I have put the most work onto the regions, and I still think they have great
potential for future developtment. The regions are almost exactly the same as
they are in DS9,
except with less functionality.
All region properties can be adjusted in the regions
tab of the Plot Parameters
dialog.
Here are the region types that are currently supported to load:
Circle
circle, xcenter, ycenter, radius
Ellipse
ellipse, xcenter, ycenter, semimajor, semiminor, angle
Box
Box, xcenter, ycenter, width, height, angle
Polygon
polygon, x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, ...
Line
line, x1, y1, x2, y2
Text
text, xcenter, ycenter # text={Your Text Here}
In addition, there are two types of regions that can be drawn, but save as polyons, Threshold, and Freehand.
Region Properties
Local properties start with a # after a region description and only affect the region it is specified with.Color
The color the region is drawn with.
The default is green.
There are 32 supported colors that are stored in the colors.txt file.
Example: Box(50, 50, 100, 250) # color = green
Width
The width that the region is drawn in. Ranges from 1-9.
The default is 1.
Example: Box(50, 50, 100, 250) # width = 3
Linestyle
The IDL linestyle that the region is drawn in. Ranges from 0-5.
Not supported by DS9.
The default is 0 (solid line).
Example: Box(50, 50, 100, 250) # linestyle = 2
Include/Exclude
Included regions are counted in statistics while excluded regions
remove counts from statistics.
Excluded regions are drawn with a red line accross them.
Use '+' for include (default), '-' for exclude.
Example: -Box(50, 50, 100, 250)
Source/Background
You can use this flag in other applications and when selecting regions.
The default is source.
Example: Box(50, 50, 100, 250) # source
Polygon/Line
When working with regions, polygon regions include
all interior pixels plus any that fall on the region boundary. "Line"
regions include only those pixels that fall on the region boundary. Not
supported by DS9.
Example: Box(50, 50, 100, 250) # line
Region File Format
Unlike DS9, the file syntax is not very robust. For now, just use the construction: regiontype(arg1, arg2, arg3....) # region properties
Comments
You can put comments in your region file by beginning a line with #.
Example: # These are comments.
Global Properties
Global properties affect all regions after the global declaration.
For now, this declaration must be on its own line.
Example: global color = red
Coordinate Systems
This program currently supports the coordinate systems Image, Galactic,
FK4, B1950, FK5, J2000, and Ecliptic. If you don't specify a coordinate
system, the native WCS system is assumed.
Example: Galactic; Box(43.17, -0.02, 0.5, 0.5)