Provided by: ximtool_2.1+dfsg-1_amd64 
NAME
ximtool - interactive image display program for the X Window System
SYNOPSIS
ximtool [-toolkitoption ...] [ options ...] [imagename]
OPTIONS
-basePixel N
The base colormap cell used by the colormap. This essentially allows you to reserve basePixel
colors in the global colormap for other applications. The default is 64, if changed you'll need to
also specify the -cmapInitialize option or resource.
-cmap1 file
User colormap 1. This flag allows you to specify a colormap to be made available at task startup.
-cmap2 file
User colormap 2. This flag allows you to specify a second colormap to be made available at task
startup.
-cmapDir1 dir
User colormap directory 1. Specifies a directory to be searched for colormaps.
-cmapDir2 dir
User colormap directory 2. Specifies a directory to be searched for colormaps. By default this
points to the system directory /usr/local/lib/imtoolcmap, allowing a set of site default colormaps
to be defined here.
-cmapInitialize bool
Initialize the ximtool colormap at startup. When setting the basePixel option or resource this is
required in order to force the Gterm widget to update its global colormap resource in the X server.
The default is false.
-cmapName name
Name used for private colormap. The default for all IRAF imaging applications is image. Gterm
widget based imaging applications which have the same value of cmapName will share the same
colormap, minimizing colormap flashing and allowing multiple applications to be run at the same
time.
-config N
Initial frame buffer configuration number. The default value is 1, indicating a 512x512 frame
buffer with 2 frames. See below for information on the frame buffers.
-defgui
Print the default GUI to the stdout. The GUI is a Tcl program that may be customized by the user
and reloaded using the -gui option or the gui resource parameter.
-displayPanner bool
Display panner marker window at startup. If set, a panner window showing the full frame buffer will
appear in the upper-right side of the main display window.
-displayCoords bool
Display WCS coordinate marker window at startup. If set, a coordinate readout text marker showing
will appear in the lower-right side of the main display window.
-fifo pipe
Specifies the name of the fifo pipe to be used, the i and o suffixes will be added automatically.
The default pipe names will be /dev/imt1i (input pipe) and /dev/imt1o (output pipe).
-fifo_only
If set, only fifo pipes will be used for communication with a client program, sockets will be
disabled.
-gui file
Specifies the GUI file to be used.
-help
Print a summary of command line options to the screen.
-imtoolrc file
Specifies the frame buffer configuration file to be used. See below for information on frame
buffers.
-inet_only
If set, only inet sockets will be used for communication with a client program, fifo pipes and unix
sockets will be disabled.
-invert
Start XImtool using inverted colormaps. When set, a "normalized" display will always be the inverse
of the selected colormap.
-ismdev dev
Specifies the plug-in ISM connection socket. This should be a unix domain socket of the form
"/tmp/.ISM%d", where the %d will be replaced by the user id. Once an ISM has connected this port is
freed to accept other connections.
-maxColors N
Specify the max number of colors to be used for the display.
-memModel type
Determines how ximtool uses memory in the ximtool client and the X server. The options are fast,
beNiceToServer, and small. The default is fast, which uses server pixmaps to make frame blink fast.
This is recommended unless server memory is very limited. Note that even in fast mode, the server
pixmap is only the size of the display window, so memory usage is reasonable even if the frame
buffer is very large.
-nframes N
Specifies the number of frame buffers to configure at startup. By default there will be 2 frames
available, a maximum of 4 frames are allowed.
-port N
Specifies the port number to use when connecting through an inet socket.
-port_only
Same as -inet_only option. If set, only inet sockets will be used for communication with a client
program.
-printConfig name
Specifies the printer configuration file to use. By default this will be
/usr/local/lib/ximprint.cfg. See below for more information on configuring output devices.
-tile
The default display mode is to view one frame at a time. In tile frames mode, 2 or 4 frames may be
viewed simultaneously in the display window. All the usual operations (zoom and pan, colortable
enhancement, cursor readback, etc.) still work for each frame even when in tile frames mode.
-unix name
Specifies the unix domain socket name to use. A "%d" in the filename will be replaced with the user
id.
-unix_only
If set, only unix domain sockets will be used for communication with a client program, inet sockets
and fifos will be disabled.
APPLICATION RESOURCES
XImtool is implemented as a client program which is responsible for loading the frame buffers/colormaps,
communicating with clients, etc, and a user-modifiable GUI file written as a Tcl script which handles all
the user interface details. The client resources described below will be common to any user-defined GUI,
the gui resources may change depending on how extensively the GUI has been modified by the user. Each of
these components has its own set of resources, but to the user setting them is the same as with any other
application.
Gterm widget resources (i.e. those for the main image window or colorbar) may be set as either client or
GUI resources. See the xgterm(1) man page for a complete description of Gterm widget resources.
CLIENT RESOURCES
The client resources generally define the initial state of the application or set configuration
parameters.
Resource Name Default Value
defConfig 1
defNFrames 0
tileBorderWidth 3
tileBorderColor 9
autoscale false
antialias false
antialiasType boxcar
tileFrames false
highlightFrames true
gui default
imtoolrc /usr/local/lib/imtoolrc
invert false
memModel fast
basePixel: 64
maxColors: 216
cmapInitialize: false
cmap1 none
cmap2 none
cmapDir1 none
cmapDir2 /usr/local/lib/imtoolcmap
input_fifo /dev/imt1i
output_fifo /dev/imt1o
unixaddr /tmp/.IMT%d
port 5137
ism_addr /tmp/.ISM%d
ism_task "ism_wcspix.e wcspix &"
Description of ximtool client resources:
defConfig Default frame buffer configuration number on startup. See below for more information
on frame buffers.
defNFrames Default number of frames on startup. Set to zero to use the value from the frame
buffer configuration (imtoolrc) file.
tileBorderWidth
tileBorderColor Used by the tile frames option. Specifies how far apart to space the frames in tile
frames mode. Color "9" refers to the Gterm widget resource color9, which is assigned a
color with its own resource.
autoscale Enable/disable the autoscale option.
antialias Enable/disable the antialias option.
antialiasType Type of antialiasing. Options include boxcar (default), bilinear, nearest, area,
blkavg, lowpass, and gaussian.
tileFrames Enable/disable the tile frames option.
highlightFrames Determines whether the current frame is highlighted when in tile frames mode.
gui The GUI to be executed. "default" refers to the default, builtin ximtool GUI. You can
replace this with your own GUI file if you are bold enough, and completely change the
look and functionality of the GUI if desired.
imtoolrc Where to find the imtoolrc file. This defines the recognized frame buffer
configurations.
invert Start Ximtool using an inverted colormap. When set, a "normalized" display will always
be the inverse of the selected colormap.
memModel Determines how ximtool uses memory in the ximtool client and the X server. The options
are fast, beNiceToServer, and small. The default is fast, which uses server pixmaps to
make frame blink fast. This is recommended unless server memory is very limited. Note
that even in fast mode, the server pixmap is only the size of the display window, so
memory usage is reasonable even if the frame buffer is very large.
basePixel
maxColors These two resources determine the region of colormap space used to render image pixels.
cmapInitialize Initialize the ximtool colormap at startup. This is a required resource to clear a
previous ximtool colormap allowing a new basePixel and maxColors to take effect.
cmap1
cmap2 User colormap files. The intent here is to allow individual colormaps to be
conveniently specified as a resource.
cmapDir1
cmapDir2 User or system colormap directories. By default cmapDir2 points to the system
directory /usr/local/lib/imtoolcmap, allowing a set of site default colormaps to be
defined here. This leaves cmapDir1 available to a user colormap directory.
input_fifo
output_fifo The input and output fifos for fifo i/o. "Input" and "output" are from the client's
point of view. Note that only one display server can use a fifo-pair at one time.
unixaddr Template address for unix domain socket. The user must have write permission on this
directory, or the file must already exist. %d, if given, is replaced by the user's
UID.
port TCP/IP port for the server. Note that only one server can listen on a port at one
time, so if multiple ximtool servers are desired on the same machine, they should be
given different ports.
ism_addr Template address for ISM unix domain socket. The user must have write permission on
this directory, or the file must already exist. %d, if given, is replaced by the
user's UID.
ism_task Command string to execute for the real-time pixel and WCS readout ISM (Image Support
Module) task.
