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| fitsio | |
|---|---|
| Name | fitsio |
| Developer | Bill Pence |
| Initial release | 1995 |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Genre | Scientific library |
| License | BSD-style |
fitsio
fitsio is a software library for reading and writing FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) files used in astronomy and related fields. It provides a C API and utilities that are widely used by observatories, space agencies, research institutions, and instrument teams for handling image, table, and metadata products. fitsio is commonly embedded in pipelines developed by scientific institutions, observatories, space missions, and survey projects to manipulate data archives, calibrate images, and exchange datasets.
fitsio is a portable C library that implements low-level I/O for the FITS file format standardized by the International Astronomical Union and maintained through conventions adopted by projects such as NASA, European Space Agency, and national observatories. The library is designed to integrate with software stacks at institutions like Space Telescope Science Institute, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and survey teams behind projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Pan-STARRS, and Gaia. fitsio's API enables interaction with file headers, HDUs (Header/Data Units), image arrays, binary tables, and ASCII tables used by missions including Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and ground-based facilities like Keck Observatory and Very Large Telescope.
fitsio originated in the mid-1990s to address the need for a robust C implementation to handle FITS files produced by observatories and space missions. Its development occurred alongside other FITS tools from organizations such as NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, European Southern Observatory, and academic groups at institutions like Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and California Institute of Technology. Over time, fitsio evolved to support conventions adopted by the International Astronomical Union Commission 4 and worked in concert with libraries like CFITSIO, WCSLIB, and projects from the Astropy Project ecosystem. Contributions and bug reports have come from software engineers and scientists affiliated with Jet Propulsion Laboratory, European Space Agency Science Directorate, and national data centers.
fitsio implements features required by instrument teams at places such as National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. Core functionality includes HDU navigation, header keyword manipulation, image compression, checksum handling, and table column access used in pipelines for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (now Vera C. Rubin Observatory) prototypes, spectroscopic projects like SDSS-BOSS, and planetary science missions at NASA JPL. fitsio supports reading and writing multiextension FITS files used by missions such as Spitzer Space Telescope, Kepler, and TESS, and interoperates with visualization tools developed at institutions like Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Space Telescope Science Institute.
fitsio handles the canonical FITS file structure adopted by standards bodies including the International Astronomical Union and implementations from agencies such as NASA and ESA. It supports IMAGE HDUs, ASCII tables and BINTABLEs common to projects like HITRAN data distribution and survey catalogs from Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Compression variants and tile-compressed images used by archives at European Southern Observatory and NOAO are supported, as are conventions used by missions such as ROSAT, XMM-Newton, and INTEGRAL for event lists and detector images. Keywords and World Coordinate System metadata interoperable with WCSLIB and conventions used by International Virtual Observatory Alliance tools are accessible via the API.
fitsio exposes a C API that can be wrapped by higher-level language bindings used in research code at universities like Princeton University and University of Cambridge. Bindings and interfaces connect fitsio with languages and environments popular in observatories and data centers: interfaces analogous to those used by Python toolkits from the Astropy Project, Fortran routines in legacy pipelines at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and C++ projects at European Southern Observatory and Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Integration patterns mirror those seen in software stacks at NOAO Science Archive, Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, and mission operations centers at NASA Ames Research Center.
fitsio is optimized for throughput and robustness required by survey operations at Vera C. Rubin Observatory prototypes and archival systems at Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. Typical use cases include batch ingestion of detector images from instruments at Keck Observatory, streaming processing of time-series data for missions like TESS, and extraction of catalog columns for cross-matching with databases maintained by Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS). Performance considerations focus on efficient block I/O, memory-mapped access patterns seen in high-performance computing centers such as National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and parallel archive systems at European Space Astronomy Centre.
fitsio is embedded in data reduction pipelines and archive systems at observatories, space agencies, and universities including Space Telescope Science Institute, European Southern Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, California Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. It interoperates with toolchains from the Astropy Project, visualization packages at SAOImage DS9 developers, and database ingest tools used by institutions like Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg and NASA Exoplanet Archive. The library is also used in instrument software for facilities such as Subaru Telescope, Gemini Observatory, and planetary missions managed by NASA JPL.
fitsio is distributed under a permissive BSD-style license compatible with software policies at organizations such as NASA, European Space Agency, and academic institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California. Source code distribution channels and package systems used by research computing groups at CERN and national labs enable deployment across Linux clusters, macOS systems used at university observatories, and Windows platforms employed by instrument teams. Packages and binary builds are integrated into software stacks maintained by community projects like Astropy Project and archives such as the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.
Category:Astronomy software