Mark Taylor has announced the release of TOPCAT V2.0. A full description of the many graphics upgrades is included in the announcement below, or the project web page. TOPCAT is a tabular data viewer and editor and one of the only projects to survive the Starlink shutdown. I'm a big fan and recommend it for your FITS bintables every bit as much as VOTable xml.
From: Mark Taylor
Dear VO,
This is to announce the release of TOPCAT v2.0.
This version features major graphics upgrades. Headline features:
- More plot types:
To join the existing 2-d scatter plot window there are now the
following plot types:
- Histogram
- 3-d Cartesian scatter plot
- 3-d spherical polar plot with optional radial axis
(good for sky coverage visualisation)
- 2-d density map (i.e. 2-d histogram)
The 3-d functionality does not require any 3-d toolkit such as
Java3D or OpenGL to work, the only requirement is any old
J2SE 1.4 or 1.5 JVM.
- Multi-dataset/multi-table plotting
All the graphics windows now let you plot data from different tables,
or from different sets of columns, on the same plot. You can
have as many of each type of window open as you like.
- Transparent pixels/density map plotting
The density map, and the new translucent symbol features of the
2-d and 3-d scatter plots, provide a lot more visual information
about crowded plots with many points, since you can now see how
many points fall in a pixel rather than just that the pixel is
covered.
- Plotting styles
All the plots allow you detailed control over how
points/bars/whatever are plotted - colours, shapes, line styles,
transparency etc. Each style can be edited independently of
the others.
- Line drawing & linear correlation
The 2d scatter plot calculates and displays regression lines and/or
straight lines connecting points.
- Manual axis configuration
As well as zooming you can select the range to be plotted
explicitly by typing it in.
- Plotting performance
2d scatter plots now require considerably less memory and CPU time
than before. Depending on how it's stored, a million row initial
plot may take around 15 sec and a replot around 1 sec.
... and more.
The release is available in various forms from the TOPCAT web page:
http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/
You can also find comprehensive documentation and plenty of screenshots
there.
User feedback of any kind is most welcome.
Mark
--
Mark Taylor Astronomical Programmer Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor@bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/