GUI RESOURCES
In principle ximtool can have any number of different GUIs, each of which defines its own set of
resources. GUIs typically define a great many resources, but most of these are not really intended for
modification by the user (although one can modify them if desired).
The following are some of the more useful resources used by the default ximtool GUI. The imagewin
resources are Gterm widget resources.
Main Display Gterm Widget Resources
Resource Name Default Value
*imagewin.cmapName: image
*imagewin.basePixel: 64
*imagewin.warpCursor: True
*imagewin.raiseWindow: True
*imagewin.deiconifyWindow: True
*imagewin.ginmodeCursor: circle
*imagewin.ginmodeBlinkInterval: 500
*imagewin.color0 (background): black
*imagewin.color1 (foreground): white
*imagewin.color8 (panner highlight):
#7c8498
*imagewin.color9 (tileFrame color):
SteelBlue
*imagewin.width: 512
*imagewin.height: 512
GUI Resources
Resource Name Default Value
*autoscale: True
*zoomfactors: 1 2 4 8
*displayCoords: True
*displayPanner: True
*displayMagnifier: True
*blinkRate: 1.0
*pannerArea: 150*150
*pannerGeom: -5+5
*magnifierArea: 100*100
*magnifierGeom: +5+5
*wcsboxGeom: -5-5
*maxContrast: 5.0
*warnings: True
*centerBoxSize: 5
*peakCentroid: True
Alternate GUI Resources
Resource Name Default Value
*showToolBar: False
*showPanelBar: False
Description of selected resources:
*cmapName Name used for private colormap. The default for all IRAF imaging applications is
"image". Gterm widget based imaging applications which have the same value of
cmapName will share the same colormap, minimizing colormap flashing and allowing
multiple applications to be run at the same time.
*basePixel The base colormap cell used by the display colormap.
*imagewin.warpCursor Warp pointer into image window when initiating a cursor read.
*imagewin.raiseWindow Raise image window when initiating a cursor read.
*imagewin.deiconifyWindow
Deiconify image window if necessary when initiating a cursor read.
*imagewin.ginmodeCursor
Type of cursor when a cursor read is in progress. The default is a circle. Any
selection from the X cursor font can be used. A special case is "full_crosshair"
which is the full crosshair cursor of the Gterm widget.
*imagewin.ginmodeBlinkInterval
Determines whether the cursor blinks when a cursor read is in progress. The value
is given in milliseconds.
*imagewin.color0 Background color.
*imagewin.color1 Foreground color.
*imagewin.color8 Color assigned the panner window.
*imagewin.color9 Color used for the tileFrames highlight.
*imagewin.width Width of the main image window.
*imagewin.height Height of the main image window.
*pannerArea Area in pixels of the panner window.
*pannerGeom Where to place the panner window.
*wcsboxGeom Where to place the coords box.
*maxContrast Maximum contrast value.
DESCRIPTION
As a display server, XImtool is started as a separate process from client software such as IRAF. Once it
is running it will accept client connections simultaneously on fifo pipes, unix domain sockets, or inet
sockets. A display client like the IRAF DISPLAY task makes a connection and sends the image across using
a modified IIS Model 70 protocol. Once the image is loaded in the display buffer it may be enhanced,
saved to a disk file in a number of different formats, or printed as Encapsulated Postscript to a printer
or disk file. Up to sixteen frame buffers are allowed, these may be displayed simultaneously in a tiled
mode, or blinked frame-to-frame. Each frame may have its own colormap or brightness/contrast
enhancement. Pan/Zoom and cursor readout are permitted using markers, on-line help is also available.
When run in standalone mode, images (currently IRAF OIF, GIF, Sun Rasterfiles or simple FITS (i.e.
excluding MEF files) formats are permitted) may be loaded on the command line or by using the Load Panel.
This allows you to browse images and perform the same manipulations as if they had been displayed by a
client.
MOUSE OPERATIONS
Clicking and dragging MB1 (mouse button 1) in the main image window creates a rectangular region marker,
used to select a region of the image. If you do this accidentally and don't want the marker, put the
pointer in the marker and type DELETE or BACKSPACE to delete the marker. With the pointer in the marker,
MB3 will call up a marker menu listing some things you can do with the marker, like zoom the outlined
region. MB1 can be used to drag or resize the marker. See below for more information on markers.
Clicking on MB2 in the main image window pans (one click) or zooms (two clicks) the image. Further clicks
cycle through the builtin zoom factors. Moving the pointer to a new location and clicking moves the
feature under the pointer to the center of the display window. Holding down the Shift key while
clicking MB2 will cause a full-screen crosshair cursor to appear until the button is released, this can
be useful for fine positioning of the cursor.
MB3 is used to adjust the contrast and brightness of the displayed image. The position of the pointer
within the display window determines the contrast and brightness values. Click once to set the values
corresponding to the pointer location, or click and drag to continuously adjust the display.
KEYSTROKE ACCELERATORS
The following keystrokes are currently defined in the GUI:
-------------------- Misc Functions ---------------------
Ctrl-b Previous (back) frame
Ctrl-c Center frame
Ctrl-f Forward frame
Ctrl-i Invert colormap
Ctrl-m Toggle magnifier
Ctrl-n Normalize
Ctrl-p Toggle panner
Ctrl-r Register
Ctrl-s Match LUT scaling
Ctrl-t Tile frames toggle
Ctrl-u Unzoom (zoom=1)
Ctrl-x Flip X
Ctrl-y Flip Y
Ctrl-= Print using current setup
Ctrl-< Decrease blink rate (blink faster)
Ctrl-> Increase blink rate (blink slower)
Ctrl-+ Zoom in
Ctrl-- Zoom out
Alt-1 thru Alt-4 Set frame to be displayed
Ctrl-1 thru Ctrl9 Set integer zoom factor
Ctrl-Alt-q Quit
Ctrl-Alt-f Fitframe
--------------------- Panel Toggles ---------------------
Alt-b Blink frames
Alt-c Control panel
Alt-h Help popup
Alt-i Info box popup
Alt-l Load file popup
Alt-p Print popup
Alt-s Save popup
Alt-t TclShell popup
------------------- Cursor Positioning ------------------
Ctrl-h / Ctrl-Left Move cursor one pixel left
Ctrl-j / Ctrl-Down Move cursor one pixel down
Ctrl-k / Ctrl-Up Move cursor one pixel up
Ctrl-l / Ctrl-Right Move cursor one pixel right
Shift-Ctrl-h / Shift-Ctrl-Left
Move cursor ten pixels left
Shift-Ctrl-j / Shift-Ctrl-Down
Move cursor ten pixels down
Shift-Ctrl-k / Shift-Ctrl-Up
Move cursor ten pixels up
Shift-Ctrl-l / Shift-Ctrl-Right
Move cursor ten pixels right
------------------- Auto-Registration -------------------
Ctrl-a Toggle auto-registration
Ctrl-o Set frame offset
-------------------- Frame Positioning ------------------
Ctrl-Left Shift one full frame left
Ctrl-Down Shift one full frame down
Ctrl-Up Shift one full frame up
Ctrl-Right Shift one full frame right
Ctrl-Alt-Left Shift one half frame left
Ctrl-Alt-Down Shift one half frame down
Ctrl-Alt-Up Shift one half frame up
Ctrl-Alt-Right Shift one half frame right
------------------- Peak-Up Centroiding -----------------
Ctrl-[ Decrease centroiding box size
Ctrl-] Increase centroiding box size
Ctrl-0 (zero) Centroid/find local maximum
Alt-Ctrl-0 (zero) Find local minimum
------------------ Mouse Button Events ------------------
Shift-Btn1Down Turn on magnifier
Shift-Btn1Up Turn off magnifier
Shift-Btn2Down Turn on crosshair cursor
Shift-Btn2Up Turn off crosshair cursor
Btn1Down Create a Marker
Btn1Motion Resize marker being created
Btn2Down Zoom/center on cursor position
Btn3Down/Motion Brightness/contrast scale the image
Ctrl-Btn1Down Create Ruler Marker
Ctrl-Btn1Motion Resize Ruler Marker being created
Ctrl-Btn1Up Destroy Ruler Marker
Alt-Motion Freeze cursor readout
NOTE: These keystrokes only work with the cursor in the main image window, only a few of the commands are
implemented to work within subwindows or markers to avoid conflicts with translations for those objects.
