reading old .imh and pixel files

marijnf wrote on May 13, 2009

I have some old iraf images (.imh and pixel files) which I am trying to read.
The pixel files are in pixel/ directories and so are easy to get "in the right location".
However, I don't know on what system I produced the .imh and pixel files,
it was either a sun, or hp unix. I was just wondering what I could do to try
to read those files on a "modern" system, e.g., fedora linux or mac. When
I currently try to read a file on the mac (10.5) I get:

ecl> imhe pap3.imh
pap3.imh: Cannot open image (pap3.imh)

(and the file is there, I can assure you).

If the problem van be solved, e.g., by installing cygwin iraf that would be
a perfectly fine solution too.
Maybe it would be best to have a method for converting sun files and a method
for converting hp-unix files.

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Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on May 13, 2009

Depending on when the data were created, they may be in the original IMH format which is machine dependent with regard to byte order. Since the IMHEAD task cannot open the image I believe this is the case. There is no workaround other than to read the image on a machine with the same byte order (e.g. a PPC Mac, Sun or HP) and write it out as a FITS file you can use on an intel machine.

Simply byte-swapping the file won't work and this hasn't come up enough to require a task to be written to do the conversion. Note that since v2.10.3 or so the IMH format is machine independent. If you can't find the pixel file or it has an old directory path, see the FAQ http://iraf.net/faqman/index.php?op=view&t=143

-Mike

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Last post on May 13, 2009