[AstroPy] PyFITS Version 2.1 NOW AVAILABLE

[jtaylor2 at stsci.edu]

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PyFITS Version 2.1 NOW AVAILABLE

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The Science Software Branch of the Space Telescope
Science Institute wishes to announce the availability
of version 2.1 of PyFITS.  This is the first announced
release since version 1.3 in February 2008 and contains
a number of enhancements and bug fixes.


Notable Enhancements
====================

  - Support for the FITS "Tiled Image Compression Convention."
    (PyFITS version 2.1)  This support is based on the
    implementation in CFITSIO version 3.13.  Reference the
    following for convention details:

    http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/registry/tilecompression.html

  - New convenience functions (tdump and tcreate) for
    dumping the contents of a binary table HDU to a file
    in ASCII format and then to recreate the binary table
    HDU from those files. (PyFITS version 2.1)

  - Support the reading and writing of non-standard FITS
    files, including files with SIMPLE=F header cards and
    with non-standard XTENSION types. (PyFITS version 2.1)

  - New convenience functions (setval and delval) for
    setting the value of a single header card in a FITS file
    and for the deletion of a single header card in a FITS
    file. (PyFITS version 2.0)

  - Support the reading and writing of FITS files containing
    unsigned integer 16 data in an Image HDU that are
    represented as scaled integer 16 values. 
    (PyFITS version 2.0)

  - Support for record-valued keyword cards as introduced in
    the "FITS WCS Paper IV Proposal for Representing a more
    General Distortion Model." (PyFITS version 1.4)  Reference
    the following for proposal details:

    http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_wcs.html

  - Support for file objects and file like objects to all
    convenience functions and class methods that take a file
    name. (PyFITS version 1.4)


Release Notes
=============

Release notes for all versions of PyFITS may be found
at:

http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/pyfits/release


Where to Obtain this Software
=============================

PyFITS can be downloaded for the PyFITS download web site:

http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/pyfits/Download

Installation instructions are available on the web site.


STSCI_PYTHON Support
====================

STSCI_PYTHON v2.7 contains PyFITS version 1.4.1.

The upcoming STSCI_PYTHON v2.8 release will contain
PyFITS version 2.1.


Array Package Support
=====================

While the NUMARRAY array package is still supported at
the PyFITS version 1.1 level, all updates in this
release are for NUMPY only.  Compatibility with NUMARRAY
will be eliminated entirely after this release.  As a
result, you are advised to migrate to NUMPY as soon as
possible, as no further support will be provided for the
user of NUMARRAY.

Information on making the switch to NUMPY form NUMARRAY
can be found in this document:

http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/numarray/numarray2numpy.pdf