iGalFit: An Interactive Tool for GalFit

TL;DR

iGalFit is an interactive IDL-based tool that simplifies galaxy image modeling with GALFIT by allowing users to visually define surface brightness profiles and manage data formats, enhancing usability and auxiliary functions.

Contribution

It introduces an interactive IDL routines suite for galaxy image modeling that integrates region-based profile definition and supports multiple data formats, improving user experience.

Findings

Stable operation on Mac OS X and Linux with IDL 7.0.4.

Enhanced flexibility in galaxy image analysis and photometry.

Facilitates qualitative assessment of Source Extractor results.

Abstract

We present a suite of IDL routines to interactively run GALFIT whereby the various surface brightness profiles (and their associated parameters) are represented by regions, which the User is expected to place. The regions may be saved and/or loaded from the ASCII format used by ds9 or in the Hierarchical Data Format (version 5). The software has been tested to run stably on Mac OS X and Linux with IDL 7.0.4. In addition to its primary purpose of modeling galaxy images with GALFIT, this package has several ancillary uses, including a flexible image display routines, several basic photometry functions, and qualitatively assessing Source Extractor. We distribute the package freely and without any implicit or explicit warranties, guarantees, or assurance of any kind. We kindly ask users to report any bugs, errors, or suggestions to us directly (as opposed to fixing them themselves) to ensure version control and uniformity.