On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Mark Taylor wrote:
> I notice that uk.ac.starlink.splat.vo has popped up. I don't imagine
> it's in any state for a demo, but would you like to give me a short
> summary of what VO stuff you're intending/hoping to do with SPLAT
> (and SoG?) in the forseeable future so I can mention it if there's
> an opportune moment at the VO-Tech meeting tomorrow/friday?
Hi Mark,
coming up to breath for a moment, yes, I have accepted the SPLAT-VO
challenge (think I prefer the name that way around, but I could be
persuaded differently if opinions are strong), which is why I've been a
little quiet. I intended to say something today, so your reminder is
timely.
I've looked at the SSAP standards documents and decided there isn't one
really (promised for sometime next year), so I've just more-or-less
duplicated the sort of thing VOSpec offers and stuck to a very basic level
of (SSA) functionality.
So SPLAT now has a new shiny button on the main window that opens a dialog
to control SSAP queries. This offers a fixed set of SSAP servers (there
are in fact three), a simple name resolver and entry fields for the
required parts of a query (POS and SIZE). Once the query is made each of
the returned VOTables is displayed and you can then proceed to either
download the lot into SPLAT or just a selection of rows (you select using
the usual table methods).
What's missing for sure is handling the (proposed VOTable/Spectrum) data
units, plus some help and the usual convenience functions (double
clicking, saving/loading results tables), and a lot of testing, but you
could probably demo it if you have network access. Try a checkout and run
it up. I haven't managed to find a decent object yet, but you could try
ngc1068 (the lack of units matching stops useful comparisons).
Naturally once that's all finished I'll think about a similar tool for SoG
using SIAP, but the need there is less clear as it already offers image
downloads.
On the dreaming front, it would be nice if these query results could be
manipulated by TOPCAT (to apply further selections), and maybe visualised
(as slits) by SoG, but I've no idea how I might do any of that.
Cheers,
Peter.
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