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https://github.com/cds-astro/aladin-lite

An astronomical HiPS visualizer in the browser
https://github.com/cds-astro/aladin-lite

astronomy hips images javascript virtual-observatory visualizer

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An astronomical HiPS visualizer in the browser

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README 

        
# [Aladin Lite](https://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/AladinLite)



**An astronomical HiPS visualizer in the browser** Aladin Lite logo



Aladin Lite is a Web application which enables HiPS visualization from the browser. It is developed at [CDS, Strasbourg astronomical data center](http://cds.unistra.fr/).



See [A&A 578, A114 (2015)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1505.02291) and [IVOA HiPS Recommendation](http://ivoa.net/documents/HiPS/index.html) for more details about the HiPS standard.



Aladin Lite is built to be easily embeddable in any web page. It powers astronomical portals like [ESASky](https://sky.esa.int/), [ESO Science Archive portal](http://archive.eso.org/scienceportal/) and [ALMA Portal](https://almascience.eso.org/asax/).



More details on [Aladin Lite documentation page](http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/AladinLite/doc/).

A new [API technical documentation](https://cds-astro.github.io/aladin-lite/) is now available.



[![Run tests](https://github.com/cds-astro/aladin-lite/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/cds-astro/aladin-lite/actions/workflows/test.yml)

[![API Documentation](https://img.shields.io/badge/API-documentation-blue.svg)](https://cds-astro.github.io/aladin-lite)

[![Releases page](https://img.shields.io/badge/Releases-forge-yellow.svg)](https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/doc/release/)



Aladin Lite is available [at this link](https://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/AladinLite).



## Running & editable JS examples



Basic Aladin Lite setupLoad SIMBAD & NED catalog dataLoad a FITS image

    

        

        

        American Astronomical Society 225
exampleDisplay proper motion vectorsVisualization of Mars

            

            

            



## Releases



A [release page](https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/doc/release/) keeps track of all the current and previous builds.

A ``release`` and ``beta`` versions, regularly updated are available. The ``beta`` version is usually more advanced than the ``release`` one but features more error prone and not production-ready code.



> [!TIP]

> If you are working on a project that uses Aladin Lite, prefer working with a fixed version. Every build is tagged with a version number and accessible with:

>

> ```https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/api/v3//aladin.js```



## Documentation



There is a new API documentation available [here](https://cds-astro.github.io/aladin-lite).

Editable examples showing the API can also be found [here](https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/doc/API/examples/).



## Embed it into your projects



You can embed Aladin Lite it into your webpages in two ways



### The vanilla way



Please include [the javascript script of Aladin Lite v3](https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/api/v3/latest/aladin.js) into your project. API differences from the v2 are minimal, here is a snippet of code you can use to embed it into your webpages:



```html



    

    






    let aladin;

    A.init.then(() => {

        aladin = A.aladin('#aladin-lite-div', {fov: 360, projection: "AIT", cooFrame: 'equatorial', showCooGridControl: true, showSimbadPointerControl: true, showCooGrid: true});

    });



```



### NPM deployment



A [NPM package](https://www.npmjs.com/package/aladin-lite) is deployed and maintained. It is used by [ipyaladin](https://github.com/cds-astro/ipyaladin), a jupyter widget allowing to run aladin lite in a notebook.



```npm i aladin-lite```



Aladin Lite can be imported with:



```html



    import A from 'aladin-lite';

    // your code...



```



## New features



* [X] Rust/WebGL2 new rendering engine

* [X] Remove jQuery dep

* [ ] UI dev, better support for smartphones

* [X] FITS images support

* [X] WCS parsing, displaying an (JPEG/PNG) image in aladin lite view

* [X] Display customized shapes (e.g. proper motions) from astronomical catalog data

* [X] AVM tags parsing support

* [X] Easy sharing of current « view »

* [ ] All VOTable serializations

* [ ] FITS tables

* [X] Creating HiPS instance from an URL

* [X] Local HiPS loading 

* [X] Multiple mirrors handling for HiPS tile retrival

* [ ] HiPS cube



## Licence



Aladin Lite is currently licensed under GPL v3.0



If you think this license might prevent you from using Aladin Lite in your pages/application/portal, please open an issue or [contact us](mailto:[email protected])



## Contribution guidelines



There are several ways to contribute to Aladin Lite:



- **report a bug**: anyone is welcome to open an issue to report a bug. Please make sure first the issue does not exist yet. Be as specific as possible, and provide if possible detailed instructions about how to reproduce the problem.



- **suggest a new feature**: if you feel something is missing, check first if a similar feature request has not already been submitted in the open issues. If not, open a new issue, and give a detailed explanation of the feature you wish.



- **develop new features/provide code fixing bugs**. As open development is a new thing for us, we will in a first time only take into consideration code contribution (_i.e._ Pull Requests) from our close partners.

In any case, please get in touch before starting a major update or rewrite.



### Building steps



First you need to install the dependencies from the package.json

Please run:



```sh

npm install

```



After that you are supposed to have the Rust toolchain installed

to compile the core project into WebAssembly.

Follow the steps from the Rust official website [here](https://www.rust-lang.org/learn/get-started)

You will also need [wasm-pack](https://rustwasm.github.io/wasm-pack/), a tool helping compiling rust into a proper .wasm file.



Once it's installed you will need to switch to the nightly rust version:



```sh

rustup default nightly

```



Then you can build the project:



```sh

npm run build

```



> [!WARNING]

> **If you are experimenting Rust compiling issues:**

> - Make sure you have your **wasm-pack** version updated. To do so:

> ```sh

> cargo install wasm-pack --version ~0.12

> ```

> - Make sure you are using the rust **nightly** toolchain

> ```sh

> rustup default nightly

> ```

> - Remove your `src/core/Cargo.lock` file and `src/core/target` directory -- this ensures that you'd escape any bad compilation state:

> ```sh

> git clean -di

> ```

> -  then recompile with `npm run build`.



It will generate the aladin lite compiled code into a `dist/` directory located at the root of the repository. This directory contains two javascript files. `aladin.umd.cjs` follows the UMD module export convention and it is the one you need to use for your project.



### Testing guidelines



#### Run the examples



A bunch of examples are located into the `examples` directory.

To run them, start a localhost server:



```sh

npm run serve

```



#### Rust tests



These can be executed separately from the JS part:



* Compile the Rust code:



```sh

cd src/core

cargo check --features webgl2

```



* Run the tests:



```sh

cargo test --features webgl2

```



#### Snapshot comparisons



We use [playwright](https://playwright.dev/) for snapshot comparison testing. Only ground truth snapshots have been generated for MacOS/Darwin architecture.

First install playwright:



```sh

npx playwright install

```



Run the tests, advises are given for opening the UI mode or for generating your own ground truth snapshots.



```sh

npm run test:playwright

```