Install healpix with Homebrew, dnf, MacPorts, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• alice3
• alm2map_cxx
• anafast_cxx
• calc_powspec
• compute_weights
• hotspots_cxx
• map2tga
• median_filter_cxx
• mult_alm
• needlet_tool
• rotalm_cxx
• smoothing_cxx
• syn_alm_cxx
• udgrade_cxx
• udgrade_harmonic_cxx

Project history

The official credits page says HEALPix was devised in early 1997 by Krzysztof M. Gorski at the Theoretical Astrophysics Center in Copenhagen. Early concept work and initial implementation followed in spring 1997 through collaboration with Eric Hivon, with Benjamin D. Wandelt contributing critically to the mathematical methods and later development.

The first large HEALPix software release, version 1.10, was made possible by contributions from Gorski, Hivon, Wandelt, Frode K. Hansen, Anthony J. Banday, Matthias Bartelmann, and others. Subsequent releases expanded and maintained implementations across Fortran 90, IDL, C, C++, Java, and Python, with healpy folded into the broader HEALPix software story.

The HEALPix primer defines the scheme as hierarchical, equal-area, and iso-latitude, designed to support efficient local pixel operations, multiresolution tree structure, and fast global spherical harmonic transforms. Those properties made it a durable choice for high-resolution spherical data rather than just an astronomy file convention.

Adoption history

HEALPix adoption is strongly tied to cosmic microwave background missions and all-sky maps. The project documentation says the software meets challenges presented by high-resolution, large-volume datasets such as WMAP and Planck mission products, and HEALPix pages list WMAP final data and Planck data releases alongside project news.

The project asks users to acknowledge HEALPix with the Gorski et al. 2005 Astrophysical Journal paper and the HEALPix website. That citation culture is part of its adoption history: HEALPix became both software and a standard analysis vocabulary in astrophysical publications.

Distribution moved beyond source tarballs. The official download page notes SourceForge source packages and SVN browsing, plus prepackaged or precompiled packages for macOS and Linux systems, including MacPorts, Homebrew, and RPM ecosystems.

How it is used

HEALPix users choose a resolution parameter and represent functions on the sphere as equal-area pixels. The iso-latitude layout supports efficient spherical-harmonic transforms, while hierarchical indexing supports multiresolution analysis and fast neighborhood operations.

The Homebrew package exposes compiled command-line facilities such as anafast, syn_alm, smoothing, udgrade, map conversion, weight computation, and related C++ tools. These tools support workflows such as producing maps from harmonic coefficients, estimating angular power spectra, smoothing maps, changing resolution, and visualizing spherical data.

The full upstream software package spans libraries and facilities for Fortran, IDL, C, C++, Java, and Python. That multi-language design matters in astronomy, where pipelines often mix legacy Fortran/IDL analysis with C++ utilities and Python notebooks.

Why package nerds care

HEALPix is a high-value scientific package because it packages a domain standard with compiled tools, language bindings, FITS-related dependencies, and a long-lived release history. It is exactly the sort of package scientists want from Homebrew or MacPorts on a workstation: difficult enough to build manually, stable enough to deserve packaging, and used across papers and mission data products.

For package maintainers, HEALPix also represents the old-school scientific stack: SourceForge hosting, SVN source browsing, GPLv2 licensing, multiple language interfaces, and command-line executables whose names are known inside a research community even if they are obscure elsewhere.

Timeline

• 1997: HEALPix devised by Krzysztof M. Gorski at TAC in Copenhagen.
• 1997: Initial implementation developed with Eric Hivon in spring 1997.
• 2005: Gorski et al. HEALPix framework paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.
• 2012: WMAP final 9-year data release appears in HEALPix site news.
• 2013: Planck first data release appears in HEALPix site news.
• 2018: Planck legacy data release appears in HEALPix site news.
• 2020: Planck PR4 data release appears in HEALPix site news.
• 2022-01: HEALPix 3.81 released.
• 2022-07: HEALPix 3.82 released.
• 2022-11: HEALPix 3.83 released.
• 2024-11: The version 3.83 primer revision documents the software and pixelization scheme.

Related projects

• healpy is the Python package incorporated into the HEALPix ecosystem.
• WMAP and Planck are major mission-data contexts for HEALPix maps.
• FITS tooling is adjacent because HEALPix maps are commonly exchanged in FITS files.
• CMBFAST, CAMB, and CLASS are cosmology codes discussed in HEALPix documentation as related spherical-harmonic and CMB-analysis tools.
• SourceForge, MacPorts, Homebrew, and RPM packages are part of the project's distribution path.

Sources

• https://healpix.sourceforge.io/credits.php
• https://healpix.sourceforge.io/documentation.php
• https://healpix.sourceforge.io/downloads.php
• https://healpix.sourceforge.io/html/intro.htm
• https://sourceforge.net/p/healpix/code/HEAD/tree
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/healpix/