[fitsbits] Rendering FITS Data

[Steve Allen]

On Mon 2003-10-13T21:59:24 -0500, Grinder hath writ:
> If you have a 2d array of 16-bit signed integer values, you can
> make a simple linear transformation to and 8-bit grayscale
> palette.  I imagine log and poly transforms are of use as well.

In the absence of the experts (see below) I suppose that the best
(only?)  way to determine this is to survey the existing FITS display
programs.  I have encountered programs that map the image to display
using sqrt, square, log, linear, and various histogram equalization
and/or cutoff methods.

> Basically, I'm looking for a discussion of useful techniques,
> either here, or some existing web resources.  Thanks for your
> time and consideration.

This parallels a question that has been bouncing around the FITS
community -- should there be various levels of FITS conformance?  In
this case perhaps what would help most is a class of FITS documents
which could have a status akin to the Internet (IETF) RFCs that are
known as Best Current Practice (BCP).  The problem with this notion is
that writing and approving any such documents are mostly thankless
tasks which subtract from the valuable time of the few who are
interested in implementing them.

If these sorts of techniques are published it is likely that many of
their authors are currently at the ADASS conference, so this
discussion is likely to take many days to finish.

--
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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