Release 2.1

This is a new release of SPLAT which is now part of the Starlink Java Collection and is now released under the GPL.

The most significant visible changes to SPLAT are:

• Tables support. You can now read and write spectra in tables of various kinds, for instance FITS (binary and ASCII), VOTable and various text formats.

• Component browser. SPLAT-VO now incorporates a Treeview-like component browser so you can select FITS file extensions (tables and spectra) and NDF components.

• Log axes. You can now draw either axis using log spacing. SPLAT-VO also supports AST escaped text sequences for super and subscripting.

• Plot annotations. You can now add arbitrary text and shapes to a plot.

• Interactive background estimation. SPLAT-VO now offers the ability to draw interpolated spline-like backgrounds for your spectra.

• Better printing facilities. Printing to postscript is now a separate, always available, option.

• You can now divide a spectrum by its background to normalize absorption spectra.

• Line deblending. SPLAT now has a command-line script for deblending lines using Gaussian, Lorentzian or Voigt profiles. This may become part of a proper toolbox in some future release. See the:

  $SPLAT_DIR/deblend

  script header for how to use this command.

Other changes include, selection of the columns used from a table, text files may now just contain a single column, many new options for configuring the interface, the plot window now retains its size, and the restriction that all spectra should have monotonic coordinates has been removed (you can plot these, but the results may be unpredictable).