[AstroPy] Python powered GUI for secondary school education image processing and possible porting to Tablets and Smart Phones

[Matthew Craig]

Hi Carl,

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).

There are a couple things going on now that have some potential for this kind of use:

a. The package Toyz (http://fred3m.github.io/toyz/overview.html, and also see https://github.com/fred3m/toyz) 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, https://github.com/fred3m My memory from the conference is that he has used Toyz for some outreach.

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 http://reducer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/quickstart.html#quickstart —it is *not* at all a replacement for  salsa j  at the moment, but the photometry notebook would closer be closer to that.

I think the future of easily usable python-based astro software will be:

+ astropy-based on the backend, or backed by python code that is tested and maintained at a similar level. Two reasons:
- it is tested and maintained
- 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?)

+ 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:
- 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.
- The jupyterhub infrastructure for doing cloud hosting is also developing rapidly.
- The anaconda python distribution has made installation much easier, but still hard for a novice.
- 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.

A browser-based solution has the additional advantage that tablets/phones already have those, though the touch interface is still a work in progress.

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.

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.

Matt Craig

schedule:  http://physics.mnstate.edu/craig
——

Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Minnesota State University Moorhead
1104 7th Ave S, Moorhead MN 56563

phone: (218) 477-2439
fax: (218) 477-2290

On Oct 2, 2015, at 5:43 PM, Carl Pennypacker <crpennypacker at lbl.gov<mailto:crpennypacker at lbl.gov>> wrote:

Dear Astropy Community,

I seek your help on the following: I am interested in a Python based
GUI with powerful underlying astronomy/.fts image handling
and analysis features. Over the past decades, our
Hands-On Universe program (see http://handsonuniverse.org/) has evolved through several such systems,
including initially a C++ version, an IDL based system, and finally to a system
based on NIH image (Image J now), called Salsa J (available from euhou.net<http://euhou.net>).  We seek
features   such as aperture photometry, image
subtraction, image division/multiplication, flat fielding, adjusting
contrast in the display., surface plot, plotting of profiles (graph) across a
user-marked line, etc.  All these features work from pull down menus
while one's image is displayed. It is a huge amount of fun,
and students learn a lot.   This Salsa J resembles DS-9, which is good, but
we like Salsa J better (I apologize to folks at SAO).

Do you all know of anyone who has developed a nice GUI sitting on top of
AstroPy features, like I describe above with such features as are in our current Salsa J
system?  This seems like a very logical evolution of our software.

Finally, has anyone tried to compile such a python GUI or other
python routines onto Androids or Apple
tablets?  One the web, I see a number of systems that claim they
can take Python code and make it work on smart phones, without
having to learn Android or Iphone language..

If we had such a image processing system for tablets, we could reach many more
teachers with our educational system and community.

      Many Thanks,

     Carl Pennypacker
    UC Berkeley
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