Contains a proof of concept FITS file viewer implemented using the cftisio library and QT.
It is unlikely I would have achieved success without this code example. The cfitsio documention does not really make things obvious. So, thank you Mitch Richling!
There are times when I would just like to quickly take a look at a FITS image, and I have not yet found a simple tool for this. This project is the precursor to such a tool.
Features included so far:
- Integrated screen transfer function
- Borrowed from kstars...thank you!
- Scroll wheel zooms (central only for now)
- Buttons for zoom-to-fit and zoom 1:1
Feature ideas:
- Quick option to see center and corners at 1:1
- Option to highlight the brightest and/or darkest pixels
- Histogram, possibly with a way to show more detail on the brightest and darkest sections (to get a better idea of how much data is getting close to being clipped; this is a reaction to my inability to choose optimal exposure times)
Those are the key ones, and some nice to haves:
- Ability to scroll through many images
- Keep zoom/position the same
- Easy and quick Pick/Reject function
- Ability to watch a directory and automatically keep loading files as they show up
- Possible live stack? Depending on if I can figure out the math...
You will need QT5 and the cfitsio library. On debian based linux systems:
sudo apt install qt5-default for QT
sudo apt install libcfitsio-dev for cfitsio
You will also need some FITS files to test with.
Create a directory called "build" (or whatever you like, really, but build is already git ignored) in the root directory of the project.
Change to the build directory and execute qmake ..
You will now have a Makefile. Run make
You should now have an executable, unless you are missing a dependency somewhere. To run:
./qtfits-poc <path-to-fits-file>