MultiDim

A plugin to navigate HDUs in a FITS file or planes in a 3D cube or higher dimension dataset.

Plugin Type: Local

MultiDim is a local plugin, which means it is associated with a channel. An instance can be opened for each channel.

Usage

MultiDim is a plugin designed to handle data cubes and multi-HDU FITS files. If you have opened such an image in Ginga, starting this plugin will enable you to browse to other slices of the cube or view other HDUs.

For a data cube, you can save a slice as an image using the “Save Slice” button or create a movie using the “Save Movie” button by entering the “Start” and “End” slice indices. This feature requires mencoder to be installed.

For a FITS table, its data are read in using Astropy table. Column units are displayed right under the main header (“None” if no unit). For masked columns, masked values are replaced with pre-defined fill values.

Browsing HDUs

Use the HDU drop down list in the upper part of the UI to browse and select an HDU to open in the channel.

Navigating Cubes

Use the controls in the lower part of the UI to select the axis and to step through the planes in that axis.

User Configuration

It is customizable using ~/.ginga/plugin_MultiDim.cfg, where ~ is your HOME directory:

#
# MultiDim plugin preferences file
#
# Place this in file under ~/.ginga with the name "plugin_MultiDim.cfg"

# Sort option for HDU listing.
# Available attributes:
#   'index' -- Extension index
#   'name' -- Extension name
#   'extver' -- Extension version number
#   'htype' -- HDU type (PrimaryHDU, ImageHDU, TableHDU)
#   'dtype' -- Data type
# Example to sort by HDU name and extver:
#   sort_keys = ['name', 'extver']
# Default is to sort by index only:
sort_keys = ['index']

# Reverse for HDU listing?
sort_reverse = False