[fitsbits] Re: Reading floating point FITS files

[Steve Allen]

On Wed 2003-11-19T16:05:24 +0000, Rob Seaman hath writ:
> It is possible to imagine extending FITS in both directions - to
> implement color support within FITS or to permit foreign formats to be
> accessed from within FITS.  Both directions would require software to
> be developed - and to be widely adopted - before the extensions would
> be useful.  Before we put resources into what would be a daunting task,
> there should be a motivation stronger than purely a sense of esthetics.

My impression is that the protocols within WCS Papers I and II along
with some notions from Paper III might result in a conventional
multi-HDU representation for multi-wavelength data.  With that in
place it is conceiveable that developers of plug-ins for tools such as
Adobe Photoshop (TM) might be motivated to write FITS import filters
which would provide handles for producing pretty pictures.

I see the current discussion as a roadmap which might be followed by
practitioners of multi-wavelength astronomy.  Thanks for pointing
out the importance of having a demonstrated need before inventing
a new scheme and burdening every FITS implementor with handling it.

--
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla at ucolick.org      Voice: +1 831 459 3046     http://www.ucolick.org/~sla
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