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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hello Matt,<br>
<br>
Your comments are very enlightening and I am encouraged by them!<br>
(I was one of the Salsa J testers, btw, and my friends in Paris
developed<br>
it, based on our HOU C++ software).<br>
<br>
I like the reduce package you developed!<br>
<br>
I strongly support your ideas concerning using pro-quality engines
like astropy,<br>
but gettng an easier interface for my students. We had tried this
with IDL, but<br>
ran out of money and scalability issues kind of got us..<br>
<br>
My feeling now is that if we have a big server role, we still need
embedded in a potential app for<br>
tablets much of the arithmetic for image display. I did a
calculation based<br>
on current server gflop charges, and even something like each HOU<br>
student changing image contrasts 20 times a day for say four
weeks, would<br>
cost huge amounts of server dollars.<br>
<br>
Can we talk on the phone, say next week?<br>
<br>
Many Thanks,<br>
<br>
Carl<br>
<br>
On 10/1/15 6:48 PM, Matthew Craig wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:8D10CC84-A73B-4921-AA40-0983C985A5E9@mnstate.edu"
type="cite">
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Hi Carl,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The really short answer is that as far as I know,
no, if you want something right now that has the same
capabilities as Salsa J (I’ve used AstroImageJ with the
undergrads I work with, but think in the past I looked at SalsaJ
for occasional work with a high school).</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">There are a couple things going on now that have
some potential for this kind of use:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">a. The package Toyz (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://fred3m.github.io/toyz/overview.html" class="">http://fred3m.github.io/toyz/overview.html</a>, and
also see <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/fred3m/toyz" class="">https://github.com/fred3m/toyz</a>)
was presented at the Python in Astronomy conference in 2015. I
believe the model is that data is stored on a server, accessed
via a browser, not sure how involved the setup is. I’d
contact the author, Fred Moolekamp, for more details (actually,
seeing his github page screenshots reminded me I should contact
him too :). Contact information is on his github page, <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://github.com/fred3m"
class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/fred3m">https://github.com/fred3m</a></a> My memory from the
conference is that he has used Toyz for some outreach.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">b. [Disclaimer: shameless self-promotion] I’ve
developed an ipython/jupyter-based notebook for reducing data
(not what you are looking for, I think), and am starting work
this semester on a set of notebook-based tools for doing
photometry. You can get an idea of what the current reducer
interface looks like at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://reducer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/quickstart.html#quickstart"
class="">http://reducer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/quickstart.html#quickstart</a> —it
is *not* at all a replacement for salsa j at the moment,
but the photometry notebook would closer be closer to that. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I think the future of easily usable python-based
astro software will be:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">+ astropy-based on the backend, or backed by python
code that is tested and maintained at a similar level. Two
reasons: </div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>-
it is tested and maintained</div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>-
if everyone doing this kind of outreach that touches much larger
numbers is using a small set of well-validated tools then they
can be doing useful science as well as learning (which is not to
imply that useful science cannot be done with SalsaJ and kin,
just that if you can use the tools the pros use, why wouldn’t
you?)</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">+ browser-based for the user, with ipython/jupyter
running on a server hosted in the cloud (where the data is too),
serving up notebook instances and saving user results. Several
reasons:</div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>- The
jupyter/ipython infrastructure infrastructure is being adopted
in a wide variety of industries — the most interesting new
widget work I saw at SciPy was by a developer who works at
Bloomberg making clickable interfaces for traders. That scope of
buy-in should ensure a long lifetime for the project.</div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>- The
jupyterhub infrastructure for doing cloud hosting is also
developing rapidly. </div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>- The anaconda
python distribution has made installation much easier, but still
hard for a novice.</div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>-
Notebooks are essentially editable apps, so that with a little
teacher training and the right notebook design you could have
a notebook that offers all of the menus and options that Salsa J
has, but with the ability for teachers to remove
components/complexity if they don’t need it. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">A browser-based solution has the additional
advantage that tablets/phones already have those, though the
touch interface is still a work in progress.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I’m biased, but I also think easy-to-use tools will
be developed first at the undergraduate level or lower, where
there is a premium on minimizing the spin-up time for a new
learner/researcher. Eventually, it will trickle-up to larger
institutions if the backend is something like astropy, and the
interface makes doing what they need to do easier.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Let me know if you are interested in talking more
— I’m committed to building out a more complete set of
undergrad-accessible tools in order to get more done with the
undergrads at my university (limited, as always, by time and
resources) but it would great to explore whether we might have
some overlap.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div apple-content-edited="true" class="">
<div class="">Matt Craig<br class="">
<br class="">
schedule: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://physics.mnstate.edu/craig" class="">http://physics.mnstate.edu/craig</a><br
class="">
——
<div class=""><br class="">
Professor<br class="">
Department of Physics and Astronomy <br class="">
Minnesota State University Moorhead<br class="">
1104 7th Ave S, Moorhead MN 56563<br class="">
<br class="">
phone: (218) 477-2439<br class="">
fax: (218) 477-2290</div>
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Oct 2, 2015, at 5:43 PM, Carl Pennypacker
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:crpennypacker@lbl.gov" class="">crpennypacker@lbl.gov</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">Dear Astropy Community,<br class="">
<br class="">
I seek your help on the following: I am interested in a
Python based<br class="">
GUI with powerful underlying astronomy/.fts image handling<br
class="">
and analysis features. Over the past decades, our<br
class="">
Hands-On Universe program (see <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://handsonuniverse.org/" class="">http://handsonuniverse.org/</a>)
has evolved through several such systems,<br class="">
including initially a C++ version, an IDL based system,
and finally to a system<br class="">
based on NIH image (Image J now), called Salsa J
(available from <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://euhou.net" class="">
euhou.net</a>). We seek<br class="">
features such as aperture photometry, image<br class="">
subtraction, image division/multiplication, flat fielding,
adjusting<br class="">
contrast in the display., surface plot, plotting of
profiles (graph) across a<br class="">
user-marked line, etc. All these features work from pull
down menus<br class="">
while one's image is displayed. It is a huge amount of
fun,<br class="">
and students learn a lot. This Salsa J resembles DS-9,
which is good, but<br class="">
we like Salsa J better (I apologize to folks at SAO).<br
class="">
<br class="">
Do you all know of anyone who has developed a nice GUI
sitting on top of<br class="">
AstroPy features, like I describe above with such features
as are in our current Salsa J<br class="">
system? This seems like a very logical evolution of our
software.<br class="">
<br class="">
Finally, has anyone tried to compile such a python GUI or
other<br class="">
python routines onto Androids or Apple<br class="">
tablets? One the web, I see a number of systems that
claim they<br class="">
can take Python code and make it work on smart phones,
without<br class="">
having to learn Android or Iphone language..<br class="">
<br class="">
If we had such a image processing system for tablets, we
could reach many more<br class="">
teachers with our educational system and community.<br
class="">
<br class="">
Many Thanks,<br class="">
<br class="">
Carl Pennypacker<br class="">
UC Berkeley<br class="">
_______________________________________________<br
class="">
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class="">
</div>
</blockquote>
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<br class="">
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