CFITSIO - A FITS File Subroutine Library

CFITSIO is a library of C and Fortran subroutines for reading and writing data files in FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) data format. CFITSIO provides simple high-level routines for reading and writing FITS files that insulate the programmer from the internal complexities of the FITS format. CFITSIO also provides many advanced features for manipulating and filtering the information in FITS files.

What's New:

12 June 2008 - CFITSIO Version 3.09 released, containing substantial enhancements over the previous release. The main changes are to improve support for tile compressed images, and fix a rare bug in the calculator function that selects table rows or computes values for a table column. For a complete list of changes, see What's New in this release.
16 May 2008 - CFITSIO Version 3.08 released
New version 5.1 of the Fv FITS file viewer and editor is available .
New version 2.0 of CCFITS has been released. CCfits is an objected oriented interface to the CFITSIO library written in C++.
30 March 2007 - fpack and funpack FITS image compression utility programs, version 0.93, are available here. These utility programs were written by Rob Seaman (KPNO). To build the fpack executable, compile the fpack.c and fpackutil.c source files, and link them with the CFITSIO library. Similarly, to build funpack, compile funpack.c and fpackutil.c and link them with CFITSIO. The command 'fpack -H' gives a summary of the various program options.

Download the CFITSIO Software Library:

Complete V3.090 Source Code Package (compile it yourself):
- Unix .tar file
- Windows PC .zip file
Windows PC precompiled binary DLL shared libraries - see the included README files for instructions
- For Visual C++ (version 3.040 **version 3.090 will be available soon**)
- For Borland C++ (version 3.040 - newer versions are not available)
How to build CFITSIO as a Universal Binary on a OS-X Macintosh PC.
Unsupported previous versions of CFITSIO and FITSIO
Go directly to the ftp area

Click here if you have problems downloading files.

Documentation:

CFITSIO Quick Start Guide (also postscript version or .tar file of all the html pages).
C Programmer Reference Guide (also postscript version or .tar file of all the html pages).
Fortran Programmer Reference Guide (also postscript version).
Examples of CFITSIO's Extended File Name Filters
Data compression support in CFITSIO.
Background information about CFITSIO
Acknowledgements of contributors to CFITSIO
Major users of CFITSIO
FITS resources - General information about the FITS format
The NASA FITS Support Office - a large and fairly complete source of information about FITS

Related Software Tools:

NEW! fpack and funpack FITS image compression utility programs.
Instantly verify any FITS file over the Web.
FITS Toolkit - Suite of simple C programs illustrating how to use CFITSIO
cookbook.f - Fortran example program that calls CFITSIO subroutines
Fv - The FITS file viewer and editor and portal to the NEW Hera data analysis service.
fitsverify - Program that tests whether a FITS file conforms to all the format requirements

Interfaces for calling CFITSIO from Other Programming Languages:

C++: CCfits
C-sharp: FitsLib for the Dot Net Platform
Perl: CFITSIO.pm
Tcl: fitsTcl
Python: pCFITSIO (no longer supported; use PyFITS instead).
Ruby: RFits
S-lang: CFITSIO wrappers for the S-lang programmer's library and interpreter.
MatLab: MFITSIO
LabVIEW: GFITSIO
Adobe Photoshop: Liberator

E-mail Notification List

majordomo@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov

subscribe fitsionews <your-email-address>

The latest reference to CFITSIO is: Pence, W. 1999, in ASP Conf. Ser., Vol. 172, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems VIII, ed. D. Mehringer, R. Plante, and D. Roberts (San Francisco: ASP), 487

FITSIO is maintained by: Dr. William D. Pence, (email: pence 'at' milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov)

Last modified: Thursday, 12-Jun-2008 15:20:24 EDT