
FITS file plugin V1.05 for the GIMP     Peter Kirchgessner, 23-Dec-97
==================================      e-mail: pkirchg@aol.com
                                        WWW   : http://members.aol.com/pkirchg

Here is the FITS file plugin for the GIMP V 0.99.10 and up.
It is based on a FITS-reading/writing library FitsRW.
This library was designed for the FITS-plug-in, but can also
be used separately.
This plug-in will not work with GIMP V 0.54 !
In the directory

    ftp://members.aol.com/pkirchg/pub/gimp

you will find the following files:

    fits.txt                  : this document
    fits.tgz                  : gzipped tarfile with sources and documentation
    fits.linux.386.elf.tgz    : gzipped tarfile with Linux exectuable

News:
  V 1.05, 23-Dec-97:
    Add changes that came with gimp V 0.99.16 (initialize variables)
  V 1.04:
    no progress bars for non-interactive mode
  V 1.03:
    Parse rc file (changes font for dialogues)
  V 1.02:
    Bug with saving GRAY-images fixed
  V 1.01:
    Bug with compilation on Irix fixed

FITS-reading support
--------------------
  The plug-in reads simple FITS images with standard data arrays and
  also XTENSION='IMAGE'.
  The plug-in supports BITPIX values of 8, 16 and 32.
  BITPIX values of -32 and -64 are supported on machines which support
  IEEE-floating point format (Linux-386 does).
  BLANK or NaN-pixels can be replaced by black or white.
  The range of the pixel values kept in the data arrays are automatically
  detected and can be scaled automatically.
  FITS-files with NAXIS=3 and NAXIS3=2,...,4 can be composed to
  GRAYA_IMAGE, RGB_IMAGE and RGBA_IMAGE.

FITS-writing support
--------------------
  The plugin supports all GIMP image types on writing. GRAY_IMAGEs are stored
  with NAXIS=2, other images are stored with NAXIS=3. NAXIS3 will have values
  of 2 (GRAYA_IMAGE), 3 (RGB_IMAGE) or 4 (RGBA_IMAGE).

Installation of executable
--------------------------
  To tell the GIMP about the FITS-file-plugin, copy the fits-executable
  to /usr/local/lib/gimp/0.99.x/plug-ins .

Installation from source
------------------------
  The FITS-plug-in consists of the files fits.c, fitsrw.c and fitsrw.h.
  If you can work with automake, modify the Makefile.am in the plug-ins-
  directory:
   Add fits to the variable pluginlib_PROGRAMS
  and add
     fits_SOURCES = fits.c fitsrw.c fitsrw.h

  If you dont have automake and you must use the standard Makefile,
  look at the occurances of the nlfilt-plug-in. It also depends on
  another source megawidget.c and megawidget.h. Add the fits-plug-in
  in a similar way.

Suggestions
-----------
  Suggestions about the plug-in should be mailed to pkirchg@aol.com
