Research scientists and students especially those in astronomy normally use image data in Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) format for their simulations. Simulation tools like Meqtrees, Oskar, Map simulator and Swarp all run using FITS file. Sometimes, the image data is stored in different formats such as Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) and other formats. We need to convert the data into FITS form before using for simulations. The paper therefore presents a python program on how to extract data from HDF into FITS file. The h5py helps us to extract the image data from HDF, numpy then converts the data into an array and pyfits helps us to write the extracted data in FITS format. The h5py, numpy and pyfits are imported into python for the conversion to take place. The developed code and output are presented in Appendices A and B respectively.

 

Published In : IJCSN Journal Volume 3, Issue 4

Date of Publication : August 2014

Pages : 234 - 241

Figures : 01

Tables : --

Publication Link : Processing HDF to FITS Image: Python Pipeline Mode

 

 

 

Alexander Akoto-Danso : works as an Assistant Research Scientist at the Ghana Space and Technology Institute. He holds a Master's in Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering (2011) and holds a Bsc. Mathematics. (2006) His interest is in High-performance Computing, Parallel computing, Computational Engineering, Digital Signal Processing, Climate modelling, Industrial and Systems engineering. He is a member of the Ghana Nuclear Society.

Felix Tetteh Madjitey : works as an Assistant Research Scientist at the Ghana Space and Technology Institute. He holds a Master's in Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering and holds a Bsc. Physics. His research interest is in Structural and Mechanical Engineering.

Emmanuel Proven- Adzri : is working as an Assistant Research Scientist at Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute. He has Masters in Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering and a BSc. in Physics. His research interest includes Instrumentation in Radio Astronomy, Methanol Masers, Radio Interferometry and Computational Modeling.

Theophilus Ansah-Narh : is working as an Assistant Research Scientist at Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute. He has Masters in Statistics and Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering and also, BSc. Mathematics and Computer Science. His research interest includes Radio Interferometry, Stochastic Modeling, Bayesian Analysis, Computational Mathematics and Parallel Computing.

Marcellin Atemkeng : holds a MSc Computer Sc. and BSc Mathematics and Computer Sc. His research interest includes Networking, Structure Documents, Workflow Systems, Simulation, Signal Correlation Algorithm Techniques, Synthesis Imaging in Radio Interferometry Arrays and Data Reduction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hierarchical Data Format (HDF)

Flexible Image Transport System (FITS)

Python

h5py

numpy

pyfits

This research was supported by the facilities provided by Rhodes University in South Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] http://www.hdfgroup.org/ftp/HDF5/examples/

[2] http://www.hdfgroup.org/hdf-java-html/hdfview

[3] meqtrees.net

[4] http://oerc.ox.ac.uk/~ska/oskar2/

[5] http://www.haystack.mit.edu/ast/arrays/maps/

[6] http://www.astromatic.net/software/swarp

[7] http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_documentation.html

[8] http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/

[9] http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000 317.shtml

[10] Calabretta, M. R. and Greisen, E. W. (2002). “Representations of world coordinates in FITS”, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 395, pp. 1061–1075.

[11] http://www.hdfgroup.org/ftp/newsletters/archive/News letter18.txt