astropy-samp-ds9

Launch and interact with SAOImageDS9, using the SAMP protocol and client libraries provided by Astropy SAMP.

Installation

Using PyPI astropy-samp-ds9.

pip install astropy-samp-ds9

Example

• single ds9 instance (managing its own hub)

Note: singleton (default=True), can be used to reattach existing instances sharing the same title, user and display

from astropy_samp_ds9.launcher import DS9

ds9 = DS9(title='hello world')
res = ds9.get('version')
ds9.set('cmap cool', 'scale zscale', 'zoom to fit')
ds9.set('mosaicimage wcs {my.fits}')
res = ds9.get('iexam key coordinate')

• ds9 instance(s) attached to an external hub. Those can be attached, re-attached, and controlled from different sessions.

Caveat: blocking commands like get('iexam key coordinate') will not react to the ds9 window being killed.

from astropy_samp_ds9.hublauncher import DS9Hub
from astropy_samp_ds9.launcher import DS9

hub = DS9Hub(name='myhub')
samp_hub_file = hub.samp_hub_file

ds9red = DS9(title='red channel', kill_ds9_on_exit=False, samp_hub_file=samp_hub_file)
ds9blue = DS9(title='blue channel', kill_ds9_on_exit=False, samp_hub_file=samp_hub_file)

Environment

• DS9_EXE

This package requires SAOImageDS9 >= 8.7b1. By default, it uses ds9 that must satisfy this version and found in your PATH.

If you have several ds9 installations on your machine, or ds9 is not in your path, use the DS9_EXE environment to specify the ds9 executable location. For example: export DS9_EXE=/usr/local/ds9/8.7/bin/ds9

• SAMP_HUB_PATH

The directory used to store SAMP_HUB files. By default, it will use $HOME/.samp-ds9/, and create this directory as needed.

• SAMP_HUB_EXE

The samp_hub executable provided by astropy. By default, it will use samp_hub that must be in your PATH.

Miscellaneous

More advanced features include: exit handler, use pre-existing SAMP hub, etc. As of now, the documention is lacking and still WIP. Read the code!