This provides a Python script to convert a 3D FITS cube file into a movie.

In a certain region, a 3D FITS cube file contains a set of sequential images, which is usually recognized as a movie. This script convert the FITS cube into a movie encoded with the H.264 codec.

Create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin/.

sudo ln -s ${PWD}/fits2avi.py /usr/local/bin/fits2avi

fits2avi requires, at least, two arguments: The first argument is the name of the FITS cube file; The second argument is the name of the output movie.

fits2avi source.fits output.avi

fits2avi accepts several options as follows:

• -f, --fps: specify the frame per second of the movie.
• r, --dpi: specify the resolution (dpi) of the movie.
• -l, --limits: specify the lower and upper limits of colormap. If this option is not specified, the minimum and maximum values of the FITS data are assigned.
• --vflip: vertically flip the movie.
• --hflip: horizontally flip the movie.

This script depends on matplotlib, numpy, pyfits, and argparse.