TOPCAT and the table-handling classes on which it relies
(STIL)
have mostly been written by
Mark Taylor in the
Bristol University Astrophysics Group
for the Starlink project.
Inspiration for many of its features has been taken from the
following pre-existing tools:
Apart from Java itself, the following external libraries provide
important bits of its functionality:
-
JEL
(GNU) for algebraic expression evaluation
-
Ptplot
(Ptolemy) for plotting
-
HTM
(Sloan Digital Sky Survey) for celestial sphere row matching
-
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
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)
- Bob Mann (Edinburgh/Strasbourg)
- David Mills (Bristol)
- Douglas Morgan (Bristol)
- James Price (Bristol)