VO Software

1
M. C. Leoni 1, T. A. McGlynn 2, R. D. Williams
3 1 European Southern Observatory, Germany 2
HEASARC, Greenbelt - MD, USA 3 Caltech, Pasadena
- LA, USA
The VO Reality Thanks to the increased effort in
the development and spread of the VO novel, the
past year saw a spur in the creation of software
for the Virtual Observatory including both
prototypes and released tools, produced by the
national VO projects, members of the
International Virtual Observatory Alliance
(IVOA). Following is a comprehensive list of
software for the VO as of this writing.
Highlights are on main features and the way each
one interacts and interoperates with the others
using common industry standards as well as
astronomy-specific ones developed within the IVOA.
Grid and Web Services Several Web Services have
been created, both wrapping already existing
services as well as exposing new functionalities.
Grid services are in the making to allow workload
distribution and resource sharing. ACE
(Astronomical Catalogue Extraction) Based on the
well-known SExtractor tool, this web service
exposes the same capabilities to the web world
http//wiki.astrogrid.org/bin/view/Astrogrid/AVODe
moDesign Aladin Image gives image URL
locations or images based on DIME
http//cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cdsws/aladin_image.gml
Astronomical Coordinates provides astrnomical
coordinate translation http//cdsweb.u-strasbg
.fr/cdsws/astroCoo.gml Cosmic Distances XML ws
to calculate different distance measures in a
given cosmology http//voservices.net/Cosmolog
y/ws_v1_0/Distance.asmx Filter Profiles
access profiles of well-known astronomical
instruments http//voservices.net/filter/ GLU
Resolver resolves catalogue tags through GLU
http//cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cdsws/glu_resolver.gml
Grist Grid sevices for data mining in
astronomy http//grist.caltech.edu/ NED XML
Web Service interface to NED http//voservices.n
et/NED/ws_v1_0/NED.asmx Name Resolver resolves
names for VizieR, Simbad, NED
http//cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cdsws/name_resolver.gml
SDSS Cas XML Web Service interface to the
SDSS Catalog Archive Server
http//voservices.net/CasService/ws_v1_0/CasServic
e.asmx SDSS Image Cutout SDSS DR1 finding
chart tool http//skyserver.sdss.org/dr1/en/tools
/chart/chart.asp Spectrum portal for VO Web
Services to acess data from SDSS DR1 and 2dFGRS
http//voservices.net/spectrum/ UCD resolves
UCD tag, gives the complete list of UCDs, gives
the list of UCD contained in a catalogue
http//cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cdsws/ucdClient.gml
VizieR WS Web Service to access VizieR
catalogues http//cdsws.u-strasbg.fr/axis/service
s/VizieR
Tools Since the main format to exchange data is
VOTable, most of the tools first developed regard
the manipulation of such VO standard-based files.
The list includes visualization tools, filters as
well as software libraries. JAVOT Java Parser
for VOTable http//us-vo.org/VOTable/JAVOT
Mirage VO-enabled Java based wrapper for
Mirage, a tools for exploratory analysis and
visualization of classification and proximity
structures of multi-dimensional numerical data
from an arbitrary domain of study
http//skyservice.pha.jhu.edu/develop/vo/mirage/
Specview java application for 1-D spectra
visualization and analists of astronomical
spectrograms http//www.stsci.edu/resources/so
ftware_hardware/specview TOPCAT interactive
graphical viewer and editor for tabular data
http//www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/ VOTFilter
enables the import of VOTable documents into
OpenOffice Calc spreadsheet written in java,
this XML filter can be downloaded from
http//www.china-vo.org/VOTable Filter for
OpenOffice Calc.htm VOPlot a java
visualization tool, to manipulate VOTable data.
Available as standalone application or a
web-based one, the latter being an applet. More
info at http//vo.iucaa.ernet.in/voi/voplot.htm V
OSpec Java applet tool to handle VO spectra
http//pma.standby.vilspa.esa.es8080/vospec/index
.html VOTable Java Streaming Writer java
package to convert files in different formats
(e.g. ASCII) to VOTable http//vo.iucaa.ernet.in/
voi/votableStreamWriter.htm VOTool package for
allowing IRAF system to handle VOTable
http//iraf.noao.edu/projects/votool/ Xmatch
(CDS) Aladin plug-in http//www.euro-vo.org/twik
i/bin/view/Avo/CDSXMatchPlugin
All the VO software uses these protocols to
interoperate with each other. Up to now, the main
point in the structure is the creation of a
registry containing all the available resources
(described using the VOResource metadata
standard), thus allowing software to
automatically discover and use what it needs.
Formats Protocols VOTable ? XML
dialect SIAP (Simple Image Access
Protocol) SSAP (Simple Spectrum Access
Protocol) ADQL (Astronomical Data Query
Language) XML translation of SQL-based
queries to be exchanged among VO servers. SOAP
XML (Simple Object Access Protocol,
eXtensible Markup Language)
Separation is not as definite as depicted in the
overall architecture picture. Due to the existing
strong relationships amongst applications, some
of them may actually fall under different parts
of this representation (or contain software with
functionalities belonging to more than one area).
Besides using well known industry-level
protocols, the VO is developing other standards
to help the interoperability and to improve
performance.
Prototypes more Aladin for AVO Interactive
sky atlas, http//www.euro-vo.org/twiki/bin/view/A
vo/SwgDownload to visualize images, superimpose
catalogues, interactively access data info from
online databases. Astrogrid The suite developed
covers all the needs a data centre has to publish
its data archive http//www.astrogrid.org/maven/d
ocs/SNAPSHOT/astrogrid-software-site/ Atlasmaker
Grid-based software for building atlases fo
astronomical images http//www.cacr.caltech.edu/p
rojects/nvo/atlasmaker/ Carnivore VO registry
with publishing, querying and harvesting
capabilities (uses XML database)
http//mercury.cacr.caltech.edu8080/carnivore
DataScope (Data Inventory Service) Quick look
at all data available for a given position in the
sky http//heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/vo/ Montage
Grid software for mosaics computation
http//montage.ipac.caltech.edu/ NCSA
Registration Portal portal that allows data
providers to make their resources VO visible
http//nvo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/nvoregistration.html
NVO Registry searchable registry, exposes
keyword/SQL interface, http//nvo.stsci.edu/VORegi
stry Open SkyQuery based on Microsoft.net
technolog, offers SOAP services to perform
distributed astronomical queries using VOTable
and ADQL http//openskyquery.net/Sky/skysite/
Peagsus (Planning for Execution in Grids)
system to map and execute workflows on the Grid
http//pegasus.isi.edu/ SDSS Sky Server
provides access to SDSS DR3 data
http//cas.sdss.org/astro/en/ SkyQuery.net
prototype of a federated database application
http//www.skyquery.net/main.htm SkyView
panchromatic image atlas, generates images of any
part of the sky at wavelengths in all regimes
from radio to gamma-ray http//skys.gsfc.nasa.gov
/ VirtualSky portal to a panchromatic sky
atlas http//www.virtualsky.org/