Comment on 'The role of 3-D interactive visualization in blind surveys of HI in galaxies'

TL;DR

This paper introduces FRELLED, a versatile open-source 3D visualization tool for H I data cubes that enhances analysis by supporting interactive masking, overlaying optical data, and integrating spectral measurements.

Contribution

It presents FRELLED, a novel, flexible visualization program tailored for astronomical H I data, with capabilities beyond existing tools, including coordinate handling and multi-modal data integration.

Findings

FRELLED supports interactive masking and labeling of data volumes.

It can overlay optical data from SDSS and generate contour plots.

The tool enables switching between 3D and 2D views for comprehensive analysis.

Abstract

Punzo et al. (2015) recently reported on the state of the art for visualisation of H I data cubes. I here briefly describe another program, FRELLED, specifically designed for dealing with H I data. Unlike many 3D viewers, FRELLED can handle astronomical world coordinates, easily and interactively mask and label specific volumes within the data, overlay optical data from the SDSS, generate contour plots and renzograms, make basic spectral profile measurements via an interface with MIRIAD, and can switch between viewing the data in 3D and 2D. The code is open source and can potentially be extended to include any astronomical function possible with Python, displaying the result in an interactive 3D environment.