FITS Table Viewer for VS Code
FITS Table Viewer for VS Code
A powerful and flexible VS Code extension for viewing tabular data within FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) files. Built for astronomers, astrophysicists, and anyone working with astronomical data, this extension provides an interactive GUI to inspect FITS tables without leaving your editor.
This extension is a work in progress — suggestions, comments and pull requests welcome!
Features
Interactive Table GUI: Opens FITS tables in a feature-rich, interactive viewer powered by Tabulator.
HDU Selection: If a file contains multiple Header/Data Units (HDUs), the extension prompts you to select which tabular HDU you want to view.
Large File Support: Efficiently streams data from the Python backend, allowing you to open and view tables that are too large to fit in memory.
Context Menu Integration: Simply right-click on a .fits, .fit, or .fts file in the explorer and select "FITS Viewer: Open FITS File" to get started.
Customizable Themes: Choose from several built-in display themes via the VS Code Settings page to customize the look of your table.
Powerful Table Features:
Prerequisites
This extension acts as a graphical frontend and relies on a Python backend for data processing. Before using the extension, you must have the following installed in your Python environment:
Python 3: Ensure a Python 3 interpreter is installed and that VS Code is configured to use it. You can select your interpreter via the Python: Select Interpreter command in the Command Palette.
Required Libraries: The astropy and pandas libraries are required. You can install them using pip:
pip install astropy pandas
Extension Settings
This extension contributes the following settings to the VS Code Settings UI:
- fits-viewer.theme: Allows you to select the display theme for the table viewer.
- How to Change: Go to File > Preferences > Settings, search for "FITS Viewer", and select your preferred theme from the dropdown menu.
Known Issues
- The viewer currently only supports tabular HDUs (BinTableHDU, TableHDU). Image HDUs are ignored.
- Column calculations and data export features are not yet implemented.
- Multi-dimensional columns are currently converted to multiple columns, named colname_1, colname_2, etc. This may not be ideal for all use cases.
Release Notes
0.1.0
- Initial public release.
- Added state preservation to prevent tabs from reloading.
- Added a theme selection setting.
This project is licensed under the GNU GPL3 License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.
The table viewer is powered by Tabulator, a powerful table library that provides a rich set of features for displaying and interacting with tabular data. The Python backend uses Astropy for FITS file handling and Pandas for data manipulation, ensuring efficient processing of large datasets.
