Starlink::AST - Perl interface to Starlink's AST library ======================================================== This module provides a Perl interface to Starlink's AST library and 3 pluggable graphics backends that can be used in conjunction with the AST library. The AST library provides: - generic approach to attaching coordinate frames to data sets + if you have an array representing a spectrum in wavelength and another array that represents frequency, AST can resample one array to the other coordinate frame and allow you to add them together. This will work for any coordinate system so long as AST understands how to form the mapping. (many mappings are provided by default). - A generic plotting interface whereby you can + Have pluggable backends for the plotting system (currently PGPLOT, PLplot and Tk canvas) + The ability to draw annotations, great circles and marks in a coordinate frame most useful to you (eg sky coordinate, a wavelength) and have AST map that directly to the underlying graphics coordinate system. **** CURRENTLY AN ALPHA RELEASE SINCE THE INTERFACE NEEDS TIDYING **** REQUIREMENTS ------------ Has been tested with AST v1.8 onwards (AST is currently at v4.1) and with perl 5.005 through perl 5.8.3. Also known to work on Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Digital Unix. You will need to install the AST library. See http://www.starlink.ac.uk/ast INSTALLATION ------------ Assuming the ast_link command is in your path, and the AST libraries either in a Starlink installation location or in a standard library location: % perl Makefile.PL % make % make test % make install NOTES ----- The Tk canvas interface does work with limitations. This is an early proof of concept release (although 95% of AST is supported and the PGPLOT and PLplot interfaces do work). AUTHOR ------ Tim Jenness with help from Alasdair Allan (especially the PGPLOT and Tk plotting backends) and Brad Cavanagh. Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Tim Jenness. All Rights Reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA HISTORY ------- v0.04 - + Much improved Tk canvas support + Channel and XmlChan source functions now work properly + Fix return value when AST routines fail + AST objects can now be cloned with Storable + PickAxes() method now returns the frame and mapping in a list context + New constants: AST__CURRENT, AST__BASE, AST__NOFRAME + Add TranP() method + Fix compilation problem with AST v3.4. v0.03 - Now supports AST functionality added between v3.2 and v3.5 of AST (if you don't have this version it will still compile with older versions of AST but these routines will not be available) + Support for Regions + Support for FluxFrames and SpecFluxFrames + Support for RateMap + Support for KeyMap + Support for DSBSpecFrame + astRate now returns the second derivative only if the version supports it + Add astLinearApprox (Mapping), astEscapes (Plotting), astPutCards (FitsChan) v0.02 - Same as 0.01 except that now include the PLplot interface which was mistakenly missing from the MANIFEST v0.01 - First release. Most methods implemented. PGPLOT and PLplot interfaces okay. Tk plotting interface requires work. **** INTERFACES MAY CHANGE AS API IS TIDIED ****