In the U.S., educational pricing for the Adobe package (for the Mac/PC anyway) is around $40. They've also released their OCR update - this supports converting a PostScript bitmap back into ascii, for instance. The various Adobe PDF tools do offer very good control over fonts and embedded graphics, that your typical word processing package won't. It's also easy to print to a PDF pseudo-printer from any application that would support a PostScript printer. >> On the other hand, anybody can read/print/write Postscript, as there's >> lots of freely available software to do so plus many printers on the >> market can print Postscript files directly - user just needs to send >> that file to the printer, and - unlike PDF - it will end up on the paper. Well, this is ideally true, but there are plenty of PostScript files out there that are not straightforward to print - typically due to missing fonts or a missing platform dependent preamble. A growing niche in the graphics community is for "pre-flight" software to verify that a particular print job will complete as intended. Also, capable PostScript viewers are still not really very widespread. >> The Acrobat viewer can convert PDF file to Postscript and spool >> it to the printer. Now - if your printer understands Postscript, >> all good and well. Otherwise - you guessed it. I've had no problem printing to a non-PostScript Mac inkjet from Acrobat. It seems silly to cast this as a PostScript versus PDF argument, since the same company (Adobe) developed both. Suitably crafted PostScript is preferable for printing. PDF is preferable for viewing - nobody has mentioned the embedded links and other indexing options, for instance. Changing display resolutions seems quick and simple with Acrobat, but not with the PostScript viewers I've seen. Acrobat also is available as a web browser plug-in. The real debate should be PDF versus html for online documentation. Rob -- seaman at noao.edu, http://iraf.noao.edu/~seaman NOAO, 950 N Cherry Ave, Tucson AZ 85719, 520-318-8248 PGP: 98 8D 8B 49 74 9A 41 88 3A 43 87 54 51 BF 30 4B From owner-fitsbits Thu Sep 25 15:46:13 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA00663 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:46:13 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00659 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:46:10 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id PAA18283 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:46:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00645 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:44:55 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA18269 for ; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:44:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA06979; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:44:53 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 24 Sep 1997 05:42:36 GMT From: tim at lothar.as.arizona.edu (Tim Pickering) Message-ID: Organization: The University of Arizona Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in1.uu.net!news2.epix.net!cdc2.cdc.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.snip.net!op.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter0!news.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cs.utexas.edu!ennfs.eas.asu.edu!noao!CS.Arizona.EDU!news.Arizona.EDU!tim References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <608qcm$ign$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk On 23 Sep 1997 09:22:46 -0700, Steve Allen wrote: >In article , >Tim Pickering wrote: >>adobe acrobat is not a necessary prerequisite for viewing PDF files. > >I concur that ghostview/ghostscript make a better viewer than the one >from Adobe, but it is admittedly a matter of taste. acroread for win95/nt is pretty decent, but i find acroread for solaris and linux really painful to use. it's really slow to redraw (especially with font smoothing on) even on ultras and P6's whereas gv is fine on a 486. but i digress... >I offer that it is only by virtue of the facts that PostScript and PDF >are openly published standards and that viewers are available from >more than one source which make them acceptable as formats for >distributing FITS information. agreed. PDF is nice, but is not yet as firmly established as postscript so it's too early to switch over to it entirely. tim -- Time is like fingers Gesturing for me to stop --- A Quake Haiku Why is the sun up? From owner-fitsbits Fri Sep 26 17:16:58 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA06409 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 17:16:58 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA06406 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 17:16:54 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id RAA19886 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 17:16:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA06388 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 17:13:58 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA19876 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 17:13:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA31294; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 17:13:56 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 26 Sep 1997 21:13:53 GMT From: dwells at nrao.edu (Don Wells) Message-ID: Organization: nrao Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!dwells References: <34213B7F.15B6 at ast.cam.ac.uk> Subject: Re: WCS problems on Optical Telescopes. Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk "PB" == Peter Bunclark writes: PB> 2. I was a little surprised to realize that at least a few people are expecting PB> WCS to support high-accuracy astrometry, as opposed to arcsecond-type PB> stuff for object id and map-presentation. There isn't enough power PB> in the suggested transformations to do that. If your optics conform to gnomonic projection, the six-term transformation plus TAN is equivalent to the "standard coordinates" solution of classical astrometry. Over moderate field widths the off-diagonal linear terms are even sufficient to absorb the skew due to refraction. If your optics are a big reflector with prime focus corrector lens, the ZPN projection is sufficient to represent the geometry with quite good accuracy, probably to a fraction of an arcsecond, if the center of symmetry is adjusted in the regression to minimize the residuals. Of course, ZPN is a modified ARC projection, not a modified TAN, but the terms of the difference between TAN and ARC (x^3/3 + 2x^5/15 + 17x^7/315 +...) can be added to the radial distortion coefficients and the sums expressed as the PROJPi keywords of ZPN. (I do support the request by Doug Mink and you that radial polynomial terms be added to the TAN projection as well as the ARC projection.) If your optics need additional "rubber-sheet" distortion terms, the pixel regularization map specified in Appendix A of the draft document will be completely sufficient for astrometry to any precision supported by your reference stars. The current draft specifies that the map will be expressed as a numerical array for each axis, but discussions at Sonthofen led to the decision that we will instead express it as a polynomical expansion; the two notations are mathematically equivalent. In summary, there is indeed enough power in the proposed WCS notations, even in the September 1996 draft version, to support representation of the geometry of optical imagery to arbitrary precision. PB> .. Polynomials won't do because there are bends and wobbles on one PB> side of the plate that are often uncorrelated with those on the other side; The proposed pixel regularization map (Appendix A) is exactly what is needed for such cases; it can be asymmetric. PB> you need an unacceptably high-order polynomial to follow that kind of stuff; PB> splines would be better. 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. PB> 4. The PC matrix wants you to put 1's on the diagonal and zeros elsewhere. PB> This is hard to arrange for a ccd, and furthermore most optical PB> instruments are mounted on rotators, and so can move to arbitrary angles PB> from exposure to exposure; .. The PC matrix and the equivalent CDxxxxxx notations supported by IRAF and ST-SDAS support both rotation and skew. There is no problem. PB> .., with long-slit spectroscopy PB> one will want the spatial axis to be at an arbitrary PA.. There are three world coordinate axes in long-slit spectroscopy: CTYPE1='RA---TAN', CTYPE2='DEC--TAN', CTYPE3='LAMBDA' (or some other spectroscopic projection). The proposed notation enables the celestial axes to be rotated to arbitrary PA. The proper dimensionality of a long-slit spectrogram is NAXIS=3, not NAXIS=2. Such a piece of data is exactly equivalent to one plane (a 2-d slice) extracted from a 3-d spectral line cube produced by a radio synthesis interferometer or scanning Fabry-Perot spectrometer. PB> .. I would like to separate the complete PB> transformation of pixels to celestial coordinates into two stages: PB> (1) transform pixels on the chip/plate to `engineering units', ie PB> Cartesian meters at the focal-plane.. PB> step (2) is to transform linear measure in the focal plane to celestial PB> coordinates. You are, of course, always free to represent the geometry of your particular instrument in this fashion and then to concatenate the multiple transformations into the canonical notation for interchange. In addition, the proposed multiple-WCS notation (see below) will enable you to export the alternative notations to systems which interoperate with yours for these transformations. I advocate that we choose the minimum sufficient set of keywords which will accomplish our basic interoperability goal. PB> I believe a side-effect is to satisfy many people's requirements PB> for multiple-WCS's in headers; .. I recommend that we specify that complete alternative WCS representations can be conveyed in headers by appending alphabetic subscripts A-Z to the WCS keywords. Implementors who have no reason to support multiple WCS solutions can ignore such subscripted keywords. It appears that the only price we will pay for this convention is that the number of axes will be restricted to 99. PB> 7. Can you imagine a WCS that describes the coordinates on an objective- PB> prism plate? The transformation is ambiguous: two or more sources can produce overlapping spectra, so that it is not always possible to assign the flux in a particular pixel to a unique place on the sky. Of course, if such an image is reduced, probably with the aid of source coordinates determined from conventional direct imagery, the individual spectra can be extracted with a consistent dispersion scale, and can be represented as a set of conventional long-slit spectra, perhaps a set of IMAGE extensions in a FITS file, each with a WCS solution in its header. -- 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 From owner-fitsbits Fri Sep 26 22:21:46 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA07564 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 22:21:46 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA07561 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 22:21:39 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id WAA20172 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 22:21:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA07012 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 19:47:02 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id TAA20040 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 19:47:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA03856; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 19:47:00 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 18:51:58 -0400 From: "Kenneth B. Sall" Message-ID: <342C3C8E.C100409B at cen.com> Organization: Century Computing, Inc. Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.walltech.com!nntp.mainstreet.net!news.dra.com!