If a command does not work, check the cursor location and try it again in the main display window.
FRAME BUFFER CONFIGURATIONS
XImtool starts up using default frame buffer size of 512x512 pixels, two (of 16 possible) frames will be
created. When loading disk images (i.e. run in standalone mode) the frame buffer configuration file will
be searched for a defined frame buffer that is the same size or larger than the current image, if no
suitable buffer can be found a custom frame buffer the same size as the image will be created in an
unused portion of the configuration table. When used as a display server the frame buffer configuration
number is passed in by the client and loaded explicitly even if it means clipping the image. If a new
frame buffer is a different size than previously defined frames, all available frames will be initialized
and cleared prior to the display. The default frame buffer configuration file is
/usr/local/lib/imtoolrc, this can be overridden by defining a IMTOOLRC environment variable naming the
file to be used, by creating a .imtoolrc file in your home directory, or a new file may be specified
using the -imtoolrc command line flag or imtoolrc application resource.
The format of the frame buffer configuration file is
configno nframes width height [extra fields]
e.g.
1 2 512 512
2 2 800 800
3 1 1024 1024 # comment
: : : :
At most 128 frame buffer sizes may be defined, each configuration may define up to 16 frames,
configuration numbers need not be sequential.
NOTE: When defining a new frame buffer for use with client software such as IRAF the user must also
remember to define those frame buffers in the IRAF dev$graphcap file.
SUPPORT FOR 16 DISPLAY FRAMES
As part of the extensive GUI changes with the V1.3 release, support for the full 16 frames allowed by the
IIS protocol is now available. IRAF V2.11.4 or later client tasks (and CDL library) are required to take
advantage of this frames. All changes are backwards compatible, older versions of IRAF will continue to
work but cannot access more than the original four frames. The new DISPLAY task will automatically sense
whether the display server being used supports 16 frames or the original 4 and adjust the 'frame'
parameter maximum accordingly. The changes are fully backwards compatible for other servers.
More frames are possible if needed but will require further changes to the client IRAF code to be
effective. Allowing creation of more than 16 frames by the Load panel can be done independently but
would also require numerous code change to XImtool. Please contact site support if there is a need for
this, or for workaround suggestions depending on your application.
MARKERS
Although ximtool doesn't do much with markers currently, they are a general feature of the Gterm widget
and are used more extensively in other programs (e.g. the prototype IRAF science GUI applications).
XImtool uses markers for the marker zoom feature discussed above, and also for the panner and the coords
box. All markers share some of the same characteristics, so it is worthwhile learning basic marker
manipulation keystrokes.
o MB1 anywhere inside a marker may be used to drag the marker.
o MB1 near a marker corner or edge, depending on the type of marker, resizes the marker.
o Shift-MB1 on the corner of most markers will rotate the marker.
o Markers stack, if you have several markers and you put one on top of the other. The active marker is
highlighted to tell you which of the stacked markers is active. If the markers overlap, this will be
marker "on top" in the stacking order.
o MB2 in the body of a marker "lowers" the marker, i.e. moves it to the bottom of the stacking order.
o Delete or backspace in a marker deletes it.
o Markers have their own translation resources and so the default keystroke commands will not be
recognized when the cursor is in a marker.
For example, try placing the pointer anywhere in the coords box, then press MB1 and hold it down, and
drag the coords box marker somewhere else on the screen. You can also resize the coords box by
dragging a corner, or delete it with the delete or backspace key. (The Initialize button will get the
original coords box back if you delete it, or you can reset the toggle in the control panel).
PANNER MARKER
The panner window always displays the full frame buffer. Try setting the frame buffer configuration to a
nonsquare frame buffer (e.g. imtcryo) and then displaying a square image (e.g. dev$pix) and the panner
will show you exactly where the image has been loaded into the frame.
The panner window uses two markers, one for the window border and one to mark the displayed region of the
frame. Most of the usual marker keystrokes mentioned below apply to these markers as well, e.g. you can
use MB1 to reposition on the panner window within the main image display window, or to drag the region
marker within the panner (pan the image). Resizing the region marker zooms the image; this is a non-
aspect constrained zoom. The panner window itself can be resized by dragging a corner with MB1. Typing
delete or backspace anywhere in the panner window deletes the panner.
A special case is MB2. Hitting MB2 anywhere in the panner window pans the image to that point. This is
analogous to hitting MB2 in the main display window to pan the image.
The panner marker can be disabled by defining the displayPanner GUI resource, its size and location can
be controlled using the pannerArea and pannerGeom GUI resources respectively.
MAGNIFIER MARKER
The magnifier marker can be used to zoom in on a small area around the cursor. It will be updated as the
cursor moves but only for small motions (either mouse movement or with the cursor movement keystrokes) to
minimize the impact on the system. The zoom factor is expressed as some fraction of the size of the
magnifier marker itself. The default zoom is 4, i.e. the area in the marker represents and area in the
image that's one-fourth the size of the marker. Other zoom factors may be selected using the popup menu
created by hitting MB1 in the marker.
By default the magnifier marker is not visible, to toggle it select the Magnifier option from the Options
menubar button. Alternatively, for just a quick look holding down the Shift and MB2 buttons will display
the marker until the button is released.
The magnifier marker can be disabled by defining the displayMagnifier GUI resource, its size and location
can be controlled using the magnifierArea and magnifierGeom GUI resources respectively.
COORDS BOX MARKER
XImtool provides a limited notion of world coordinates, allowing frame buffer pixel coordinates and pixel
values to be converted to some arbitrary linear client-defined coordinate system. The coords box feature
is used to display these world coordinates as the pointer is moved about in the image window.
The quantities displayed in the coords box are X, Y, and Z: the X,Y world coordinates of the pointer, and
Z, the world equivalent of the pixel value under the pointer. All coordinate systems are linear. The
precision of a displayed quantity is limited by the range of values of the associated raw frame buffer
value. For example, if the display window is 512x512 only 512 coordinate values are possible in either
axis (the positional precision can be increased however by zooming the image). More seriously, at most
about 200 pixel values can be displayed since this is the limit on the range of pixel values loaded into
the frame buffer. If a display pixel is saturated a "+" will be displayed after the intensity value.
The coords box is a text marker, it can be moved and resized with the pointer like any other marker. The
coords box marker can be disabled by defining the displayCoords GUI resource, its location can be
controlled by the wcsboxGeom GUI resource.
MARKER MENU OPTIONS
Except for the panner and WCS markers, MB3 (mouse button 3) calls up the marker menu providing a limited
set of functions common to all markers:
o Zoom does an equal aspect zoom of the region outlined by the marker. In this way you can mark a region
of the image and zoom it up.
o Fill exactly zooms the area outlined by the marker, making it fill the display window. Since the
marker is not likely to be exactly square, the aspect ratio of the resultant image will not be
unitary.
o Print prints the region outlined by the marker to the printer or file currently configured by the
Print Panel.
o Save saves the region outlined by the marker to the file currently configured by the Save Panel.
o Info prints a description of the marked region. The text is printed in the Info Panel.
o Unrotate unrotates a rotated marker.
o Color is a menu of possible marker colors.
o Type is a menu of possible marker types. This is still a little buggy and it isn't very useful, but
you can use it to play with different types of markers.
o Destroy destroys the marker. You can also hit the delete or backspace key in a marker to destroy the
marker.
