Astroinformatics and Heliophysics at the FHNW Institute for Data Science

JHelioviewer

Open source visualization software for solar image data

VISIT PROJECT SITE

ROLE OF THE INSTITUTE FOR DATA SCIENCE

> Re-architecting the original version
> 3D visualization
> Intergration with other applications
> Usability improvements

Project lead at I4DS: Silvan Laube

Partners: Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB)

Funding: European Space Agency ESA

Start: 2011
Status: ongoing

Keywords: visualization software, JPEG 2000, solar physics

SUMMARY

JHelioviewer is a visualization software for solar images based on the JPEG 2000 compression standard. Compression allows JHelioviewer to quickly visualize huge amounts of data from major spacecrafts observing the sun. The software is used by scientists and by interested amateurs to explore the sun in detail and create images or videos. Some teams use it to decide at what to point their instruments. It offers many features such as a multiview mode, perspective 3D visualizations from different points of view, a timeline, additional information about solar activity on a particular day and alerts.

PEOPLE @I4DS WHO WORK ON JHELIOVIEWER

Silvan Laube

Software engineer

Since 2018

People who worked on JHelioviewer before:

  • Simon Felix (former project lead)
  • Roman Bolzern
  • Manuel Serquet
  • Samuel von Stachelski
  • Stefan Meier
  • Rolf Müri
  • Simon Spörri

OPEN RESOURCES AND RESULTS

Download JHelioviewer
JHelioviewer on GitHub

Publications

The new JHelioviewer paper (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2017)
The first JHelioviewer paper (published in Computing in Science & Engineering 2009)
The Helioviewer web application

VISUALS

Screenshot of the JHelioviewer user interface. Three images from two different spacecraft show a massive eruption that occurred in February 2016.

Example of a video generated with JHelioviewer showing a filament eruption.