Conversion Software

The first software aspect of this project is to convert the survey data into a standard format that will be widely understandable. This will be the PSRFITS format, a variant of the FITS standard specialised for pulsar data structures but readable by anything that can read a FITS file. This stage has involved the creation of a number of programs, accessible in the usual pulsar filesystem:

• pvoconvert -- Convert PKS format survey observations to PSRFITS format.
• pvosummary -- Summarise the positions, observation date/time, frequency of PSRFITS files, with the ability to produce a csv file listing a range of useful metadata.
• pvoconesearch -- A command-line tool to search for PSRFITS files that cover sky within a specified radius of a specified position.