IMAGE-OI: an OIFITS extension and its application in OImaging to compare image reconstruction algorithms

Abstract

In interferometry, the quality of the reconstructed image depends on the algorithm used and its parameters, and users often need to compare the results of several algorithms to disentangle artifacts from actual features of the astrophysical object. Such comparisons can rapidly become cumbersome, as these software packages are very different. OImaging is a graphical interface intended to be a common frontend to image reconstruction software packages. With OImaging, the user can now perform multiple reconstructions within a single interface. From a given dataset, OImaging allows benchmarking of different image reconstruction algorithms and assessment of the reliability of the image reconstruction process. To that end, OImaging uses the IMAGE-OI OIFITS extension proposed to standardize communication with image reconstruction algorithms.