'''[http://ds9.si.edu/%|%SAOImage DS9]''', a [Tcl]/[Tk] program that uses the [SAOTk] widget set, is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. DS9 supports FITS images and binary tables, multiple frame buffers, region manipulation, and many scale algorithms and colormaps. It provides for easy communication with external analysis tasks and is highly configurable and extensible via [XPA] and SAMP.



** Attributes **

   current version:   7.2

   release time:   2013-04-15

   license:   [GPL]



** Download **

   [http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/%|%hea-www.harvard.edu]:   main download page 

   [http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?searchon=sourcenames&version=all&exact=1&keywords=saods9%|%saods9] Debian package:    



** Description **


SAOImage DS9 is a data visualization, analysis and imaging application used by professional astronomers.  It is actively developed at the [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory] and is released under an open-source licence (GPL v2).  It is written entirely in Tcl/Tk (with several binary and script extensions).


[http://www.kerlin.net/tcl/SAOTk4.png]

[http://adassxiv.ipac.caltech.edu/Presentations/Wednesday/Joye_O8_5.pdf%|%The Development of SAOImage DS9], William Joye, Eric Mandel, 2004-10-27, gives an interesting outline of the problems of developing and maintaining scientific software

Note the commitment to Tcl/Tk and to open software development.

Also note the size of the datasets - typically hundreds of Mb for a single observation, but 19Gb for "megasec" exposures from the Chandra X-ray satellite

DS9 also stands for Deep Space 9.  The High Energy Astrophysics Division of [SAO] has a preoccupation with
things [Star Trek].  Its second generation image display was named TNG and 
the third is DS9.



** Usage **

You will need some [FITS] images to use DS9.

DS9 can be used as a graphical frontend for other image analysis/processing software: see http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/ lists IRAF [http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf-homepage.html] [http://iraf.net/], CIAO [http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/], SAS [http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/external/xmm_sw_cal/sas_frame.shtml] and fv [http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/fv/]. [fv] is another tool written in Tcl/Tk.



** Other Goodies provided with DS9 (Note that the License is GPL v2) **

   patches for [BLT] on [Mac OS X]:   

   patches for Tcl/Tk on [Cygwin]:   

   [SAOTk] binary extension:   used by DS9 for imaging - it provides custom item types for the canvas widget.  SAOTk can be used without DS9 in custom data visualisation applications: see [SAOTk] for details.

   [tkmpeg] binary extension:   MPEG 1 encoder.  Used by DS9 to save a series of frames as an MPEG.

   checkdns binary extension:   a DNS client (cf Tcllib's dns)

   iis binary extension:   nothing to do with the Microsoft Web server called IIS, IIS is an image display protocol whose main use is allow connection of display software such as DS9 to an image processing package called IRAF [http://iraf.net/] (Image Reduction and Analysis Facility).

   tclxpa binary extension:   [XPA] is messaging system that provides a unified communication system between different kinds of Unix programs, including X programs, Tcl/Tk programs, and shell programs.  It uses [TCP] as its transport layer.


** Misc **

[AM] 2008-03-03: Not sure if this has anything to do with the above software, but the link that [Colin McCormack] posted
in the tkchat is too nice to let go: [http://dsnra.jpl.nasa.gov/pkg/astroTK-2.0/html/astroTK/] (404).



** Reference **

   [http://adassxiv.ipac.caltech.edu/Presentations/Wednesday/Joye_O8_5.pdf%|%The Development of SAOImage DS9], William Joye, Eric Mandel, 2004-10-27:   




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