The following describes the most significant changes which have
occurred in the AST library between versions V3.4 and V3.5:
- AST now provides facilities for representing regions of various
shapes within a coordinate system. The RegionRegion class provides general
facilities which are independent of the specific shape of region being
used. Various sub-classes of Region are also now available which provide
means of creating Regions of specific shape. Facilities provided by the
Region class include testing points to see if they are inside the
Region, testing two Regions for overlap, transforming Regions from one
coordinate system to another etc.
- A new class of 1-dimensional FrameFrame called FluxFrameFluxFrame has been added which
can be used to describe various systems for describing ovserved value at a
single fixed spectral position.
- A new class of 2-dimensional Frame called SpecFluxFrameSpecFluxFrame has been added which
can be used to describe a 2-d frame spanned by a spectral position axis
and and an observed value axis.
- A new class of MappingMapping called RateMapRateMap has been added. A RateMap encapsulates
a previously created Mapping. The inputs of the RateMap correspond to the
inputs of the encapsulated Mapping. All RateMaps have just a single
output which correspond to the rate of change of a specified output of
the encapsulated Mapping with respect to a specified input.
- The SkyFrameSkyFrame class now supports a value of “J2000” for SystemSystem.
This system is an equatorial system based on the mean dynamical equator and
equinox at J2000, and differs slightly from an FK5(J2000) system.
- A new class called KeyMapKeyMap has been added. A KeyMap can be used to
store a collection of vector or scalar values or Objects, indexed by a
character string rather than an integer.
- The parameter list for the
astRateastRate
method of the Mapping class has been modified. It no longer returns a second
derivative estimate. Existing code which uses this method will need to be
changed.
- Methods
(astSetFits<X>)
have been added to the FitsChanFitsChan class to allow values for named
keywords to be changed or added.