to_CASA or .image writer method

[keflavich]

We should come up with a method to generate CASA-compatible formats. Since CASA seems to deal with things entirely on disk (or almost so), this probably just means building a .image writer, presumably with some capability to write a .mask file in parallel.

This could serve as a drop-in replacement for importfits. For that reason, though, it may be redundant. Should we make it?

[akleroy]

Cheapest possible route:

cube.write("dummy.fits")
importfits("dummy.fits", "my.image", kwargs)

Next easiest:

cp -r a template image and then putchunk, etc. into the new copy
(this cheats to get your coordsys right)

In both cases ia.putchunk using the mask option shoves the mask into the file, else you can add a mask flag to write the mask as an integer (avoid bool for CASA).

Right way:

ia includes a method to make a new image from an array and a method to attach a coordsys. The complexity is a general wcs->coordsys translation. Tom has a nice version of the reverse, but that's easier.