SAOtng (SAOimage: The Next Generation) is an astronomical display program being developed cooperatively by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO). An updated replacement for the highly popular SAOimage display program, SAOtng uses the NOAO widget server and the X Public Access (XPA) mechanism to provide open software capabilities for users and developers alike.

Many people have contributed to the development of SAOtng, including:

Alberto Accomazzi (SAO)

Alberto developed the FITS to PostScript programs used by SAOtng to print/display/save PostScript versions of the displayed image.

Eric Mandel (SAO)

Eric is the architect for SAOtng. He wrote most of the SAOtng-specific code and co-developed the X Public Access mechanism, on which SAOtng is based.

Doug Mink (SAO)

Doug contributed the World Coordinate System transformation algorithms.

Saleem Mukhtar (JPL)

Saleem dug into region markers and made them work reliably. He also encouraged the development of line and polygon markers.

Frank Primini (SAO)

Frank made sure that all-important pixel values and positions were correct, and did other initial testing and evaluation of the program.

Dennis Schmidt (SAO)

Dennis has developed a good deal of the SAOtng GUI, especially the region functionality.

Ralph Swick (The X Consortium)

Ralph is a co-developer of the X Public Access mechanism.

Doug Tody (NOAO)

Doug wrote the widget server and ximtool, an image display program for the IRAF analysis environment which forms the basis for SAOtng.

Alexey Vikhlinin (IKI)

Alexey quietly pointed out areas where SAOtng needed improvement, especially with regard to FITS performance issues. Whenever SAOtng puts up a FITS image quickly, thank Alexey!

Last Updated May 1, 1995