RULER MARKERS
Holding down the Ctrl key and the Left-Mouse-Button while moving the mouse will drag out a "ruler marker"
measuring the distance from the initial point to the current mouse position. Releasing the Ctrl key
before lifting the mouse button will leave the marker on the display, otherwise it will be erased
automatically once the mouse button is released. Any number of ruler markers can be created in the
frame.
Distances are measured by default in image logical pixels however the Right-Mouse-Button can be used
inside the marker to popup a menu of options:
Sticky By default rulers are destroyed whenever the display changes due to a pan, zoom,
flip, or frame change. This option will make the ruler "sticky" so it will not be
erased, subsequent use of the menu to shows this option to be "UnSticky" to remove
this feature.
Units Sub-menu to select the units of the display. If the ISM is enabled and a WCS is
present in the image and selected as one of the readout options, distances may also
be read out in units of arcseconds, arcminutes, or degrees instead of the default
logical pixels. All markers created after the unit change will readout in the new
units as their default.
Color Select the color of the marker.
Draw into Frame (Not Yet Implemented) Draw the marker as overlay graphics in the frame. Doing so
will retain the marker when printing a hardcopy of the display.
Destroy Destroy the marker.
The marker can also be destroyed by hitting the Delete or Backspace key while the
cursor is in the marker. There is presently no way to move the marker to a new
position in the frame.
REAL-TIME WCS/PIXEL-VALUE READOUT
XImtool now has the ability to display the actual pixel value of an image (as well as the scaled value
previously shown) and the cursor position in image WCS values (e.g. RA/DEC, GLAT/GLONG, etc). This is
done using an external task (the 'ism_wcspix.e' binary in the new distribution) to access the image and
pass the coordinate/pixel information to the GUI.
WCS readout is enabled by default but can be toggled or reset using the WCS/Pix button on the Coords tab
in the control panel or the ISM toggle on the alt-gui menubar. When enabled, images currently in the
server or subsequently displayed will be passed to the external process where they are cached for access.
Cursor movements generate an event that maps the current frame buffer position to a position in the
cached image. The ISM (ISM is Image Support Module) task then reads the image to determine the pixel
value (or a small table of values around the current position), and computes one or more coordinates from
the image position. The ISM task also has access to the associated BPM images and can optionally return
bad pixel information during the cursor readout.
By default, the logical and world image coordinates are displayed to both the Coords panel readout as
well as the main display window wcsbox text marker. Alternate coordinate systems (e.g. transformation of
equatorial to galactic coordinates or some other sky system, physical coords, amplifier coords, etc) can
be selected for display by hitting the Options toggle on the Coords panel. Available coordinate systems
are chosen using the Type menu on the panel, the readout format (sexigesimal, degrees, etc) using the
Format menu, and the display to the current panel or main image window using the remaining toggles for
each WCS. Up to four systems may be displayed at one time, the coordinate panel and wcsbox marker will
adjust size automatically depending on the display.
By selecting the BPM Data toggle from the Coords.Options panel ximtool is able to flag pixels in images
with an associated bad pixel mask. This bad pixel mask is currently assumed to be named in the image
header "BPM" keyword by convention. If the cursor passes over a bad pixel in the mask, the Coords bpm
display as well as the main window wcsbox will change to a red background color. Only the Coords display
will show the value, any non-zero value will be flagged with the color change.
With the ISM enabled the Compass indicator will display a set of arrows showing North-East if a WCS is
available, otherwise just the current X-Y axes are shown. The pixel table will display actual pixel
values from the image, with the ISM off the pixel table displays the scaled image values from the frame
buffer.
FREEZING CURSOR READOUT
Holding down the Alt key will now freeze the cursor display readout and draw crosshairs on the screen at
the last position. This can be used for example to position the cursor but then allow the cursor to be
moved to another window (to enter text, start a program, whatever) without losing the position
information displayed on the screen.
CUT-GRAPHS
XImtool now has the ability to display horizontal and vertical cut-graphs of the display, these appear as
"flip-out" panels that appear on the bottom and right side of the main display window and are controlled
by the small "H" and "V" buttons in the lower right corner of the window. When both panels are enabled
the corner area of the display also shows an options panel for the graphs. Current options are:
Better Speed Draw the graphics so they update at the fastest possible rate. This is done by
subsampling pixels to produce a smoother graph but without sacrificing too much
accuracy.
Better Accuracy Draw the graphics using all screen pixels to produce the most accurate display. On
fast modern machines this can be enabled with no apparent loss of speed, however
older machines may wish to use this only occasionally to limit any lag in the cursor
tracking.
Image Pixels (Not Yet Implemented)
Jump Cursor If enabled, large jumps of the cursor do not update the graphics display, small
movements around an object of interest will update the display continuously.
Smooth Cursor If enabled, all cursor movements cause the display to be updated. This is another
option that can be set safely on faster machines but will cause a delay on slower
ones.
Graphics Cursors If enabled, the graphics cursors in either of the plots are active and can be used to
update the cursor readout on the main image window and the complementary cut-graph.
This can be used for example to freeze the cursor in the main display using the Alt
key (see above), then moving to one of the graphics windows to perform cut graphs in
only one axis.
Graphs are (currently) drawn using only the scaled display values to avoid
complications of accessing multiple images in a mosaic display. Both plots are
labeled using the frame z1/z2 values and contain cursor indicators which update
contuously.
PEAK-UP CURSOR CENTROID POSITIONING
Several new keystroke commands are available to reposition the cursor to a centroid or min/max pixel
value within a bounding box of the cursor position, allowing you to approximate the position with the
mouse and fine tune it quickly before typing the application keystroke command. The initial box size is
controlled with a centerBoxSize GUI resource (defaults to 5 pixels) but can be adjusted interactively
using the Ctrl-[ and Ctrl-] commands to descrease/increase the box size respectively. A marker will
flash briefly to indicate the box size.
The Ctrl-0 (zero) key finds either a centroid or the local maximum pixel value within this box region,
Alt-Ctrl-0 (zero) will find the local minimum value. In either case the cursor is reposition to the
computed value. The default peak-up action is to find the centroid position in the box however this can
be changed to find the max pixel by selection the "Centroid Peaks" option from the main Display control
panel or by resetting the peakCentroid GUI resource (defaults to True).
Centroiding is done using only the scaled screen pixel values and only pixels above the mean value within
the box are used. It works best if the box size is set appropriately, the centroid position may appear
to drift if the box is too large and includes too many background pixels.
Command Summary
Ctrl-0 (zero) Reposition to centroid/max-pixel
Alt-Ctrl-0 (zero) Reposition to min-pixel
Ctrl-[ Decrease centering box size (min of 5)
Ctrl-] Increase centering box size
Resource Summary
peakCentroid = True Compute the box centroid position, a 'False' value force the max value to be used
centerBoxSize = 5 Size of the centroid box, used as cursor position +/- this value
AUTO-REGISTRATION OF IMAGES
The auto-register feature allows you specify a registration of two or more display frames with an offset.
When enabled, this registration is maintained for all frames in the list if any one of them is panned or
zoomed to a new location in the frame buffer.
For example, to use this feature do the following:
1) Enable Auto-Register (either on the Control Panel or the toolbar on the alt-gui) and pan/zoom
to some star of interest.
2) Use Mouse-Button-2 to center the star in the frame.
3) Cycle through the frames and you may see a small shift of the star. For each frame,
position the cursor on the star and type Ctrl-o to offset it to the center. Repeat as
necessary. Small corrections will be cumulatively added so you can use the Ctrl-0 (Ctrl-
zero) peak-up command to centroid each object in the frame before the Ctrl-o offset.
4) Pan around the image in one display frame, then switch frames and the new frame should also
be panned to the new image with the proper offset.
5) A Ctrl-a command will toggle the feature, offsets are only allowed when autoreg is enabled.
Hitting Register will zero the offsets, as will toggling the auto-register function. What you should see
is the object centered in the frame and as you blink through it remains registered but the panner box
marker is moving around. Drag the panner around and all frames still remain registered with the given
offset. The control/info panels now display what the offset is for each frame.
