SkyViewer

Features	Requirements	Download	Compiling
Usage	Change Log	To Do

SkyViewer is an OpenGL-based program written by Nicholas Phillips to display HEALPix-based sky maps from FITS format files. The program will display sky maps on a 3D sphere or a 2D Mollweide projection. Real time panning and zooming are supported, as are rotations of the 3D sphere (if you have a fast graphics card). The program was developed and tested in a Red Hat Linux environment, but it should also build under Windows and Max OSX.

Features

WMAP One-Year Q1 map, as a sphere (122KB)

WMAP One-Year Q1 map in Mollweide projection (134KB)

3D sphere or 2D Mollweide display
View Temperature, Polarization or Nobs fields
Real time rotation, zooming, and panning
Retrieve pixel information from the display
Adjustable mapping from pixel value to color
Save screen shots to image file
Pixel texture aligns with HEALPix pixel boundaries
Contextual help
OS agnostic

Fullscreen Nobs map for Q1 (312KB). NVidia card updating the screen at 25Hz

Requirements

Qt, >= v3.3.6 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.4
Qt, >= v3.1.2 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.3 or below
Note: Skyviewer does not yet work with Qt 4.
CFITSIO, A FITS File Subroutine Library, >= v2.440
HEALPix, >= v2.01 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.4
HEALPix, >= v1.20 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.3 or below
libQGLViewer, >= v2.2.4 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.4
libQGLViewer, >= v2.1.1 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.3
libQGLViewer, >= v1.3.8 --- for skyviewer version 0.2.2

The versions described above indicate the versions used to build skyviewer when that release was developed.

Note: SkyViewer does not require installation of the entire HEALPix package, just the C library. It should be sufficient to enter the directory /path/to/Healpix_1.20/src/C/subs/ and execute the commands make and make install.

Download

Version 0.2.4: skyviewer-0.2.4.tar.gz, skyviewer-0.2.4.zip
Version 0.2.3: skyviewer-0.2.3.tar.gz, skyviewer-0.2.3.zip
Version 0.2.2: skyviewer-0.2.2.tar.gz, skyviewer-0.2.2.zip

Compilation

SkyViewer was developed on a Red Hat 9 system and has also been successfully built under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and Windows XP. It should build under Mac OSX as well, as the above libraries claim to support that system. Let us know if you have any success.

Ungzip and untar the file in a convenient location, qmake and make:

tar xfz skyviewer-0.2.4.tar.gz
cd skyviewer-0.2.4/
qmake
make

If everything goes as planned, you should have the binary SkyViewer. Put it where you like to keep your binaries and enjoy looking at sky maps in full 3D glory. Please e-mail us with any comments, questions, successes, or failures: suggestions.

The documentation is available in a TARBALL, in a ZIP file, and in HTML. It can be generated from source via Doxygen.

Usage

Using this program is straightforward. After starting, you are prompted to select a FITS to load. Once the map is loaded, use the mouse to rotate/pan/zoom and select display options from the buttons on the left. Use the Help, help button , and WhatsThis, What's This Button , buttons for further help.