PyAVM 0.1.3

Simple pure-python AVM meta-data parsing

About

PyAVM provides the AVM() class to represent [AVM](http://www.virtualastronomy.org/avm_metadata.php) meta-data:

>>> from pyavm import AVM

Parsing files

To parse AVM meta-data from an existing file, simply create an instance of the AVM class using the filename of the image (or any file-like object):

>>> avm = AVM('myexample.jpg')

Accessing the meta-data

You can view the contents of the avm object by using

>>> print avm

The AVM meta-data can be accessed using the attribute notation:

>>> avm.Spatial.Equinox
'J2000'

>>> avm.Publisher
'Chandra X-ray Observatory'

Creating and Updating tags

Tags can be modified in place:

>>> avm.Spatial.Equinox = "B1950"

If the tag does not already exist, it is created.

Tag groups can be created using:

>>> avm.create_group("Spatial")

after which tags can be created in the group:

>>> avm.Spatial.Notes = "The WCS information was updated on 04/02/2010"

Creating an AVM object from scratch

To create an empty AVM meta-data holder, simply call AVM() without any arguments:

>>> avm = AVM()

Converting to a WCS object

It is possible to create a pywcs.WCS object from the AVM meta-data:

>>> wcs = avm.to_wcs()

By default, Spatial.FITSheader will be used if available, but if not, the WCS information is extracted from the other Spatial.* tags. To force PyAVM to not try Spatial.FITSheader, use:

>>> wcs = avm.to_wcs(use_full_header=False)

Initializing from a FITS header

To create an AVM meta-data object from a FITS header, simply pass the header (as a pyfits.Header instance) instead of a filename when initializing the AVM object:

>>> import pyfits
>>> header = pyfits.getheader('image.fits')
>>> avm = AVM(header)

By default, the AVM tag Spatial.FITSheader will be created, containing the full header (in addition to the other Spatial.* keywords). This can be disabled with:

>>> avm = AVM(header, include_full_header=False)

Initializing from a WCS object

Similarly, it is possible to create an AVM meta-data object from a pywcs.WCS instance:

>>> import pyfits
>>> import pywcs
>>> from pyavm import AVM
>>> wcs = pywcs.WCS(pyfits.getheader('image.fits'))
>>> avm = AVM(wcs)

Tagging images with AVM meta-data

It is possible to embed AVM meta-data into an image file:

>>> avm.embed('original_image.jpg', 'tagged_image.jpg')

At this time, only JPG, PNG, and TIFF files are supported.