PINGSoft: an IDL visualisation and manipulation tool for Integral Field Spectroscopic data

Abstract

In this article we introduce PINGSoft, a set of IDL routines designed to visualise and manipulate, in an interactive and friendly way, Integral Field Spectroscopic data. The package is optimised for large databases and a fast visualisation rendering. PINGSoft includes routines to extract regions of interest by hand or within a given geometric aperture, to integrate the spectra within a given region, to convert between different IFS formats, to read, edit and write IFS data files, and some other miscellaneous codes especially useful in astronomy and spectroscopy. Here we describe its major characteristics and requirements, providing examples and describing its capabilities. The PINGSoft package is freely available at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/research/pings