New Format of Color FITS for RAWTRAN, FITSPNG and Munipack

Long-term experiences with processing of color FITSes has leaded me to drastic change of color-storing format. The separation of single-color bands to FITS image extension is really wrong way. It is less natural than storing in multi-dimensional single array. The data are logically grouped together with meta (header) information.

However, main reason for the change has been simplifying of manipulations with color images. The simplifying is really drastic. I removed hundredth of code lines and a lot of (potentially) buggy code.

Another important change is replacement of COLORTYP to CSPACE describing of colorspace of stored color image. I suppose, the new keyword is more mnemonics. See also description of the exact structure Color FITS format.

The changes are included since versions 0.3.0 of rawtran and fitsng and 0.5.2 of Munipack.