The register display list is shared with the blink list and can be set using the Display control panel.
By default all frames are included in the list. For accessing more than four frames, use the box icon in
the Blink/Register box of the Display control panel to bring up a new window with access to all 16
available frames.
Command Summary
Ctrl-o Set the registration offset from center
Ctrl-a Toggle the Auto-Register feature
CONTROL PANEL
XImtool has a control panel which can be used to exercise most of the capabilities the program has for
image display. The control panel can be accessed either via the Options menu from the main window
menubar, or by pressing the leftmost button in the row of buttons at the upper right side of the display
in the standard GUI (in the alternate GUI the Control Bar accessed by the rightmost button on the menubar
provides widgets for selecting the desired control panel).
The separate windows previously used for Control/Print/Load/Save/etc have now been integrated into a
single window with the appropriate control panel selectable with a Tab widget. There are also new Tab
panels for setting the frame tile configuration (see below), more detailed information on the server
status, and selecting the WCS readout options (see below).
VIEW CONTROLS
The Frame box will list only the frame buffers you currently have defined. Currently, the only way to
destroy a frame buffer is to change the frame buffer configuration, new frame buffers (up to 16) will be
created automatically if requested by the client. The number of frame buffers created at startup can be
controlled using the -nframes command-line switch or the defNFrames resource.
The text display window gives the field X,Y center, X,Y scale factors, the X,Y zoom factors, and the
frame offset used in Auto-Registration. The scale factor and the zoom factor will be the same unless
autoscale is enabled. The scale is in units of display pixels per frame buffer pixel, and is an absolute
measure (it doesn't matter whether or not autoscale is enabled). Zoom is relative to the autoscale
factor, which is 1.0 if autoscaling is disabled. This information is also presented in the Info panel.
The numbers in the Zoom box are zoom factors. Blue numbers zoom, red numbers dezoom. Zoom In and Zoom Out
may be used to go to larger or smaller zoom factors, e.g. Ctrl-5 followed by "Zoom In" will get you to
zoom factor 10. Specific zoom factors may also be accessed directly as Control keystrokes, e.g. Ctrl-5
will set zoom factor 5. Center centers the field. Toggle Zoom toggles between the current zoom/center
values, and the unzoomed image.
Aspect recomputes the view so that the aspect ratio is 1.0. Aspect also integerizes the zoom factor (use
the version in the View menu if you don't want integerization).
Fit Frame makes the display window the same size as the frame buffer. Note that autoscale has much the
same effect, and allows you to resize the display window to any size you want, or view images too large
to fit on the screen.
ENHANCEMENT CONTROLS
At the top is a scrolled list of all the available colormaps. Click on the one you want to load. You can
add your own colormaps to this list by defining the cmap[12] or cmapDir[12] command line flags or
application resources.
The two sliders adjust the contrast (upper slider) and brightness (lower slider) of the display. The
Invert button inverts the colormap (multiples the contrast by -1.0). Note that due to the use of the
private colormap the sliders are a bit sluggish when dragged to window the display. If this is annoying,
using MB3 in the display window is faster.
The Normalize button (on the bottom of the control panel) will normalize the enhancement, i.e. set the
contrast and brightness to the default one-to-one values (1.0, 0.5). This is the preferred setting for
many of the pseudocolor colortables and for private colormaps loaded from disk images. The Initialize
button does a reset of the server.
BLINK CONTROLS
Blink frames is the list of frames to be blinked. When blink mode is in effect ximtool just cycles
through these frames endlessly, pausing "blink rate" seconds between each frame. The same frame can be
entered in the list more than once. To program an arbitrary list of blink frames, hit the Reset button
and click on each blink frame button until it is set to the desired frame number. The main control panel
allows only the original four frames to be specified in the blink list, however access to the full list
of 16 frames now supported is gained using the box icon button next the the Reset button to bring up a
new control panel.
The Blink Rate can be adjusted as slow or as fast as you want using the arrow buttons. If you set the
blink rate small enough it will go to zero, enabling single step mode (see below).
The Register button registers all the blink frames with the current display frame. Frames not in the
blink list are not affected.
The Match LUTs button sets the enhancement of all blink frames to the same values as the display frame.
Frames not in the blink list are not affected.
The Blink button turns blink on and off. When the blink rate is set to zero the Blink button will single
step through the blink frames, one frame per button press.
NOTE: You can blink no matter what ximtool options are in effect, but many of these will slow blink down.
To get the fastest blink you may want to turn off the panner and coords box, and match the LUTs of all
the blink frames. All the ximtool controls are fully active during blink mode, plus you can load frames
etc.
OPTIONS:
Panner
Toggles whether to display the Panner marker.
Magnifier
Toggles whether to display the Magnifier marker.
Coords Box
Toggles whether to display the coordinate box marker.
Autoscale
If autoscale is enabled then at zoom=1, the frame buffer will be automatically scaled to fit within
the display window. With autoscale disabled (the default), the image scale is more predictable, but
the image may be clipped by the display window, or may not fill the display window.
Antialias
When dezooming an image, i.e., displaying a large image in a smaller display window, antialiasing
causes all the data to be used to compute the displayed image. If antialiasing is disabled then
image is subsampled to compute the displayed image. Antialiasing can prevent subsampling from
omitting image features that don't fall in the sample grid, but it is significantly slower than
dezooming via subsampling. The default is no antialising.
Tile Frames
The default display mode is to view one frame at a time. In tile frames mode, 2 or 4 frames may be
viewed simultaneously in the display window. All the usual operations (zoom and pan, colortable
enhancement, cursor readback, etc.) still work for each frame even when in tile frames mode.
Warnings
The warnings options toggles whether you see warning dialog boxes in situations like overwriting an
existing file, clearing the frame buffer, etc.
Centroid Peaks
If enabled, the Ctrl-0 keystroke will reposition the cursor to the computed centroid of the
centroiding box, otherwise the cursor is repositioned to the local maximum value within the box.
LOAD PANEL
The Load Panel allows you load images from disk directly to the frame buffer, this is analogous to
loading an image on the command line except that browsing is possible. At present recognized formats
include IRAF OIF format (i.e. .imh extension), simple FITS files, GIF, and Sun rasterfiles. The task
will automatically sense the format of the image and load it appropriately. Images with private colormaps
(such as GIF) will be loaded using the private colormap (meaning that changing the brightness/contrast
enhancements will render an apparently random-colored image), all others will be loaded with a grayscale
colormap.
When loading new images the frame buffer configuration table will be searched for a frame buffer that is
the same size or larger than the new image size, if no frame buffer can be found a custom buffer exactly
the size of the image will be created. This means that the image may not fill the display window when
loaded, or you may see a subsection of the image in the main display window. Setting the autoscale
option on the main Display panel will scale the entire image to fit the main display window, the full
frame buffer will always be visible in the Panner marker window.
Images with more colors than can be displayed will automatically be quantized to the number of available
colors before display. If the Auto Grayscale button is enabled any image colormap will be converted to
grayscale and loaded as the standard grayscale colormap.
Formats which permit pixels larger than 8-bits/pixel will be sampled on a grid to determine an optimal
range in the data to be used to compute a linear transformation to the number of display colors. This is
the same z-scale sampling and transformation used by the IRAF DISPLAY task when computing the z1/z2
values and provides a much better initial display than simple truncation to 8-bits. This scaling will be
done automatically using a grid of Nsample points if the Zscale option is enabled. Otherwise, if the
Zrange option is set the full data range will be used to scale the image. Lastly, is neither Zscale nor
Zrange are enabled, the z1/z2 values may be set explicitly using the options box.
Directory Browsing
The load panel contains a list of files in the current directory that may be selected for loading by
selecting with left mouse button. If the file is a directory the contents of the new directory will
be loaded, if it's a plain file an attempt will be made to load it as an image otherwise an error
popup will appear. Directories in the list are identified with a trailing '/' character, you will
always see any subdirectories listed even if a filter is specified.
