% @(#)dataou.alq	19.1 (ESO-IPG) 02/25/03 14:03:12 
MIDAS supports several formats for exporting data in order to facilitate
smooth cooperation between MIDAS and other data reduction packages.

The main data export format is FITS. Images, tables and Fit files in MIDAS
format can be written to tape or disk files via the commands OUTTAPE/FITS 
and OUTDISK/FITS.

Images and tables can be stored as ASCII data files via the PRINT/IMAGE and 
PRINT/TABLE commands in conjunction with ASSIGN/PRINT. The import utilities
of many applications require that input ASCII data is formatted as one data
value per file record. With the command OUTDISK/ASCII you produce such an 
ASCII file.

MIDAS images can be also converted to many of the standard graphics formats 
via the application procedure `outima.prg' (i.e. @a outima in_ima out_ima 
does the job). The supported formats are:
\\
AVS X image file (AVS), Microsoft Windows bitmap file (BMP), 
\\
Adobe Encapsulated PostScript file (EPS), Compuserve Graphics file (GIF),
\\
Compressed file (JPEG), Magick image file format (MIFF),
\\
IBM PC Paintbrush file (PCX), Apple Macintosh QuickDraw/PICT file (PICT),
\\
Portable bitmap (PNM), Adobe PostScript (PS),
\\
Truevision Targa image file (TGA), Tagged Image File Format (TIFF),
\\
Khoros Visualization image file (VIFF), X11 bitmap file (XBM),
\\
X11 pixmap file (XPM), X Window System window dump image file (XWD)
\\
The conversion is done via first transforming the MIDAS image to PostScript
format and then applying the public domain package `ImageMagick'.
I.e. this software must be installed at your site - otherwise `outima.prg'
will not work - the PostScript conversion is always possible.
 
If you need to savew the contents of keywords or descriptors in an ASCII file
use the output redirection mechanism of MIDAS. So, READ/KEYW xyz >outfile.dat
will store the contents of keyword xyz in the ASCII file outfile.dat .

Finally, the commands OPEN/FILE and WRITE/FILE let you write ASCII files
within MIDAS procedures.

