SAOImage DS9: Version 7 Released

This is a guest post by William (Bill) Joye at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Bill is the primary writer and maintainer of the SAOImage DS9 tool.
We are pleased to announce the availability of the new public release of SAOImage DS9 7.0. More information about this package (including download links) is available at our website.
New to SAOImage DS9: 3-D Data Visualization
Previous versions of SAOImage DS9 would allow users to load 3-D data into traditional 2-D frames, and would allow users to step through successive z-dimension pixel slices of the data cube. To visualize 3-D data in DS9 v. 7.0, a new module, encompassed by the new Frame 3D option, allows users to load and view data cubes in multiple dimensions.
The new module implements a simple ray-trace algorithm. For each pixel on the screen, a ray is projected back into the view volume, based on the current viewing parameters, returning a data value if the ray intersects the FITS data cube. To determine the value returned, there are 2 methods available, Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP) and Average Intensity Projection (AIP). MIP returns the maximum value encountered, AIP returns an average of all values encountered. At this point, normal ...