HOU Image Processing Software (HOU-IP)

For PC and Mac

 

HOU high school and middle school curricula both rely on students being able to get real observatory telescope images and then analyze those images with image processing software. HOU Image Processing (HOU-IP) software is similar to software used by professional astronomers, but with an interface custom designed for use by middle school or high school students.

HOU-IP is available on the HOU CD-ROM. You can also purchase Site License for all computers at your school and students home computers. See Price List for current price.

HOU-IP functions:

View/Display Controls

Zoom, Color Palettes, "MinMax" brightness controls, Log scale.

Transformations/Mathematical Manipulations

Flip, Rotate, Transpose, Shift, Resize, Blur, Filters, Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide.

Data/Analysis Tools

Slice (graph brightness vs distance along a line), Image info, Sky parameters, Axes, Find objects, Aperture (brightness measuring tool), Histogram

Standard Software Features

Open and Save FITS format files (FITS is astronomical "industry standard" format for images), Print, Save as bit map.

With the advent of Mac OSX, recent Mac operating systems no longer support "Classic" environment, so the Mac version of the old HOU IP will not function on newer Macs. We have available a beta version of a native Mac OSX Image Processing software and corresponding new version for Windows and Linux. Differences between the old HOU IP and HOU IP 2.0 are given below:

HOU IP 2.0

Old HOU IP

Control Bar

Display Controls Bar

Control Bar:

Log On/Off indicator

Log Checkbox

No Zoom factor box or Redraw

Zoom/Redraw

Color Palette

Palette is in Tool Bar

"Pixel Coordinates" in Control Bar

"Status Bar" [toggle in View Menu]

Menus:

"Transform" menu

"Manipulation" menu

"Analysis" menu

"Data Tools" menu

Menu Items:

"Centroid"

"Axes" (Analysis/Data Tools)

"Log" in View menu

Log checkbox in Display Controls Bar

"Zoom Factor" in View menu

Zoom factor in Display Controls Bar

No Zoom Box

Zoom Box in Data Tools menu

"Tools" palette on left

No Tools palette

Zoom in Tools palette

Zoom Factor in Display Controls Bar

Meantime, following image processing softare programs have Mac OSX versions and are available for free:

 


Lawrence Hall of Science | © Saturday, 19-Jul-2008 13:05:52 PDT | Updated Wednesday, 25-Jun-2008 09:09:53 PDT