The Root button will reset the current directory to the system root directory. The Home button will
reset the current directory to the user's login directory, the Up button moves up one directory
level, and Rescan reloads the file list by rescanning the directory. The current working directory
is given below the file selection window.
Selecting the List Image Headers option will change the display text to list all images in the
current directory which match the filename filter. Directory browsing is disabled while this option
is in effect.
File Patterns
By default all files and directories will be listed. You may specify a filter to select only those
files with a given extension such as "*.fits" using the Filter text box. Directories will always be
seen in the list and are identified with a trailing '/' character. Any valid unix pattern matching
string will be recognized, multiple templates may be specified in a comma-delimited list such as
"*.imh,*.fits" to list both OIF and FITS images.
Direct File Load
If you know exactly which file you wish to load, you may enter its name in the Load File text box
and either hit <cr> or the Load button to load it. An absolute or relative path name may be given,
if a simple filename is specified it will be searched for in the current working directory.
Frame Selections
By default images will be loaded into the current frame, you may choose a different frame using the
Frame menu button to select from the available frames.
SAVE PANEL
The Save Panel lets you save the current contents of the main display window to a disk file (including
the Panner/Coords markers, or overlay graphics displayed by the client program). Presently, only the
contents of the main display window may be saved, there is no facility for saving the undisplayed
contents of the entire frame buffer other than to enable the autoscale feature or zoom out so the whole
buffer is in the display window. A limited number of formats are currently available, others will be
added in future versions.
File Name The File Name text box allows you to enter the file name of the saved file. A "%d"
anywhere in the name will be replaced by a sequence number allowing multiple frames to be
saved with unique names.
Format The Format box allows you to choose the format of the image to be created however not all
formats are currently implemented. The EPS format is similar to the Print option however
there is no annotation.
Color The Color box lets you choose the color type of the image to be created. The options will
change depending on the format, e.g. FITS doesn't allow color so no color options will be
enabled. Formats which allow 24-bit images will be written using the current colormap
after converting to a 24-bit image, pseudocolor images will be written with the current
colormap.
PRINT PANEL
The Print Panel allows you dump the contents of the main display window as Encapsulated Postscript to
either a named printer device or to a disk file. The Print To selects the type of output, the Print
Command box will adjust accordingly, either as a Unix printer command or as a file name. A "%d" anywhere
in the name for disk output will be replaced by a sequence number allowing multiple frames to be saved
with unique names. Selecting printers from the installed list will automatically change the command to be
used to generate the output. This command does not necessarily need to be a printer command, the printer
configuration file lets you define any command string to process the image.
COLOR OPTIONS
The Color box lets you choose the color type of the image to be created. PseudoColor or 24-bit
postscript will be created using the current colormap and enhancements.
POSTSCRIPT OPTIONS
Orientation Set the page orientation.
Paper Size Select the paper size to be used.
Image Scale Set the scale factor used to compute the final image size. No checking is done to make
sure the image will fit correctly on the page.
PROCESSING OPTIONS
Auto Scale
Toggles whether or not the image is automatically scaled to fit the page. If not enabled, the image
scale will be used to determine the output image size, otherwise the image will be scaled down (if
necessary) to fit on the page.
Auto Rotate
Determines whether or not the image will be rotated to fit on the page. When set, an image larger
than the current orientation will be rotated and possibly scaled to fit the page, otherwise the
image may be scaled so that it fits in the current orientation.
Max Aspect
Automatically increases the scale so the image fills the page in the current orientation.
Annotate
The annotate option toggles whether or not the final file includes annotation such as the image
title, a colorbar, and axis labels. There is currently no option for partial annotation.
ANNOTATION OPTIONS
Annotate
Selects whether Postscript image is to be annotated. Title Annotate with a title on the top of the
image. Borders Annotate with borders surrounding the image giving image coordinates. Colorbar
Annotate with colorbar at the bottom of the image Title String Title string to use when title is
selected. The special value imtitle will force the title to be the currently displayed image title,
otherwise it will be this user-selected field.
PRINTER SELECTION
The printer selection list lets choose the printer to be used. The printer configuration file is
/usr/local/lib/ximprint.cfg by default or may be reset using the -printConfig command line switch or
printConfig resource. The format of the file is simply
name\tcommand
The name value is what appears in the selection list and may be more than a single word, the command can
be any command that accepts EPS input from a pipe, the two fields must be separated by a tab character.
Normally the command will be a simple lpr -Pfoo or some such, but can also include converters or
previewers. At most 128 printer commands may be used.
INFO PANEL
The Info panel was revised to provide a greater variety of status information. The type of output is
controlled by the toggle buttons on the bottom of the frame, however all output is kept current as the
program runs. Current info options include:
Frame Info about the current display frame.
Server Info about various server options, e.g. colormaps, memory model, antialias type,
etc.
Clients Show currently connected clients. Lists available connection channels and active
ISM clients.
WCS List all WCS and mappings for the current frame.
ISM Log of various ISM status messages.
Imtoolrc Show current frame buffer configuration table.
TILE PANEL (NEW)
With the additional frames, the default tiling scheme proved inadequate. A new control panel Tile frame
now allows you to select from a number of tile configurations, the list of frames to be tiled, a fill
style (left-to-right or top-to-bottom), as well as optional labels for each of the tiles (frame number,
image title or image name).
Tile configuration will make use of all frames currently selected in the Tile Frame group in the
following manner:
Disabled Do not tile the display.
Manual Tile according to Manual Configuration settings.
Best Optimize layout for frame buffer aspect.
Square Always force a square layout (2x2, 3x3, etc).
Horizontal Preferentially tile horizontally (6 frames ==> 3x2).
Vertical Preferentially tile vertically (6 frames ==> 2x3).
One Row Tile all in one row (Nx1).
One Column Tile all in one column (1xN).
COORDS PANEL (NEW)
The Coords Panel is meant to provide a full-featured readout as well as serve as a control panel for the
various options. The display window contains the image name/title and frame buffer info, and a selection
of coordinate and image pixel readouts. The intent is provide more infor- mation than can fit
comfortably on the main image window while still taking up as little screen space as possible. To this
end the "Options" button is used to hide most of the feature controls when not in use (see below). Other
options on the main panel include:
WCS/Pix Toggle the real-time WCS/pixel readout capability (i.e. the ISM used to access the
disk image). This must be enabled for certain other options to work.
Pix Table Open a panel showing an image pixel table. The panel shows an array of pixels
surrounding the cursor position, either the actual pixel values if the ISM is
enabled, or scaled display values otherwise. The size of the table may be selected
from the menubar.
Header Display the current image header in a new panel. Both the entire image header as
well as WCS-specific parts of the header are available under different tabs. This
option is only active when the ISM is enabled.
Compass Draw an orientation compass on the display panner. If the ISM is enabled and a WCS
is present in the header, the compass will indicate N/E according to the WCS,
otherwise the X/Y axes of the image are drawn.
Options Pop-up/down the option control portion of the panel. When enabled, the Coords Panel
will change size to reveal the options which can be changed (explained below).
The "Readout Values" group controls the selection of WCS type, location and format to be displayed. The
"Type" menu always provides a selection of the image Logical, Physical or World systems, which may be
identical depending on the image header. If a World system is supplied in the image addition entries for
transformations to other sky systems, (e.g. FK5 to ICRS or galactic/ecliptic) will also be available.
The selection is dependent on whether the ISM is running as well as WCS information present in the image.
The "Format" menu allows the use to select a sexigesimal display, conversion to degrees or radians, or
whichever format is most natural for the coordinate being display. The two toggle to the right control
whether this WCS is to be displayed on the Panel (i.e. the Coords Panel window) or the ImgWin (i.e. the
text marker on the main image window).
Other options below this group control whether or not to display the WCS labels, the image name/title,
and frame buffer information in the main Coords Panel display. The "BPM Data" option controls whether or
not the ISM will try to map any bad-pixel mask associated with the image. If enabled, a bad-pixel mask
specified by the image header BPM keyword (currently fixed by convention but this may be selectable
later) will be mapped along with the image. Aside from wcs/pixel readouts at each cursor position, any
BPM data values found will also be displayed. A non-zero value will cause the BPM field of the Coords
Panel readout as well as the main image window marker to switch to a red background color to flag the
value.
