TOPCAT Full

At first, the computer got to enhance the way work was conducted in an office, due to faster writing and quick text editing options. Nowadays there’s hardly a domain of activity that can’t benefit from the perks of a computer. Even science flourishes because of the calculus power, and applications like TOPCAT Full can be used to analyze different scientific data, generate plots, and more.

A great thing about the application is that you don’t have to go through the hustle and bustle of pressing a few Next buttons in a setup process, because there’s no installer, you can launch it right away. What you do have to install is Java Runtime Environment, because it’s built on this platform and is needed to function.

In terms of visual design, all elements are kept to a minimum so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Even so, there’s a high chance you get stuck later on, or even get confused by the abundance of different windows that pop up when triggering a new function.

The application is mainly used to process scientific data found under the FITS specification. FITS is actually a special kind of image file format that holds a lot of info regarding a particular field of science. Loading is done through a dedicated open dialog, and you can tell the application to look for formats like FITS, colfits, VOTable, CDF, GBIN, CSV, ASCII, TST, and a few more.

Once the file is loaded, all tables are shown in a list so you can access them and manage properties, filter options, sort order, row subset, as well as activation action. You can get a detailed view of the table contents for data, parameters, general info, and overall statistics.

Moreover, you can have different graph types generated at the press of a button. Found in the graphics menu, these let you generate histogram plot, plane plot, sky, cube, sphere, time, as well as several others, like 3D, or lines.

Graphs are interactive, both in terms of navigation and editing. Depending on the containing info, you can add more interest points, and even export the whole thing either under the application specific format or image file.

All things considered, we can safely state that TOPCAT Full is a complex utility with which you can thoroughly analyze scientific data from FITS files. Make sure your computer is equipped with Java, and be prepared to take some time to learn how all functions operate and get to know the abundance of areas to access and features to use.