Skewer selection #3794

haticekaratay · 2025-09-18T19:40:39Z

Description

This pull request:

Introduces a new skewer selection tool.
When a user clicks in the viewer, the tool checks if the click falls inside any footprint.
If multiple footprints overlap at the click point, it chooses the footprint with the smallest polygon area.

Fixes #

Change log entry

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list the proposed change log here for review and add to CHANGES.rst before merge. If no, maintainer
should add a no-changelog-entry-needed label.

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After merge, any internal documentations need updating (e.g., JIRA, Innerspace)?

kecnry

Its good to see movement again on footprints, thanks! 🎉

kecnry · 2025-09-24T18:04:13Z

pyproject.toml

    "pyvo>=1.5.3",
-    "s3fs>=2024.10.0"
+    "s3fs>=2024.10.0",
+    "spherical-geometry"


we're trying to be very intentional about adding additional dependencies, although this one seems to be maintained internally and pretty lightweight. Do we need any specific version?

We don't need a specific version, at the moment. We're also cautious about adding deps, but implementing our own spherical-geometry in jdaviz would be strange.

tox.ini

kecnry · 2025-09-24T18:05:52Z

jdaviz/data/icons/skewer_select.svg

this is very similar to our current catalog_select icon. Is this just a placeholder for a custom icon or should we plan out how to differentiate between these?

Thanks! That’s a placeholder at the moment. I’m getting Jenn’s input on the right icon for this new tool.

kecnry · 2025-09-24T18:08:10Z

jdaviz/core/tools.py



+@viewer_tool
+class SkewerSelectFootprint(CheckableTool, HubListener):


instead of a separate tool, was a modification of the current tool considered (ctrl+click, keypress event, etc) considered?

That’s a good point. For this case, we wanted it to be a separate tool. The interaction is different enough (skewer vs. nearest footprint) that we thought it would be clearer for users to have its own tool. cc: @bmorris3

In the interest of maximizing discoverability, is it possible to have the tool menu show a selection icon with an expand arrow, which opens a submenu of footprint selection options?

we already have the dropdowns in the toolbar, I'm not sure we want another level of nesting... but maybe we need somewhere for tool settings?

Another take: should there be a new 'selection options' tool, with a mouse arrow icon, that expands with the selection options? I don't think these choices naturally belong in a group with blinking and contrast/bias.

we could split that "category" into two, but that increases the probability of horizontal overflow issues (which are not currently handled well) for narrow viewers. We also had a long-term plan (not currently prioritized, afaik) to allow activating viewer tools from the plugins themselves which I think would really help in this case as the footprint plugin could then put the tools in more context.

To me, adding this as a separate group doesn’t feel like it adds too much clutter, but I agree the bigger issue is that the jdaviz toolbar isn’t really responsive right now. Maybe we can treat that as a follow-up improvement, while in the meantime this gives users clearer control.

kecnry · 2025-09-24T18:09:12Z

jdaviz/configs/imviz/plugins/footprints/footprints.py

+
+    def _handle_skewer_click(self, data):
+        """Spherical (great-circle) selection: only selects if the click is INSIDE a footprint.
+        If multiple overlays contain the click, picks the one with smallest area.


maybe this should also be in the tooltip? I was wondering whether it would select multiple, closest, etc.

The longer-term goal is to select all matches, once footprint multiselect is compatible with the Footprints plugin.

ok, depending on the resolution of the conversation related to that... if this stays with the single-select at least for now, it might still make sense to describe in the tool description/tooltip and we can always modify that once multiselect is included.

jdaviz/configs/imviz/plugins/footprints/footprints.py

bmorris3

The following comment applies to the implementation as it is written, where multiselection isn't an option. I'd argue that we can't have true skewer selection without multiselection.

While testing, I think I noticed a bug when the footprint has multiple marks. In this video, I'm alternately clicking on 1) the overlap between the green MIRI footprint, the magenta FGS footprint, and the orange NIRSpec footprint, and 2) the overlap between the green MIRI footprint, the magenta FGS footprint.

smallest-area.mov

For click (2), the skewer selection tool is choosing the smallest area mark, which is the green MIRI footprint (✅).

For (1), skewer select appears to choose the mark with the smallest area. The smallest mark which contains the click coordinate is determined to be NIRSpec, even though NIRSpec has the biggest FOV of all the choices here. Is it picking NIRSpec because it's comparing the mark area, which is ~1/4 of the full FOV?

@kecnry – what's the least disruptive way to implement footprint multiselect?

kecnry · 2025-09-24T20:04:35Z

what's the least disruptive way to implement footprint multiselect?

I think we had discussed this a while back, but can't remember the details. What functionality do you want to support with multiselect? I think the closest analog would be the implementation for subsets in subset tools - in multiselect mode the user is no longer allowed to view/edit the properties of the subset and only see actions that can be completed in bulk (currently recentering).

haticekaratay · 2025-09-24T20:37:47Z

While testing, I think I noticed a bug when the footprint has multiple marks. In this video, I'm alternately clicking on 1) the overlap between the green MIRI footprint, the magenta FGS footprint, and the orange NIRSpec footprint, and 2) the overlap between the green MIRI footprint, the magenta FGS footprint.

Yes, that’s the behavior I implemented. The selection logic doesn’t look at the full FOV of the instrument, but instead compares the area of the specific mark polygons at the click location. So in your example, it’s picking NIRSpec because that individual polygon has the smallest area among those containing the click, even though the full FOV is larger.

github-actions bot added imviz plugin Label for plugins common to multiple configurations labels Sep 18, 2025

haticekaratay added this to the 4.4 milestone Sep 18, 2025

rosteen modified the milestones: 4.4, 4.5 Sep 18, 2025

haticekaratay added 8 commits September 24, 2025 10:29

log click pixel and sky (ICRS) for footprint selection

df82555

build per-overlay SphericalPolygon on click

dab9221

Implement the core logic

32e8fd6

Clean up

10ece6b

pick smallest polygon per overlay, not sum

ba16396

Add spherical-geometry dependency

5541044

Add tests

9d7c6f4

Add a change log

90a9ec5

haticekaratay force-pushed the skewer-selection branch from f4c17cd to 90a9ec5 Compare September 24, 2025 17:22

Add spherical-geometry dep

d9ec790

haticekaratay marked this pull request as ready for review September 24, 2025 17:49

haticekaratay requested review from MatthewPortman, bmorris3, cshanahan1, gibsongreen, javerbukh, kecnry and rosteen as code owners September 24, 2025 17:49

kecnry reviewed Sep 24, 2025

View reviewed changes

haticekaratay added 2 commits September 24, 2025 15:13

Update dependency

1c3d97b

Clean up

d78020b

bmorris3 reviewed Sep 24, 2025

View reviewed changes

kecnry mentioned this pull request Sep 30, 2025

Ability for plugins/loaders to override viewer toolbars #3812

Merged

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		@viewer_tool
		class SkewerSelectFootprint(CheckableTool, HubListener):

Skewer selection #3794

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Skewer selection #3794

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kecnry commented Sep 24, 2025

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haticekaratay commented Sep 24, 2025

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haticekaratay commented Sep 18, 2025 •

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