On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, Tim Jenness wrote:
> >> One thing GAIA could usefully use PLASTIC is to send a spectrum from the
> >> cube to SPLAT (requires PLASTIC SPLAT but I assume given the TOPCAT
> >> infrastructure that this is relatively easy).
> >
> > Yes, basic PLASTICisation of SPLAT should be fairly straightforward -
> > I should be able to take a look when GAIA looks in better shape, unless
> > Peter wants to. There's currently no spectrum-specific message defined,
> > but we can add one. Think VOSpec is PLASTICised to some extent,
> > not sure if it coopts one of the VOTable-specific messages for this
> > purpose (though I don't think that would be the best way to do it).
>
> If you could squeeze splat/plasticification in then that would be great.
> GAIA already has a "send to SPLAT" feature but it would be best to
> standardise that.
I'll take an initial look at this, though I don't know yet whether
I'll have the time to do it properly.
Question: what format makes most sense for exchange of spectra between
GAIA and SPLAT? I suppose either a 1-D FITS image or a table
(FITS or ASCII) - in the latter case there have to be some implicit
assumptions or explicit information about which columns mean what.
If it's going to be a PLASTIC message it would be best to use a
format with well-defined syntax and semantics, so 1-D FITS may be
best. Although there are existing tools (VO-Spec) which exchange
spectra over PLASTIC I'm not totally certain they're doing it in
a way which is most sensible for these purposes.
Mark
--
Mark Taylor Astronomical Programmer Physics, Bristol University, UK
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