Annotation script

[Andres.Pozo]

I am writing a new script related to the Plate-Solving script that I wrote the last week. It will annotate images that have coordinates in the WCS convention.
The annotation will be designed by layers:

• Objects: It will use a catalog with nearly 10000 objects from the NGC and IC catalogs and it will draw a circle around the object and write a label with the catalog number and name of the object.
• Grid: the script will draw a grid with the equatorial coordinates of the image.

The user will be able to decide which layers and elements wants to draw. The graphics properties (color, transparency, line width,...) will be configurable.
I already have the kernel of the script, but I still haven't written the user interface. The annotation will be something like the attached image (the image is from gvanhau). New ideas will be welcome.

Latest version
This message will be kept updated with the latest versions of the scripts:

• ImageSolver v1.6
• AnnotateImage v1.2

[Nocturnal]

Cool! Astrometry.net does that too but their object list is rather short. It would be great if you could 'open' the catalog format so we can add arbitrary catalogs. I'm thinking the PGC would be nice for galaxy peepers. Alternatively you could do away with the catalogs and do an online SIMBAD search instead.

[Andres.Pozo]

Alternatively you could do away with the catalogs and do an online SIMBAD search instead.

I have been studying it and I think I can do it. I will maintain the current NGC/IC catalog since it is not large and it allows working without Internet connection. The configuration dialog will allow to select one or more catalogs.

[Nocturnal]

Cartes du Ciel recently added SIMBAD lookup. It's not quite the same as you'd be looking for objects in a certain field of view and CdC looks for the coordinates of a named object. Maybe the source code helps you. It's in Pascal but pretty easy to read and convert.

[Andres.Pozo]

I have already done several test and it is going to be quite easy. I only need to construct an URL with the query and Vizier returns a file with a table that contains only the objects that pass the filter. I have already implemented both the query constructor for the PGC (HYPERLEDA I) and the table parser.

[Nocturnal]

Impressive!

[troypiggo]

This is fantastic!  I was just wondering yesterday if this was possible, and here it is the day after and someone has independently started work on it!

Do you intend to make it fairly customisable in terms of colours, linetypes, linewidths, fonts etc for the overlay?

[Andres.Pozo]

This is fantastic!  I was just wondering yesterday if this was possible, and here it is the day after and someone has independently started work on it!

Do you intend to make it fairly customisable in terms of colours, linetypes, linewidths, fonts etc for the overlay?

The engine now has the following properties:

• Grid layer: lineColor, lineWidth, gridDensity, showLabels, labelColor, labelSize
• Object layers: showCircle, lineColor, lineWidth, showLabels, labelColor, labelSize

All layers will be optional.

The engine is 75% complete, but I have not started the user interface yet. I hope to have it finished by the end of the next week. Perhaps in a few days I could publish a first and incomplete version, but I can not promise anything because this weekend I am not going to be able to work on it.

[troypiggo]

This is fantastic!  I was just wondering yesterday if this was possible, and here it is the day after and someone has independently started work on it!

Do you intend to make it fairly customisable in terms of colours, linetypes, linewidths, fonts etc for the overlay?

The engine now has the following properties:

• Grid layer: lineColor, lineWidth, gridDensity, showLabels, labelColor, labelSize
• Object layers: showCircle, lineColor, lineWidth, showLabels, labelColor, labelSize

All layers will be optional.

The engine is 75% complete, but I have not started the user interface yet. I hope to have it finished by the end of the next week. Perhaps in a few days I could publish a first and incomplete version, but I can not promise anything because this weekend I am not going to be able to work on it.

 8)

[gvanhau]

Nice Work.
I'm waiting to try it.

[Andres.Pozo]

I have already integrated a few catalogs from Vizier: PGC-HYPERLEDA, TYCHO2, USNO-B1 and PPMXL.

The star catalogs can be filtered by magnitude. Some of the catalogs have so much information that without filtering the annotation becomes a mess. Also, since some of the objects belongs to more than one catalog I have to eliminate the duplicates.

I have made an example using NGC/IC, PGC, TYCHO and USNO-B1 (<15 magnitude).

[Nocturnal]

Most impressive.

[Enzo De Bernardini]

Wob! Amazing work!.

[h0ughy]

wow fantastic work - this would be so good showing people items you can capture.  Look forward to a finished version

[NKV]

Wob! Amazing work!.

+1