Notes on developments of software tools driven by WP5

Aladin can now be launched in two special modes added to the original professional mode: undergraduate and preview. In the undergraduate mode, the most important for our project, the choice of images and catalogs has been reduced in order to offer a selection of the most important data without embarrassing the user with too many alternatives or with too sophisticated data. All data are still accessible from the professional version which is offered together with the simplified version. Also the choice of functions activated directly with buttons and switches has been reduced to ease the learning curve required by the software. All these functionalities are still available in undergraduate mode, but they can be selected only via menu.

Aladin has been paired with a new Sky Browser that allows navigation of the whole sky, an essential feature for outreach/educational purposes that almost always include the exploration of the sky besides the study of a selected object. It is worth mentioning that the Sky Browser will also be greatly appreciated by professional astronomers.

Aladin is now able to read and to write astrometrical calibration information directly inside a JPEG image by using the COMMENT segment of this image format. This new feature leads to the use of the classical JPEG format in outreach mode. Furthermore, Aladin can now understand the new VO emerging standard called AVM used by the outreach astronomical community for describing image context (origin, calibration, etc). Thanks to these developments, Aladin now provides a direct access to the Hubble Press Release images.

Stellarium/Virgo, already close to the our WP5 requests, gain a new redesigned GUI based on Qt 4.5 for easier use of the software and solve of some bugs. There is now a recoded Digital Sky Survey background display feature that greatly improves speed and that, in the case of VirGO , uses multi-resolution color jpeg images.

Stellarium/Virgo now features a display of hour angle for any selected object, absolute magnitude for bright stars and allows screenshots in reversed colours (for easier/faster /cheaper printing).

SimPlay is a new quick viewer of objects available in the Simbad astronomical database (Simbad is also an essential database for Aladin). It complements the other software tools since it offers the possibility of a very fast display of images of astronomical objects with superimposed graphic markers at the position of objects of predefined categories (stars, galaxies, x-ray sources, etc.).

All software tools are documented with new and more extensive guides than in their initial professional versions. The interfaces have been translated, among other languages, in English, French, German, and Italian. The documentation is always in English and often in other languages.

-- GiuliaIafrate - 19 Apr 2009