[fitsbits] Re: fits to gif or png

[Marshall Perrin]

dwalker <dwalker at terra.cl> wrote:
> I need to transform a whole lot of 16bit FITS images to gif or png
> format for display on a web server(2000 fits images a day) however
> IRAF commands for export, netpbm in C and other such software change
> the images to a greyscale gif that looks terrible. This has to be done
> "autonomously" in a script or c program on LINUX, at the moment the
> only way is by opening the files in Ximdisplay and saving the files
> one by one , which come out great.
> I have also investigated what seems to be Fits2gif.pro a script it
> seems but I don't know how to implement it.

You may wish to look into the ImageMagick package. I use it for batch 
conversion and resizing of JPGs with great success, and the documentation
asserts that it can read FITS files. Worth experimenting with, in any case.
It's also open source if you feel the need to hack on it to get things
Just Right. :-)

 - Marshall