IDL SOFTWARE

Programming language for data analysis and visualization

Lana Ivkovic
362/2018
Astrophysics
The brief history of IDL

 1970s: the predecessor versions of IDL first

created by David Stern at LASP (Mars
Mariner data analysis)
 1977: the first IDL version (VAX/VMS) sold to
NASA
 1992-94: available on Linux, Windows and
Mac
Who uses IDL and for what?
 Primarily, astronomers and atmospheric
physicists
 IDL enables us to:
1. create, read and write data
2. create various plots
2. process images, maps and animations

3. visualize 3-D volume datasets

4. process a variety of 1-D signals

5. fit irregularly-sampled data to a regular grid

6. create different applications, etc.

Use in astronomy

 Coordinate system transformations

 Galactic extinction
 Spectral line shapes
 k-corrections
 Distances in cosmology
What makes IDL good?

 It is based on intuitive and easy-to-learn rules;

 It requires fewer lines of code, making it easier
and faster to go from data to discovery;
 It provides built-in support for the data sources,
data types, file formats, and file sizes we use;
 It has an extensive library of prebuilt analysis and
visualization routines;
 It can efficiently handle large data sets and
output the graphics we need.
THANK YOU FOR
ATTENTION!