		       =======================
		       Image::DS9 Version 0.17
		       =======================


NAME
    Image::DS9 - interface to the DS9 image display and analysis program


DESCRIPTION

    Image::DS9 is an interface to the DS9 program developed by the
    Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's High Energy Astrophysics
    R&D Group.  DS9 is a flexible and feature laden image display and
    analysis program.  While targeted at the astronomical community,
    it is versatile enough to be used with success by others.

    Image::DS9 communicates with DS9 via the XPA librariy.
    It supports most of DS9's XPA access points.  It is
    built to interoperate with PDL.

    For details on DS9, including the source (and binaries for some
    platforms), please refer to

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/

DEPENDENCIES

    This module requires the IPC::XPA module to communicate with ds9.
    IPC::XPA is available from CPAN; it requires the XPA library
    available at

	http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/xpa/

    It requires DS9 v2.2. Due to a change in the colormap XPA access
    point, it is not compatible with older versions of DS9.  Sorry!

INSTALLATION

    This package has been tested on Perl 5.6.0, and xpa 2.1.2.
    It has been tested on Solaris 2.8.

    You will need to install IPC::XPA first.

    To compile, test and install Image::DS9,

	perl Makefile.PL
	make
	make test
	make install

    PLEASE NOTE! the tests will start up a DS9 in the background using
    system().  For some reason the first time the tests are run (and
    DS9 is started) the first test hangs after completion (at least on
    my system).  Interrupting the test and running "make test" a
    second time succeeds.

CHANGES

    Major changes only. See the Changes file for more details.

    0.17
    ----
      - Image::DS9::Constants added, to get at the constants in the
        new, approved, fashion.

    0.16
    ----
      - most of DS9's access points are now supported.

      - now uses a table driven parser to generate the methods and
        data conversion between Perl and DS9.

      - realized the futility of keeping the docs up-to-date in
        parallel with DS9.  Now just list the options supported,
	rather than duplicate the DS9 docs.

      - the display() and tile_mode() methods are no longer supported.
        display() was an attempt to unify tile, blink, and single
        in a clean way.  I've decided to just track the actual
	XPA access methods rather than foist my view of how things
	should tie together. So, display() should be replaced with
	the appropriate calls to tile(), blink(), or single().
	tile_mode() was really tile() all along...

      - earlier versions of this package had a gadzillion constants
        for all of the commands and subcommands and enumerated values.
        this was a real mess.  the constants have been moved to
	Image::DS9::OldConstants, and are deprecated.
	

    0.15 
    ----
      Added dss().

    0.13
    ----
    Image::DS9 is now GPL'd.

    There is a large number of changes since the last public release,
    0.09.  Substantially more of DS9's capabilities are now available.
    
    There are a few incompatibilities:

      - DS9 v2.1 has changed the colormap XPA access point to
	cmap.  Image::DS9 now required DS9 v2.1

      - the constants TRUE and FALSE have been removed, due to Export
        problems.
	
      - renamed T_Grid, T_Column, and T_Row to T_grid, T_column,
	T_row


COPYRIGHT

    Copyright (C) 2000-2002 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
    All rights reserved.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
    published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
    License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
    General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
    02111-1307 USA


AUTHOR

    Diab Jerius ( djerius@cfa.harvard.edu )

