Paul O'Connor's visualization feature wish list

Firefly feature requests: Aimed primarily at science raft laboratory images taken at test stands. Based on ~9 years working with LSST prototype sensor lab images P. O'Connor    2015_08_18

Community markup does not support html very well. Paul’s original Excel file is here.


Priority  

Feature
    Implementation (FF, client, or server) is denoted in bold.

DS9-like features:
   1 Continuous coordinate and ADU readout under mouse pointer
    Firefly can do this and pass the result to JS for display.
We need to design the screen layout, where this info, and other analysis results should be displayed.
When zoomed out, FF doesnot merge pixels, it displays a random pixel
   1 Mosaic display of multi-extesion FITS files with/without overscan displayed.
In the short term, the server code will have to do this work:
Reading the multiple extensions and creating a pixel array that FF can handle (with or w/o overscan).
   1 Magnifier and full image thumbnail windows
Firefly does this.
   1 Scroll-wheel zoom
FF is not going to do this.
   1 Middle-mouse pan
Firefly does panning by dragging.
   1 Scale contrast to max/min of pixels in region.
Does the server needs to rescale the whole image?
   1 Scale the contrast segment-by-segment.
Needs to be done on the server.
   1 Multi-frame functionality: coordinate and scale locking, blinking.
FF supports multiple images in Expanded View.
You can WCS align and blink them in single image view with Auto Play.
   2 Rotate and reflect
FF does this with Rotate and Flip commands.
   2 User-controlled tiling.
What control is wanted?
   2 Annotation.
FF supports markers (circle with label), you can save them.
More work is beeing done on it for other projects.
   2 Colormap options.
FF supports all ds9 color maps and legacy Spitzer maps.
They will be revamped as none of them are good enough.
   2 Zscale mapping (See, e.g. this)
FF supports zscale stretch.
   2 Import regions files with circle/box display.
FF supports ds9 regions.
   3 Standard, selectable zoom levels
FF does this.
   3 Display pixel table.
FF does not do this. It gives dynamic readout.

IRAF/imexamine functionality:
   1 vi-like keystroke commands tied to mouse pointing (See, e.g. this).
FF does not support it.
   1 Select region, display statistics, display histogram with mean and sd.
FF does allow selecting region and displaying statistics.
One statistical function (mean) has been implemented on the server.
Histograms will be added later.
   1 Image math (sum, difference, quotient of 2 or more images) and display of result.
We need to make a list of desired window/display types, and desired parameters and user interactions.
FF does not do this. It must be implemented on the server.
   2 Pop-up graphics windows.
FF Expanded View is a pop-up.
   2 Aperture photometry: Define aperture, point at source, get background-subtracted counts, get radial profile with fit, fit Gaussian.
FF does not do this. It must be implemented on the server.
   2 Averaged row/column traces with limits.
FF does not do this. It must be implemented on the server.
   3 3D surface/lego, contour map display.
FF does not do this. It must be implemented on the server.

General features:
   1 Configuration file for defaults.
Fits visualization parameters define the default configuration.
   1 Standalone operation.
What does this mean?
   2 Support for linux and Windows.
FF should be working in IE, Chrome, and Firefox on Windows.
Recently introduced bugs, which affect IE and Chrome display on Windows, will be fixed.