The last box allows the user to specify a different ISM task to be executed or to reinitialize the
current one. In most cases this won't need to be changed, however a custom ISM could be started when
using special data formats. This command string can also be controlled by the application "ism_task"
resource.
TCLSHELL
The TclShell allows the user to type commands directly to the TCL interpreter, letting you send messages
to the object manager or execute specific procedures in the TCL code that makes up the GUI. It is used as
a development or debugging tool for the GUI, but for an example of what it does, bring it up and type a
command such as
send fileButton set background red
COLORMAP SELECTION
By default XImtool will display images using either a grayscale colormap (e.g. if loaded by a client),
or a private colormap when loading an image from disk that contains a colormap. Each frame defines its
own colormap so you can define different colormaps or enhancements for each frame, they will change
automatically as you cycle through the frames.
BUILTIN COLORMAPS
Once loaded, the colormap may either be changed using the builtin colormap menu under the View menu
button on the main window, or from the Enhancement box on the control panel. XImtool has about a dozen
colormap options builtin, other user-defined colormaps may optionally be loaded. It is not presently
possible to save colormaps for later use.
USER-DEFINED COLORMAPS
The cmap[12] and cmapDir[12] resources (or command line arguments) are used to tell which specific
colormaps to make available or where to look for colortables respectively. The colortables are loaded
when ximtool starts up, or when it is reinitialized (e.g. by pressing the Initialize button in the
control panel). XImtool will ignore any files in the colormap directory which do not look like
colortables. New colortables will also be added automatically for each image loaded from disk.
The format of a user lookup table is very simple: each row defines one colortable entry, and consists of
three columns defining the red, green, and blue values scaled to the range 0.0 (off) to 1.0 (full
intensity).
R G B
R G B
(etc.)
Blank and comment lines (lines beginning with a '#') are ignored.
Usually 256 rows are provided, but the number may actually be anything in the range 1 to 256. XImtool
will interpolate the table as necessary to compute the colortable values used in XImtool. XImtool uses at
most 201 colors to render pixel data, so it is usually necessary to interpolate the table when it is
loaded.
The name of the colortable as it will appear in the XImtool control panel is the root name of the file,
e.g., if the file is "rainbow.lut" the colortable name will be "rainbow". Lower case names are suggested
to avoid name collisions with the builtin colortables. Private colormaps for disk images will be have the
same name as the image loaded. If the same colortable file appears in multiple user colortable
directories, the first one found will be used.
MINIMIZING COLORMAP CONFLICTS
The Gterm widget used by XImtool (i.e. the main display window) uses a private global colormap for
display, this allows it to have greater control over color cell allocation but can occasionally also
cause "colormap flashing" as the mouse is moved in and out of the application. The problem here is that
in a system with only an 8-bit colormap (256 colors) all applications must compete for colors, programs
such as XV or Netscape allocate colors from the default colormap leaving only a few free cells for
XImtool. Since XImtool defines a private global colormap it is still able to allocate the needed cells
rather than failing, but it's allocating cells already used by other applications. As the mouse moves
out of the ximtool window those cells are once again defined in terms of the default colormap, so the
ximtool window is then using a different colormap. It is this switching of the colormap context that
causes the flashing to occur, but there are a few things that can be done to help minimize this.
XImtool logically defines 200 colors which the client image display program can use to render pixels.
However, ximtool may or may not actually allocate all of those colors. By default it currently allocates
only about 192 colors, to reserve 64 colors for the other windows on the screen. You don't normally
notice this as 1) usually the default screen colormap has enough free cells to allow ximtool to match the
colors, and 2) the extra unallocated cells correspond to the brightest pixels in the rendered image, and
these colors may not be used or usually only correspond to a few small regions near the saturated cores
of bright objects.
You can eliminate this problem by setting the basePixel resource to e.g. 48 instead of 64, which will
let the gterm widget allocate all 200 colors. However, this isn't recommended for normal use as it will
increase the likelihood of colormap flashing. If you change basePixel, either restart the X server or
set the resource cmapInitialize=True to force the gterm widget to update its global colormap resource in
the X server. The colormap resource may also be deleted by using the command
xprop -root -remove GT_image
These options may also be set on the command line when first starting up.
In general one can set the Gterm widget resources basePixel and maxColors to specify the region of
colormap space to be used for image display. If you set maxColors to a small value, the 200 logical
colors defined by the widget will be mapped by the imtool color model into whatever number of colors are
actually available to the widget. For example, in the default setup, 200 color values are really being
mapped into 192 color cells used for display, the remaining colors are used for buttons, menus etc and
are allocated from the default colormap by the X toolkit when the application starts up.
Even though the Gterm widget uses a private colormap, it is a private global colormap meaning that all
Gterm widgets share the same colormap. An example of colormap sharing in ximtool is the main image
window and the colorbar window. These are two separate gterm widgets that share the same colormap. They
have to share the same colormap, as otherwise when you windowed the main image window the colorbar window
would not accurately reflect the modified colormap. By default two separate ximtools would also share
the same colormap meaning contrast enhancements in one window would affect the other. By resetting the
cmapName command line option or resource you can change the name of the private colormap used causing
separate ximtools to use different colormaps, but note this also creates colormap flashing between the
two windows that cannot easily be avoided. By setting the cmapName to "default" the widget will allocate
colors from the default colormap, but this is of little use at the moment.
There are a number of other resources that can be used to modify the behavior of the Gterm widget color
management scheme, but these are the most useful ones.
DISPLAY CLIENT CONNECTIONS
XImtool allows display clients to connect in any of the following ways:
fifo pipes
The traditional approach. The default global /dev/imt1[io] pipes may be used, or a private set of
fifos can be specified using the -fifo command line argument or *fifo resource. Values should be
specified as the root pathname to a pair of fifo pipes whose last character is 'i' or 'o', these
characters will be added automatically when opening the pipes. For example, to use the default
pipes the path would be specified as simply "/dev/imt1". A value of "none" disables this connection.
tcp/ip sockets
Clients connect via a tcp/ip socket. The default port is 5137, or a custom port may be specified
using the -port command line switch or a *port resource. This permits connecting to the server over
a remote network connection anywhere on the Internet. A port number of 0 (zero) disables this
connection.
unix domain sockets
Like a tcp/ip socket, but limited to a single host system. Usually faster than a tcp/ip socket, and
comparable to a fifo. By default each user gets their own unix domain socket, so this option allows
multiple users to run ximtools on the same host without having to customize things. The default
value is "/tmp/.IMT%d", other sockets may be defined using the -unix command line switch or the
*unixaddr resource. Legal values should be specified as a filename to be used for the socket, up to
two "%d" fields are allowed and will be replaced by the userid. An empty string value disables this
connection.
By default ximtool listens simultaneously for client connections on all three types of ports.
Clients may connect simultaneously by different means allowing up to three different displays to be
loading at the same time into different frames.
COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOL
The communications protocol used is a slightly modified version of that used by the IIS Model 70; other
more modern protocols will likely be supported in the future. The IIS protocol is basically a command
packet stream with a header describing the operation to be performed (select frame, load display, read
cursor, etc), and an optional data packet containing e.g. pixels.
Beginning with XImtool V1.3 the protocol was modified even more to allow extra text at the end of the WCS
string to define image mappings and to better support multiple world coordinate systems within a frame.
For backwards compatibility none of the existing IIS protocols were modified completely, however we take
advantage of unused registers to flag the new features in existing functions (like read/write WCS). The
WCS mapping changes required only that the unused 'x' register be set to indicate the new behavior was
desired, e.g. the wcs text containing the extra mapping data.
We also added two new WCS calls that allow us to query the WCS version, or query a WCS by a specific
number corresponding to a mapping. The WCS version query will return a string such as "version=10" which
can be parsed by the client to get a version number '10' (corresponding to version 1.0).
