SAOImage DS9: Astronomical Data Visualization Application

SAOImage DS9 is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. DS9 supports FITS images and binary tables, multiple frame buffers, region manipulation, and many scale algorithms and colormaps. It provides for easy communication with external analysis tasks and is highly configurable and extensible.

DS9 is a stand-alone application. It requires no installation or support files. Versions of DS9 currently exist for Sun Solaris, Sun Solaris64, Linux, Linux64, MacOSX, Darwin Intel and PPC, and Windows XP. All versions and platforms support a consistent set of GUI and functional capabilities.

DS9 supports advanced features such as multiple frame buffers, mosaic images, tiling, blinking, geometric markers, colormap manipulation, scaling, arbitrary zoom, rotation, pan, and a variety of coordinate systems. DS9 also supports FTP and HTTP access.

The GUI for DS9 is user configurable. GUI elements such as the coordinate display, panner, magnifier, horizontal and vertical graphs, button bar, and colorbar can be configured via menus or the command line.

DS9 is a Tk/Tcl application which utilizes the SAOTk widget set. It also incorporates the X Public Access (XPA) mechanism to allow external processes to access and control its data, GUI functions, and algorithms.

New releases of the DS9 binaires, including new features and bug fixes, are made available four times a year in January, April, July, and October.

Note: Window Vista users, please note the following instructions here.

DS9 Binaries Version 5.1

For HTTP-based retrieval use:
For FTP-based retrieval use:

Archives of Older DS9 Releases

Older archived versions of DS9 are now available here.

XPA Binaries Version 2.1.9

For HTTP-based retrieval use:
For FTP-based retrieval use:

Documentation 

Source code

For HTTP-based retrieval use:
For FTP-based retrieval use:

Contact Information

If you encounter any problems or have suggestions with SAOImage DS9,  please  contact us at:  saord@cfa.harvard.edu
 
William Joye
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
60 Garden St.
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Links

SAOImage DS9 provides visualization support for a number of  popular astronomical analysis software packages, of which a few have been listed below:
CIAO: Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations
SAS: XMM-Newton Science Analysis System
IRAF: Image Reduction and Analysis Facility
fv: The Interactive FITS File Editor

Acknowledgment

SAOImage DS9 development has been made possible by funding from the Chandra X-ray Science Center (NAS8-03060) and the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Center (NCC5-568).

If you have found SAOImage DS9 to be helpful in your research, the following acknowledgment would be appreciated: "This research has made use of SAOImage DS9, developed by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory" or reference the following paper 2003adass..12..489J