CASA and GUIs

CASA does have a GUI, but the availability and scope of the GUI depend on the version you’re using:

---

🧱 Classic CASA (CASA 5.x or CASA 6 monolithic bundle)

✅ Includes a GUI — this is the traditional, Qt-based graphical interface.

GUI Features:

• viewer — graphical image and data cube viewer.
• plotms — tool for plotting measurement sets interactively.
• imview — image viewer for visualizing FITS and CASA image formats.
• Logger & terminal — integrated within the GUI window.

To launch:

./casa

Then from the CASA prompt:

viewer()    # Starts the image viewer

plotms()    # Opens the measurement set plotter

☑️ If you need the GUI features, install classic CASA (not CASA6). See Option 2 in the previous answer.

---

🐍 CASA6 (pip/conda version)

❌ No full GUI included by default.

• CASA6 is modular and script-driven. It does not include viewer or plotms by default.
• GUI tools like plotms may work if you install casaplotms (still under development and limited).

That said, CASA6 is designed for Jupyter notebooks, batch processing, and automated pipelines — ideal for scripting workflows, not interactive GUI use.

---

🧭 Summary

Feature	CASA Classic (5.x/6.x bundle)	CASA6 (pip/conda)
Full GUI (casa)	✅ Yes	❌ No
plotms() available	✅ Yes	⚠️ Partial (experimental)
Scriptable	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Jupyter-compatible	⚠️ Limited	✅ Fully

---

✅ Recommendation for GUI Users:

If you want a GUI for visualization and manual inspection, use Classic CASA.

Would you like help downloading the latest GUI-enabled CASA version or running it on your data?