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\paperID{P2-32}
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\title{New features for Aladin 2.0}

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\author{T. Boch, P. Fernique and F. Bonnarel}
\affil{Centre de Donn\'ees astronomiques de Strasbourg, Observatoire de Strasbourg, UMR 7550, 11 rue de l'Universit\'e, 67000 Strasbourg, France}

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%			 Contact Information
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\contact{Thomas Boch}
\email{boch@astro.u-strasbg.fr}

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\paindex{Boch, T.}
\aindex{Fernique, P.}
\aindex{Bonnarel, F.}

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\authormark{Boch, Fernique, \& Bonnarel}

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%			       Abstract
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\begin{abstract}          % Leave intact
We present the main new features of the Aladin interactive sky atlas (version 
2.0, November 2003). The Aladin tool is  able to query a remote server 
providing new VO DAL\footnote{Data Access Layer} outputs and to 
interpret the result. Aladin is able to build a metadata tree from the 
description of a dataset, in order to easily browse through all data available 
in a sky region on a server or in a local folder. It is now possible to interface Aladin to other Java applets in a standard way, and
this has been applied to VOPlot. In addition, Aladin can now parse VOTables from various origins. 
 It is also possible to recalibrate the astrometry of images, 
using different astrometric reduction methods, or to create manually a new 
calibration using a reference catalogue. Other miscellaneous changes have 
been implemented.
\end{abstract}

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\section{Introduction}
    The AladinJava tool was first released in 1999 long before the VO efforts
started. Version 2, released just after ADASS 2003 meeting is a major new
release implementing several new features and enhancing the role of Aladin
as a VO portal (Figure 1). Several  new developments described here have
been initiated for the AVO prototype.
\begin{figure}
\epsscale{.60}
\plotone{P2-32_1.eps}
\caption{RGB image built from 3 plates (ESO/R, SERC/SR, and SERC/I) with Tycho2
catalog overlay and a filter displaying the proper motions for the faint stars
in the Trifid nebula field.}
\end{figure}

\section{Compatibility with VO standards}
   The emerging VO standards are already implemented in Aladin, allowing users
to access VO image and data servers, immediatly available in Aladin by 
describing these servers in the GLU registry.


\subsection{VOTable}
    VOTable has been the first IVOA standard. Defined as an XML  DTD,
VOTable is intended to provide a common standard for astronomical tables, or 
�table sets.  A light VOTable parser, \htmladdnormallinkfoot{SAVOT}{http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/public/cdsjava.gml}, has been implemented  in Java
and integrated to Aladin. It allows to access various servers of 
astronomical
catalogues, as well as metadata descriptions such as SIA and IDHA servers
(see below)
\subsection{ExtApp interface}
This Java interface between two collaborative applications describing how to transmit data, how to select astronomical objects allows one to integrate external tools into Aladin, as long as they are able to cope with VOTable, e.g. VOPlot (Figure 2) - VOPlot is a VO-India/CDS collaboration (S.Kale et al, 2004) -
\begin{figure}
\epsscale{.60}
\plotone{P2-32_2.eps}
\caption{VOPlot drawing (proper motion compared to BT-VT) for Tycho2 objects displayed in Figure 1} 
\end{figure}

ExtApp makes easier   collaboration with other projects. Miscellaneous applications
have been tested, but not yet retained in the public interface.\\

\subsection{Data Access Layer protocols}

    Strong effort has been made in the IVOA to provide standardized access to
images available on the WEB. \htmladdnormallinkfoot{SIA protocol}{http://www.us-vo.org/news/simspec.html} standardizes the image request
and image retrieval methods. SIA compliant servers provide metadata for the
images in VOTable format. Developped in parallel to SIA, and based on the 
\htmladdnormallinkfoot{IDHA data model}{http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/idha.html}, IDHA VOTable used in the
AVO scientific demonstrations provides more structured metadata.
    Aladin is now able to request both DAL compliant servers and to interpret
the outputs (see next section).

\section{Metadata Tree browser}

This feature  organizes image metadata in a uniform way ,  
allowing to browse huge datasets and select data within them.
Currently the only condition is that  MetaData are provided  in IDHA VOTable or SIA protocol format.  Data in local directories will appear in the same 
coherent  structure. The metadata tree feature makes Aladin a strong 
data integrator (Figure 3).


\section{Access your own data}
In addition to this user directory ``autoscan", it is also possible to read
``hand made" local metadata documents (SIA or IDHA compliant) and to 
 describe in the GLU dictionnary any server returning either VOTable or 
SIA/IDHA VOTable.  Using these descriptions, the Aladin software generates 
dedicated dialog boxes for each server.\\

\section{Other new features}
\begin{itemize}
\item Online reduction\\
    This dynamical computing feature allows to fix wrong astrometric
solutions, to achieve compliance between astrometric solutions of a set
of images, to compute solutions for uncalibrated images and convert  XY 
positions catalogues to World coordinates.

\item Value scaling facility\\
    In previous versions of Aladin the ``autocut" facility provided appropriate
value scaling for most of the images. In this version we added to this ``autocut"
the possibility of choosing the extrema of the scaling interval.

\item Help menu to write filters\\
   The filter facility implemented in the previous main release was lacking
a user-friendly way of writing new filters. A popup menu provides now assistance to the user in this task.

\item New script commands to manipulate stack folders\\
   The script facility allows automatic command executions. It is useful
for large data sets processing. This scripting facility has been extended
to allow stack folder manipulation.
\end{itemize}

\section{General remark on the software}
    All the developments described in this paper are fully available in both
the applet and standalone versions. They are compatible with Java Virtual 
Machines version 1.1, the proportion of which among installed browsers 
begin %%(FO) is 
still 60\%.

 


\acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge support by French Research Ministery ACI Grid 
for IDHA and by EC founded AVO for DAL and metadata tree implementation.
  They thank Mark Allen, Mireille Louys and Andr\'e Schaaff for various
collaborations


\begin{figure}
\epsscale{.60}
\plotone{P2-32_3.eps}
\caption{Metadata tree provided by Aladin server in the Trifid nebula field displayed in Figure 1}
\end{figure}

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%			      References
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\begin{references}
\reference Kale, S. Vijayaraman, T.M. Kembhavi, A. Krishman, P.R. Navelkar, A. 
    Hegde, H. Kulkarni, P. Balaji, K.D. 2004, \adassxiii, \paperref{P3-26}
\end{references}


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