Inspiration for many of TOPCAT's features has been taken from the
following pre-existing tools:
Apart from the excellent Java 2 Standard Edition itself,
the following external libraries provide important parts of TOPCAT's
functionality:
-
JEL
(GNU) for algebraic expression evaluation
-
PixTools
(Fermilab EAG) for HEALPix-based celestial sphere row matching
-
HTM
(Sloan Digital Sky Survey) for HTM-based celestial sphere row matching
(now deprecated within TOPCAT)
-
Ptplot
(Ptolemy) for axis plotting
-
EPSGraphics2D
(Jibble) for encapsulated postscript output
-
GifEncoder
(Acme) for GIF output
-
IVOA FITS Package
(Sloan Digital Sky Survey) for simple (non-SoG) display of FITS images
-
BrowserLauncher for launching default web browser
The following users, testers and programmers have supplied useful
comments (apologies for any missed out):
- Malcolm Currie (Starlink, RAL)
- David Giaretta (Starlink, RAL)
- Clive Page (AstroGrid, Leicester)
- Clive Davenhall (Royal Observatory Edinburgh)
- Tim Jenness (JACH)
- Mike Read (ROE)
- Peter Draper (Starlink, Durham)
- Alasdair Allan (Starlink, Exeter)
- Roy Platon (RAL)
- Norman Gray (Starlink, Glasgow)
- Jonathan Irwin (Cambridge)
- Mark Allen (Strasbourg)
- Francois Ochsenbein (Strasbourg)
- Mike Watson (ROE)
- Bob Mann (Edinburgh/Strasbourg)
- David Mills (Bristol)
- Douglas Morgan (Bristol)
- James Price (Bristol)