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- Astropy v5.2.1 »
- World Coordinate System (`astropy.wcs`) »
- Loading WCS Information from a FITS File

# Loading WCS Information from a FITS File

This example loads a FITS file (supplied on the command line) and uses the FITS keywords in its primary header to create a WCS and transform.

    # Load the WCS information from a fits header, and use it
    # to convert pixel coordinates to world coordinates.

    import sys

    import numpy as np

    from astropy import wcs
    from astropy.io import fits

    def load_wcs_from_file(filename):
        # Load the FITS hdulist using astropy.io.fits
        hdulist = fits.open(filename)

        # Parse the WCS keywords in the primary HDU
        w = wcs.WCS(hdulist[0].header)

        # Print out the "name" of the WCS, as defined in the FITS header
        print(w.wcs.name)

        # Print out all of the settings that were parsed from the header
        w.wcs.print_contents()

        # Three pixel coordinates of interest.
        # Note we've silently assumed an NAXIS=2 image here.
        # The pixel coordinates are pairs of [X, Y].
        # The "origin" argument indicates whether the input coordinates
        # are 0-based (as in Numpy arrays) or
        # 1-based (as in the FITS convention, for example coordinates
        # coming from DS9).
        pixcrd = np.array([[0, 0], [24, 38], [45, 98]], dtype=np.float64)

        # Convert pixel coordinates to world coordinates
        # The second argument is "origin" -- in this case we're declaring we
        # have 0-based (Numpy-like) coordinates.
        world = w.wcs_pix2world(pixcrd, 0)
        print(world)

        # Convert the same coordinates back to pixel coordinates.
        pixcrd2 = w.wcs_world2pix(world, 0)
        print(pixcrd2)

        # These should be the same as the original pixel coordinates, modulo
        # some floating-point error.
        assert np.max(np.abs(pixcrd - pixcrd2)) < 1e-6

        # The example below illustrates the use of "origin" to convert between
        # 0- and 1- based coordinates when executing the forward and backward
        # WCS transform.
        x = 0
        y = 0
        origin = 0
        assert (w.wcs_pix2world(x, y, origin) ==
                w.wcs_pix2world(x + 1, y + 1, origin + 1))

    if __name__ == '__main__':
        load_wcs_from_file(sys.argv[-1])