Because of the added mapping text the WCS string length was increased from 320 to 1024 bytes, the string
length used internally depends on whether the 'x' register has been set.
Support for the full 16 frames allowed by the bit-flag 'z' register in the IIS header packet required the
masking values be changed at various places in the code. This was more a limitation of the initial
implementation than a required change to the protocol.
A complete summary of the XImtool IIS protocol implementation follows.
IIS PROTOCOL SUMMARY
All operations are initiated by sending a header packet containing a thing id (tid) and subunit selecting
the function to be performed, optionally followed by data up to 32Kb long. The IIS header packet used is
defined as
struct iism70 {
short tid;
short thingct;
short subunit;
short checksum;
short x, y, z;
short t;
};
The thing count field contains the negative number of bytes of data that will be sent following the
header packet. The IIS header checksum is computed as
checksum = 0177777 - (tid + subunit + thingct + x + y + z + t);
The four IIS registers are set differently depending on the operation, a summary of the header packets
for each operation is summarized below.
IIS Header Packet Summary
TID Subunit Tct X Y Z T Data
┌──────────────────┬─────────────┬─────┬───┬───┬─────┬─────┬───────┐
Read Data │ IIS_READ|PACKED │ MEMORY │ -NB │ x │ y │ fr │ - │ NB │
Write Data │ IIS_WRITE|PACKED │ MEMORY │ -NB │ x │ y │ fr │ - │ NB │
Read Cursor │ IIS_READ │ IMCURSOR │ - │ - │ - │ - │ - │ - │
Write Cursor │ IIS_WRITE │ IMCURSOR │ - │ x │ y │ wcs │ - │ - │
Set Frame │ IIS_WRITE │ LUT|COMMAND │ -1 │ - │ - │ - │ - │ 2 │
Erase Frame │ IIS_WRITE | fb │ FEEDBACK │ - │ - │ - │ fr │ - │ - │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Old Write WCS │ IIS_WRITE|PACKED │ WCS │ -N │ - │ - │ fr │ fb │ 320 │
Old Read WCS │ IIS_READ │ WCS │ - │ - │ - │ fr │ wcs │ 320 │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
WCS Version? │ IIS_READ │ WCS │ - │ 1 │ 1 │ - │ - │ 320 │
WCS by Number? │ IIS_READ │ WCS │ - │ 1 │ - │ fr │ wcs │ 1024 │
New Write WCS │ IIS_WRITE|PACKED │ WCS │ -N │ 1 │ - │ fr │ fb │ 1024 │
New Read WCS │ IIS_READ │ WCS │ - │ 1 │ - │ fr │ wcs │ 1024 │
└──────────────────┴─────────────┴─────┴───┴───┴─────┴─────┴───────┘
Where NB = number of bytes expected or written
x = x position of operation in frame buffer coords
y = y position of operation in frame buffer coords
fr = frame number (passed as bitflag (i.e. 1, 2 ,4 8, etc)
fb = frame buffer config number (zero indexed)
N = length of WCS string
wcs = WCS number (usually zero)
Data = the number of bytes of data to be read or written following the header packet.
IIS_WRITE = 0400000
IIS_READ = 0100000
COMMAND = 0100000
PACKED = 0040000
IMC_SAMPLE = 0040000
MEMORY = 001
LUT = 002
FEEDBACK = 005
IMCURSOR = 020
WCS = 021
TID fields can be logically OR'd with the PACKED flag indicating the number of data bytes is exactly
thingct bytes long, otherwise thingct must be specified as half the number of data bytes. In a cursor
read, if the IIS_READ flag is OR'd with IMC_SAMPLE the logical cursor position (i.e. the last value read
or set) is returned immediately, otherwise the server will wait for a keystroke to be hit before
returning a string containing the (x,y) position, wcs of the read, and the keystroke. When setting the
frame you must send a short integer in the data containing the frame selected.
ISM COMMUNICATIONS
The ISM (Image Support Module) can be any external task which connects to XImtool over a socket.
Communications are limited to simple null-terminated text strings. In most cases these strings are just
the standard OBM messages sent to XImtool objects but can also include Tcl callback code (either ISM-
specific callbacks, procedures which can be added to the callback list for existing XImtool objects, or
even new GUI code to create panels and new objects).
ISM SOCKET CONNECTION
The ISM first requests a connection to XImtool on a dedicated socket whose default value is
"/tmp/.ISM%d", where the '%d' is replaced by the userid allowing multiple users on a machine to have
independent sockets. The XImtool 'ism_addr' resource or "-ismdev" command-line option can be used to
change this address, a value of 'none' will disable ISM communications. The socket may also be set with
an ISMDEV environment variable which will override the resource or command-line options.
Once a connection request is received, XImtool replies with a message telling the ISM to reconnect on a
different socket, it then frees the initial connection allowing multiple other ISMs to request their own
connection. The communications between XImtool and the ISM are carried out entirely over this second
negotiated socket. Once connected, the ISM appears as just another named object which can receive OBM
messages.
COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOL
Messages from the ISM are written to the connection socket and must be preceded by one of the following
keywords:
callback Negotiate a connection on another socket
ready Client is ready to begin processing
quit Client is shutting down and disconnecting
send Send a message to another object
Where messages are of the form:
connect <name> Request a connection for the <name> ISM
ready <name> Reconnection request for the <name> ISM on negotiated socket, ISM is
ready to processing.
send <obj> '{' <msg> '}' Send <msg> to the named <obj>. The message may be any valid string
that will be understood by the recipient. The object may be any
object in the GUI or OBM (see below).
quit ISM is shutting down. The named is determined from the
communications channel, ISM is responsible for any cleanup of it's
callbacks before issuing the shutdown.
All messages must be null-terminated. XImtool will buffer the text until a complete message is received.
Once an ISM client has delivered a QUIT message no further messages will be sent the that ISM.
In OBM terminology the ISM is a named Client class object, where the name is set in the connection
request. Messages sent to the ISM should use this name, messages sent to "client" are still interpreted
to mean the XImtool client.
The content of messages delivered to the ISM are totally free-form and may contain any text the ISM is
expected to understand.
GUI OBJECTS
While the ISM can send a message to any object in the task, there is a GUI Parameter object called
'ism_msg' designed especially to process messages from the ISM. The callback in the GUI is expecting a
message beginning with one of the following keywords:
source Source message text as Tcl code
alert Message contains error text to be displayed in the GUI 'alert' box
deliver Message text should be passed to a callback routine specific to that ISM. This
processing callback may have been previously uploaded. The message text may be any
form the processing callback is expected to understand.
info Message text is status output intended for the XImtool 'info' panel
(connect/disconnect requests, etc)
In all cases the message is expected to be of the form
<cmd> <ism_name> [ <arg1> <arg2> <...> ]
where <cmd> is one of the above keywords, <ism_name> is the name of the ISM sending the message. The
remainder of the message is passed as an 'argv' list to the processing callback uploaded for the ISM.
The ISM is responsible for formatting these messages.
ENVIRONMENT
HOME Specifies user login directory
DISPLAY Specifies which display screen to use
IMTOOLRC or imtoolrc Frame buffer configuration file
ISMDEV ISM Connection socket
DEBUG_IIS Debug IIS communications packets
DEBUG_ISM Debug ISM communications packets
DEBUG_MAPPINGS Debug WCS image mappings
FILES
/usr/local/lib/imtoolrc Default frame buffer configuration file
/usr/local/lib/ximprint.cfg Default printer configuration file
/usr/local/lib/imtoolcmap Default colormap directory
/dev/imt1i Default input display fifo
/dev/imt1o Default output display fifo
/tmp/.IMT%d Default unix display socket
/tmp/.ISM%d Default unix ISM connection socket
BUGS
Users should report bugs to https://github.io/iraf-community/x11iraf.
SEE ALSO
xgterm(1), xtapemon(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright(c) 1986 Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc.
X11IRAF Project 12 Aug 2001 XIMTOOL(1)