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| Developer(s) | Thomas A. McGlynn, Attila Kovács, Richard van Nieuwhoven, et al. |
|---|---|
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Technical computing |
| License | Unlincense license |
| Website | nom-tam-fits |
nom.tam.fits is a full-featured, fast, 100% pure Java library for reading, writing, and modifying FITS files. The library owes its origins to Tom A. McGlynn (hence the nom.tam prefix) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Currently it is maintained by Attila Kovacs at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
The library requires a level of familiarity with the FITS standards[1] and conventions[2] for effective use. For example, while the library will automatically interpret and populate the mandatory minimum data description in FITS headers, it will not automatically process optional standard or conventional header entries. It is up to the users to extract or complete the description of data to its full extent, for example to include FITS world coordinate systems (WCS)[3] [4] [5], physical units, etc. Users are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the FITS standards and conventions described therein to be effective users of this library.
This is an open-source, community maintained, project hosted on github as nom-tam-fits. Further information and documentation, including API docs, can be found on the project site.
History
editThe library was originally developed in 2000 by Thomas A. McGlynn at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. It was originally written for Java 1.0, which influenced many of the original design choices that are in place to this day. The first published version was version 0.92 (12 October 2000), and was followed by a series of development releases, up until 0.99.6 (4 December 2007), the last development release in the 0.9 line.
The library reached 'stable' with the 1.0.0 release on 11 July 2008. Tom McGlynn remained the sole maintainer through version 1.12.0 (25 February 2015), often integrating contributions provided by users.
On 2015, Tom passed the baton to Richard van Nieuwhoven, who then continued to oversee releases 1.13.0 (20 July 2016) through 1.15.2 (28 April 2017). Ritchie has been instrumental in adding compression support to the library, as well as modernizing the API to use Java 6 features, such as generic types. He also migrated the source code to GitHub, set up continuous integration, including a nearly complete set of regression testing, configured the build to use Apache Maven andbegan publishing signed releases to the Maven Central repository.
The library then went dormant until 2020, at which point Attila Kovács from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian took over as the lead maintainer (with the blessing from Tom McGlynn), and continued overseeing releases starting with 1.16.0 (13 December 2021). Continuous integration was migrated from Travis CI to GitHub Actions, and successive releases were aimed at fixing outstanding bugs, improving compliance to the FITS standard, providing a more consistent user experience, and more complete, more accurate documentation.
Releases
editEarly releases, and related documentation for version 0.92 through 1.15.1 are available at the original HEASARCH site.
More recent releases (1.15.2 and later) are available on the Github project site as nom-tam-fits/nom-tam-fits
Starting with version 1.16.0, releases now follow a predictable, quarterly schedule with releases targeted around the 15th of March, June, September, and/or December. In the weeks and month(s) leading up to releases, a number of release candidates are published briefly on the GitHub project site to allow sufficient testing of the fixes and new features.
External Links
edit- GitHub project site
- API documentation
- History of changes
- nom.tam.fits at Maven Central
References
edit- ^ "Definition of the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS)". fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_standard.html. 2016-07-22 [2018-08-13].
- ^ "FITS Conventions".
- ^ Greisen, E.W.; Calabretta, M.R. (2002). "Representations of world coordinates in FITS". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 395: 1061–1075. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20021326.
- ^ Greisen, E.W.; Calabretta, M.R. (2002). "Representations of celestial coordinates in FITS". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 395: 1077–1122. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20021327.
- ^ Greisen, E.W.; Calabretta, M.R.; Valdes, F.G.; Allen, S.L. (2006). "Representations of spectral coordinates in FITS". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 446 (2): 747–771. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20053818.