NOTICE OF CESSATION OF DEVELOPMENT

19-11-2024: I've decided to stop developing LUX, after having worked on it and its predecessor ANA (of which LUX is a fork) for 34 years. I intend to port interesting bits of LUX functionality to Python modules. That way, more people can benefit from my work, and I can benefit from many other people's work. The current LUX website may disappear without notice. The source code can still be found at https://github.com/LouisStrous/LUX.

LUX

LUX is a program for processing of data, including images (not for cosmetic purposes, but as sources of data). It provides a command line where you can type commands written in the LUX language. It can read and execute LUX scripts written in the LUX language. It can display plots and images. It can read and write data. It can handle scalars and arrays of up to 8 dimensions, for data types from single bytes through to double-precision complex numbers, and text strings.

LUX provides many built-in functions and subroutines in the following areas:

array manipulation
astronomy and calendars
data compression
data input/output
mathematics and statistics
data plotting
images
text

LUX makes use of the following third-party libraries and tools:

GNU readline, for the command line editor
GNU bison, a for generating the LUX language parser
libjpeg, for reading and writing JPEG files
GNU Scientific Library (GSL), for various mathematical functions
X Window System (X11), for graphical display

FFTPACK, for Fast Fourier Transform calculations
Standards of Fundamental Astronomy (SOFA), for astronomical coordinate and time calculations. Note: LUX uses routines and computations derived by the author of LUX from software provided by SOFA under license to the author of LUX. LUX does not itself constitute software provided by and/or endorsed by SOFA.
Variations Séculaires des Orbites Planétaires (VSOP 87) (obtain software here), for planetary position calculations

LUX is released under the GNU General Public License.

Obtaining LUX

You can obtain LUX in various forms:

as source code to be compiled, at http://lux.quae.nl/lux.tar.gz. Use the command tar xzf lux.tar.gz to unpack the source files into a "lux" subdirectory of the current working directory. Then read the README and INSTALL documents to find out how to build and install the program.
as source code for further development, at http://github.com/LouisStrous/LUX.

Reference Guide

You can access the LUX Reference Guide in various forms:

from inside LUX, by entering the HELP command.
from a Unix command shell, by entering info lux (if the LUX info pages have been installed on your system)
as a PDF document
as a series of web pages