# SlicerAstro: a 3-D interactive visual analytics tool for HI data

## TL;DR

SlicerAstro is an open-source, interactive 3-D visualization tool for HI data that enhances data analysis and exploration, supporting complex source inspection with real-time feedback and customizable features.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel 3-D interactive visualization extension for astronomical HI data analysis, built on 3DSlicer with new features and flexible scripting capabilities.

## Key findings

- Supports FITS files and astronomical coordinates
- Enables coupled 2-D/3-D visualization and interactive filtering
- Provides interactive 3-D masking and modeling

## Abstract

SKA precursors are capable of detecting hundreds of galaxies in HI in a single 12 hours pointing. In deeper surveys one will probe more easily faint HI structures, typically located in the vicinity of galaxies, such as tails, filaments, and extraplanar gas. The importance of interactive visualization has proven to be fundamental for the exploration of such data as it helps users to receive immediate feedback when manipulating the data. We have developed SlicerAstro, a 3-D interactive viewer with new analysis capabilities, based on traditional 2-D input/output hardware. These capabilities enhance the data inspection, allowing faster analysis of complex sources than with traditional tools. SlicerAstro is an open-source extension of 3DSlicer, a multi-platform open source software package for visualization and medical image processing. We demonstrate the capabilities of the current stable binary release of SlicerAstro, which offers the following features: i) handling of FITS files and astronomical coordinate systems; ii) coupled 2-D/3-D visualization; iii) interactive filtering; iv) interactive 3-D masking; v) and interactive 3-D modeling. In addition, SlicerAstro has been designed with a strong, stable and modular C++ core, and its classes are also accessible via Python scripting, allowing great flexibility for user-customized visualization and analysis tasks.