The VESPA infrastructure makes use of various tools maintained by external developers, most of which predate VESPA.
The most closely related tools are:
- Aladin (images and cubes)
- CASSIS (spectra)
- 3Dview (various data types viewed in relation with spacecraft trajectories)
- MATISSE (various data types viewed in relation with 3D shape models)
- AMDA viewing tools (radio and plasma-related data)
- SSHADE viewing tools (spectroscopy data)
- APERICubes (PDS spectral cubes)
All of which benefit from direct inclusion in the VESPA activity.
In addition to these, an effort is made to connect or adapt existing tools for use with VESPA and the VO.
These currently include:
- WebGeoCalc
- Cosmographia
- ImageJ
Cosmographia
In a (not entirely) interactive context, Cosmographia can be used to visualize trajectories provided as SPICE kernels by some services, e. g., the DynAstVO computation system for Near-Earth Objects in Paris.
DynAstVO produces files such as .bsp (SPICE SPK ephemeris) and .json (both to be integrated in the EPN-TAP data service) for each body of interest. These files can be used in Cosmographia to plot trajectories computed in DynAstVO. The example below uses the reconstructed orbit of 2017AG13, an Earth-grazer asteroid early in 2017.
• Create a dedicated directory with object name (2017AG13) in Cosmographia root directory and move json (2017AG13-spice.json) & bsp (DAV_2017AG13.bsp) files inside.
• The json file is a configuration file for Cosmographia. In this particular case, the 2017AG13-spice.json is directly usable.
• For other objects, you have to edit it and change fields "name", "spiceKernels", and "target" (inside "trajectory") - the latter is the spk ID provided in DynAstVO (parameter id_spk, here = 532900332)
• Below line "bodyFrame": "EquatorJ2000" everything is optional and concerns rotation parameters and size (should be straightforward). A shape model is introduced by "source" (511davida.cmod) while size is provided in km (2017AG13 is 24m large, hence size = 0.024).
• Whenever no shape model is included, the body will appear as a point in Cosmographia! So mention a dummy one if none is available.
Then launch Cosmographia, click File>Open Catalog and select the 2017AG13 json file. This particular object should appear inside the Moon's orbit in January 2017.
ImageJ connection
A specific plug-in is being develop to provide SAMP connection and receive data from other VO tools. This requires a version of ImageJ running under java 1.8
1- The install procedure is:
- install a recent version of ImageJ on your computer
For Mac OS,the version "bundled with Java 1.8.0_101" is OK (requires OS X 10.8 or later) Install files
SAMP_HUB-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
jsamp-1.3.5.jar
In directory ImageJ/pluginsInstall file
SAMP.ijm
in directory ImageJ/macros/AutoRun
(create AutoRun if not present)
Then launch ImageJ and click on new menu item SAMP/SAMP to register it to the Hub (no need to launch TOPCAT)
When browsing a service in the VESPA search interface, select data of interest (dataproduct_type must be "image") and click on Data Selection/Send images.
ImageJ will accept jpeg, png, and tiff images, and most fits images. Tiff images are prime products in some EPN-TAP services (e.g., BDIP) but are not usually viewable in a web browser.
2- ImageJ provides various image processing functions, and conversion between many formats.
Results may be stored locally on your disk, then reopen in a VO tool or a computing environment such as IDL.