FRELLED : A Realtime Volumetric Data Viewer For Astronomers
  I present a new FITS viewer designed to explore 3D spectral line data (in
particular HI) and assist with visual source extraction and analysis. Using the
artistic software Blender, FRELLED can visualise even large (~600^3 voxels)
data sets at high frame rates (10 f.p.s.) in 3D. Blender's interface enables
easy navigation within the 3D environment, and the FRELLED scripts support
world coordinate systems. A variety of tools are included to aid source
extraction and analysis, including interactively masking data (using 3D
polyhedra of arbitrary complexity), querying NED, calculating the flux in
specified volumes, generating contour plots and overlaying optical data. It
includes tools to overlay n-body particle data, and multi-volume rendering is
supported. The interface is designed to make cataloguing sources as easy as
possible and I show that this can be as much as a factor of 50 times faster
than using other viewers.
