asterism

asterism is a viewer with a built-in file browser that rapidly displays CSV/TSV files in a folder as heatmaps for quick visual inspection. With parallel processing and SIMD optimization, it enables fast checking even for large datasets.

Features

• 📊 Quick Visualization: Easily view numerical data arranged in 2D format as heatmap images
• 📁 Easy File Management: Browse and open data files through an intuitive file explorer interface
• 📈 Cross-Section Analysis: Extract and plot arbitrary rows or columns as line graphs
• 🖼️ Batch Image Generation: Generate multiple heatmap images at once
• 🎨 Flexible Display Options: Log/Ln scale visualization, customizable color ranges
• 📊 Supports multiple data formats: Grid Data and Point Cloud Data (XYZ Format)
• 🚀 High performance: Parallel processing + SIMD‑optimized bitmap generation

Supported File Formats

• File Types: CSV (comma or space-separated), TSV (tab-separated)
  • Data Types: Grid Data (2D matrix), Point Cloud Data (XYZ format)
  • see "Data File Format" section below for details
• Encodings: Shift-JIS, EUC, ISO-2022-JP, UTF-7/8/16/32

System Requirements

• OS: Windows 10 or later (64-bit recommended)
• .NET: Not required - Runtime is included in the download!

Installation

Option 1: Download Pre-built Binary (Recommended)

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download the latest version ZIP file
   • asterism-win-x64.zip for 64-bit Windows (recommended) - ~40MB download, ~120MB extracted
   • asterism-win-x86.zip for 32-bit Windows - ~35MB download, ~100MB extracted
3. Extract to any folder
4. Run asterism.exe

No .NET installation required! - Everything is included in the download.

Note: The download size is larger because it includes the .NET 10 runtime. This ensures the application runs on any Windows 10+ system without additional setup.

Option 2: Build from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/dck-jp/asterism.git
cd asterism

# Build the project
dotnet build -c Release

# Run the application
cd bin\Release
asterism.exe

Usage

Basic Usage

1. Launch asterism.exe

2. Open a data file using one of these methods:

   • Drag & drop files onto the window
   • Use the file explorer pane on the left
   • File menu → Open

3. Try the sample files in the samples folder to get started

Batch Image Generation

1. Open the "Image" tab
2. Click "Generate batch images" button
3. All files in the current file list will be converted to images
4. Images are saved in an img folder within your selected directory

Data File Format

Grid Data (GridCSV / 2D Map Data)

Represents numerical data arranged in a grid—commonly used for surface roughness, X‑ray intensity, and raster data.

Data should be organized as a 2D matrix with numerical values:

# Header row (optional)
value1  value2  value3  ...
value4  value5  value6  ...
...

• Lines containing non-numeric data are treated as headers
• Delimiters: Tab, comma, space
• Missing values are handled as NaN

Point Cloud Data (XYZ Format)

Contains X, Y, and Z values (multiple Z columns allowed).

X1  Y1  Z1
X2  Y2  Z2
...

• Delimiters: Tab, comma, space
• Columns: X, Y, Z (multi‑value supported)
• Conversion: Automatically transformed into grid data

UseCases

• Surface roughness data (Surface Map / Height Map)
• X‑ray intensity distribution (Intensity Map / Raster Map)
• Visualization of temperature or concentration fields
• 2D projection of point‑cloud data
• Gridding and visualization of scattered data -Any other 2D map (Grid / Raster) data

Dependencies

This project uses the following libraries:

• CodeD.CSV2Heatmap (1.0.2)
• DockPanelSuite (3.1.1)
• DockPanelSuite.ThemeVS2015 (3.1.1)
• ZedGraph (5.2.1)

Icons: Fugue Icons by Yusuke Kamiyamane

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Copyright (c) 2009-2025 dck-jp

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues or pull requests.

Author

dck-jp

Changelog

Version 3.0.0 (2025)

• Upgraded to .NET 10.0
• Modernized codebase

For previous revision history, see docs/RevisionHistory.txt