Software 

International Standards

A significant fraction of the work of VOTECH was working on international standards for the Virtual Observatory, either through individual participation in working groups of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), or through co-ordinated European planning for input to the IVOA. The output concerned was both documents and software - eg XML schema, and software prototypes demonstrating the implementation of standards. The international standards are made available at the IVOA Documents Page. Nearly all have participation by VOTECH team members, and some were strongly led by VOTECH developments - for example the Simple Application Messaging Protocol (SAMP), which began life in VOTECH as "PLASTIC". This enables VO tools to be written as individual modules, as they are able to pass messages and interoperate.

Software Snapshots

Various different pieces of software were developed through the VOTECH project by the different DS groups.  They cover a broad spectrum of purposes and target users, everything from user desktop software to middleware web services, and many of them are still under active development.  This page serves as a download site for the main software developed during the VOTECH project, though only as a snapshot of the latest versions as of VOTECH's completion.  In order to obtain the source code for a given piece of software you will need to go to the developer's official website and contact them directly.

Due to the distributed nature of the software development institutions there is no simple way to create a software repository that can keep up to date with the latest software versions.  In order to obtain the latest versions of these software packages you should use the links provided to go directly to the developers' official website and download from there.

The software downloads are divided up according to the DS under which they were developed.  The software name and a brief description are provided.  The links in the download column are for the installation binary or executable for that particular software, and are the latest version of the software as of the end of the VOTECH Project (June 2009).  To ensure you are downloading the latest version click on the provided links to the official websites.
 

DS6

Name
& Version
Description Developing Institution(s)
&
Official Website
 Download
PaperScope
1.3
PaperScope is a standalone application used for visually exploring and navigating the ADS (Astrophysics Data System).  It enables the user to search for published papers in a more visual and intuitive way than available through standard access methods.  PaperScope is written in Java and requires a network connection in order to be properly utilized. Institute for Astronomy
University of Edinburgh

Executable .jar file

http://paperscope.sourceforge.net
Aladin
6.0
Aladin: An interactive software sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the sky, to superimpose entries from astronomical catalogues, and to access related data and information from Simbad, VizieR and other archives and services. CDS

Executable .jar file

http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/java/nph-aladin.pl?frame=downloading
VODesktop
1.3
VODesktop: A desktop application for working with the Virtual Observatory. It can explore data resources, query remote catalogs, and construct workflows to automate tasks. AstroGrid

Executable .jar file

http://www.astrogrid.org/wiki/Install/Downloads
VOSpec
5.1
VOSpec: A multiwavelength spectra analysis tool, with access to both Spectral services (SSAP) and Theoretical Spectral services (TSAP). ESA

Webstart

http://esavo.esac.esa.int/webstart/VOSpec.jnlp
SPLAT
3.9.0
SPLAT: A spectra analysis tool. Starlink

Webstart

http://star-www.dur.ac.uk/~pdraper/splat/splat-vo/
Topcat
3.4-3
TOPCAT: An interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data. It understands a number of different astronomically important formats (including FITS and VOTable) and more formats can be added. AstroGrid

Executable .jar file

http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/topcat/
VisIVO
3.9.0
VisIVO: A visualisation and analysis software for astrophysical data. VisIVO can handle both observational and theoretical data. Italian Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (INAF) and CINECA

Windows Executable

http://visivo.cineca.it/

 


VOTECH website is hosted at the Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh  -  last updated: 09-Nov-2009