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PLASTIC - a protocol for desktop application interoperability
Version 1.00

IVOA Note 01 June 2006

Interest/Working Group:
not applicable
Author(s):
Thomas Boch, Marco Comparato, John Taylor, Mark Taylor, Noel Winstanley
Editor(s):
John Taylor

Abstract

PLASTIC (Platform for Astronomy Tool InterConnection) is a protocol for communication between client-side astronomy applications. It is intended to be simple for application developers to adopt and is easily extended. Through PLASTIC applications can do tasks such as instruct each other to load VOTables, highlight a subset of rows or load an image of a particular area of sky. Although such operations are quite simple, they can significantly enhance an application's power and usability. The philosophy is that the astronomer should have a suite of interoperating tools at his disposal, each of which does one thing well and which can be composed according to his particular needs.

This Note documents the PLASTIC protocol version 0.5 and does not preclude changes to the specification in the future.

Status of this document

This is an IVOA Note expressing suggestions from and opinions of the authors.
It is intended to share best practices, possible approaches, or other perspectives on interoperability with the Virtual Observatory. It should not be referenced or otherwise interpreted as a standard specification.



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