National Aeronautics and Space Administration

fv is built and distributed as a standard component of the large HEASOFT package of programs for manipulating and analyzing FITS data files, but you can also download the latest version of the fv binary executable by itself from this page.

Versions of fv are available for Linux and Mac OS X, and an older version is still available for Windows PCs (we hope to be able to offer v5.4 for Windows in the near future). In each case the distribution is completely self-contained and includes several sample FITS files that can be used to explore fv's capabilities.

For information about Hera, please visit the Hera web page, and visit the Student Hera web page for more information about the Hera interface designed for students and teachers.

If you experience problems using the following FTP links to download this software, click here for instructions on downloading fv using 'HTTP'.

Linux

Download the tar file appropriate for your platform:

PC Linux

PC Linux (64-bit)

These links will retrieve a gzipped tar file (roughly 4 MB in size). To unpack the file, type:

   > gunzip -c fv5.4_<ARCH>.tar.gz | tar xf -

where <ARCH> depends on the file downloaded. This will create a fv5.4 directory containing a platform-specific directory (pre-compiled binaries and libraries used by fv), associated documentation, sample data, and sample scripts. Once unpacked, fv can be run immediately; either add the fv5.4 directory to your executable PATH environment variable, or `cd' to that directory and then type `./fv'.

NOTE to Users with fv installed as part of the HEASOFT software package:
If you want to replace the fv in your HEASOFT distribution with the newest version of fv, simply move (or copy) the contents of the untarred fv5.4/ directory into the $HEADAS/bin/ directory. You may want to move aside the existing $HEADAS/bin/fv to e.g. $HEADAS/bin/fv_old first since you will be copying in a new fv executable.

Mac OS-X

Download the Mac OS X disk image and double-click the file to mount it. Once the image mounts, open it, and drag the fv icon (or Hera, or StudentHera) onto your hard disk, e.g. into your Applications folder.

To start Fv double click on the fv icon or type open -a fv from the command line. Note that the X11 graphical environment must be installed in order to use Fv. See for example the XQuartz home page for more information.

Windows PCs (Version 5.3 only)

Windows users should download this self-extracting executable file (7.3Mb). Once you've downloaded the file, double-click on it to launch InstallShield, which will guide you through the installation process. If you leave the "Create a desktop icon" option checked, the fv installation will produce three icons on your desktop: one for regular fv, and one each for Hera and Student Hera.

A source code distribution of fv 5.4 is available here. Users should refer to the standard HEASOFT-INSTALL document for instructions on how to build HEASOFT source code distributions, specifically the section titled "STEP BY STEP INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS".