Re: FITS file access

• To: "Guest, S (Steve) " <S.Guest@xxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: FITS file access
• From: Dave Glowacki <dglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:01:33 -0500

"Guest, S (Steve) " wrote:
> I'm looking at using VisAD for applications in astronomy and STP. FITS is a
> common format in both so I thought I'd try that first. However I'm having
> some problems.
> 
> Firstly it appears to fail with a 'No data' exception when the file is not a
> multiple of 2880 bytes. This is permitted by the standard and should be
> treated as end-of-file.

Oops, sorry!  I've got that fixed.

I'm only allowing short files if the padding is absent, and
throwing an exception if end-of-file is found where data is
expected.  Does this sound correct?

> Secondly it doesn't appear to handle arrays within tables:
> Ignoring assumed 6-char String column
> FitsAdapter.buildBTRange: Column 0 was short 10 of 10 rows
> FitsAdapter.copyColumn: Punting on wide column ([I)
> FitsAdapter.buildBTRange: Column 6 was short 10 of 10 rows
> FitsAdapter.copyColumn: Punting on wide column ([I)
> FitsAdapter.buildBTRange: Column 7 was short 10 of 10 rows
> 
> These columns have format 6A, 4J, 4J respectively.
> 
> Are these problems known about? Is the FITS support still active?

The FITS adapter was my first VisAD project, and it only covers a
few data types.  My current project is a generalized file adapter
interface and, as part of that, I'm revisiting the FITS adapter
and trying to make it a bit more robust.

However, I'll check out this problem.  Any chance that I could
get a copy of your data file?

• References:
  • FITS file access
    • From: Guest, S (Steve)