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!psinntp!dog.cen.com!news Subject: Wanted: Java FITS image displayer Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Has anyone developed or located a _completely_ Java-based FITS image displayer? Freeware, shareware, or commercial? I'm aware of: Java-based client-side FITS Browser http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/fits/java/index.html which uses native code and also requires another native FITSIO library. This is not the solution I need since this would require users to compile native code. What we're going for is the old click-on-this-link- and-Java-applet-automagically-appears-and-does-everything. The ideal applet would be one that simply renders a FITS image and comment. No image manipulation is necessary (but sure would be a bonus). Please cc: ksall at cen.com as well as the newsgroup. Thanks very much! -- - Ken Sall ksall at cen.com - Century Computing, Inc. http://www.cen.com/ From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 30 07:17:49 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA27088 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:17:49 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA27085 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:17:45 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id HAA24420 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:17:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA24318 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:08:07 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id UAA23708 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:08:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA02045; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:08:05 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:46:13 -0800 From: "Frederic Taugwalder" Message-ID: <60pekn$r9k at gap.cco.caltech.edu> Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!news.mathworks.com!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!Supernews60!supernews.com!news.he.net!stc06.ctd.ornl.gov!fnnews.fnal.gov!nntp-server.caltech.edu!news Subject: PDF vs Postscript : END Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Hi guys, Sorry to have been the origin of this discussion, my question was purely for ease of use. I didn't intent to replace Postscript by Acrobat. Nevertheless I would welcome the availability of the two of them in tolerance and for the ease of use of everybody. Since then I installed the last version of Ghostscript 5.03/Ghostview2.2 wich did the job I wanted very efficiently. Since the last version I had, the installation process have been dramatically improved. Concerning Acrobat, we use it to post documents with right restrictions, through emails, these documents being mainly engineering reports with formulas, charts and pictures. Acrobat is after my opinion and experience the best solution for this, it include compression, viewer for almost all platforms, and printing document to this format (or exporting them) is very easy. To exchange document between Unix, Windows and MacIntosh, Acrobat is very cost effectiv. Hope the discussion will be more oriented now on FITS format ? Enjoy life Fred From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 30 07:19:10 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA27103 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:19:10 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA27100 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:19:07 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id HAA24424 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:19:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA25130 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:47:06 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id XAA23963 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:47:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA09787; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:47:04 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 29 Sep 1997 11:33 EDT From: bschlesinger at nssdcx.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry M. Schlesinger) Message-ID: <29SEP199711333452 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!news.mathworks.com!nntprelay.mathworks.com!news1.best.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!nick.arc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov!bschlesinger Reply-To: fits at nssdcx.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Sources of FITS Information Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,sci.answers,news.answers Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Archive-name: astronomy/fits/info-sources Last-modified: 1997/09/26 -------- 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://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/fits/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. From owner-fitsbits Tue Sep 30 13:40:43 1997 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA28563 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 13:40:43 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA28560 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 13:40:40 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) id NAA24839 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 13:40:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA28375 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:47:44 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.0/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA24793 for ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:47:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA06446; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:47:42 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 30 Sep 1997 16:25:53 GMT From: thompson at orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov (William Thompson) Message-ID: <60r96h$anu at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.mathworks.com!europa.clark.net!128.158.254.10!news.msfc.nasa.gov!centauri.hq.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov!thompson References: <5vmh1d$s04 at gap.cco.caltech.edu> <606cni$a2v at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <60b09c$efo at owl.le.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Adobe Acrobat format for documentation Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Clive Page writes: >In article <608n3d$qjb at post.gsfc.nasa.gov>, >William Thompson wrote: >> >>I still stand by my opinion, which I hope you share, that supplying the >>documentation in PDF format is a good idea, but that they should also continue >>to be supplied in PostScript format. >> One suggestion made was to use ghostview to view PDF files. Does anybody know how to build the latest version of ghostscript under OSF/v3.6? Adobe finally got around to supporting acroread on DEC Alphas, but only under later versions of OSF. It would also be nice to have a more recent version of ghostview. The problem is compiling the package libpng. William Thompson