FITS Resources
FITS is the standard data format in astronomy. FITS stands for Flexible Image Transport System. FITS is the standard format for all astronomical images and for many astronomical data tables. FITS can support 1-dimensional, 2-dimensional, and 3-dimensional data, as well as tabular data.
This page is maintained by the NASA Astrophysics Data Facility (ADF). From this page one can obtain A Users Guide for FITS (150 pages, a pdf version is available locally at SSU). The FITS Support Office also provides descriptions of the current FITS standards.
This is a collection of portable subroutines and program modules that deal with reading and writing FITS files. While FITSIO was originally written in fortran, the current package is known as cfitsio and has been rewritten in c. The routines in the current package are callable from either fortran or c.There is an excellent online FITSIO Users Guide for Fortran Users and a similar guide for c.
The FITSIO Homepage is maintained by HEASARC.
The HEASARC lists libraries of software designed to read and write FITS data. Some of these libraries call FITSIO routines, and some are independent of this package. Libraries are available for c, fortran, perl, etc.
HEASARC FITS File Recommendations
This is a listing of recommendations for FITS format data. Recommendations are included for items such as RA and DEC, exposure times, physicsl units, world coordinate system, and CREATOR.
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The fv FITS Viewer
This software is a general purpose FITS viewer and editor. It can view (and edit) images and tabular data. Versions are available to run under UNIX, Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. The fv package is maintained by HEASARC.
FTOOLS is a collection of tools to manipulate and analyze fits data. The FTOOLS package can run within IRAF or can run standalone. The FTOOLS package was developed to support NASA High Energy missions, but some of the tools are of general use. FTOOLS uses the FITSIO package for I/O. A Quick FTOOLS Tutorial is available online.The FTOOLS Website is maintained by HEASARC.
FITS Users Need Tools (Funtools)
Funtools is a library of programs in c for analyzing data in FITS format files. This package has been designed to be used by those who need to develop software to analyze astronomical data in FITS files, but who do not wish (or need) to become familiar with the details of the FITS format. Tools are available for event lists (X-ray and Gamma-ray data) as well as for traditional images. Funtools can be used standalone, but was developed to run within the GUI based image analysis system SAOImage/DS9.Funtools has been developed by the SAO/HEAD R&D group.
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This is a paper presented at the IAU General Assembly 12 August 2000. This presentation considers the expected requirements for data systems in the future. In particular, the paper considers the relationships between FITS, XML (eXtensible Markup Language, which is the basis of HTML), and XDF (eXtensible Data Format). The presentation was based on experiences managing the Astronomical Data Center (ADC) by folks at the Goddard Spaceflight Center.
XDF: The Extensible Data Format
XDF is an XML based system being developed at the Astronomical Data Center (ADC). The ultimate goal is to streamline and unify descriptions of scientific data. The goal is to have the same self-documenting system for data description that will follow a collection of data from the proposal phase, through actual observations, through data reduction and analysis, and on to ultimate publication, archiving, and subsequent use by scientists and the public.The XDF website contains the latest specifications and software: http://xml.gsfc.nasa.gov/XDF/
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