GLIDER: A tool built on open framework to visualize, analyze and mine satellite imagery

Satellite imagery can be analyzed to extract thematic information, which has increasingly been used as a source of information for making policy decisions. Extracting thematic information using satellite imagery is a non-trivial task that requires a user to be able to visualize the data and apply different image enhancement operations to digitally improve the images, in order to identify subtle information that might be otherwise missed. In addition, the user needs to apply different information extraction algorithms including data mining and pattern recognition algorithms to the imagery to obtain the thematic information. This paper describes GLIDER, a freely available and easy to use software tool for visualization, analysis and mining of satellite imagery. GLIDER provides users with a freely available and easy to use tool for visualization, analysis and mining of satellite imagery. Users can visualize and analyze satellite imagery in its native sensor view, an important capability because any transformation to either a geographic coordinate system or any projected coordinate system requires spatial and intensity interpolation. With GLIDER, users perform their analysis in the native sensor view without any loss of information. Users have access to a full suite of image processing algorithms for satellite imagery enhancement. GLIDER also provides pattern recognition and data mining algorithms for both parametric and non-parametric information extraction. GLIDER can also be used to project satellite data and the analysis/mining results onto to a 3D globe and overlay additional data layers. Traditional analysis tools generally do not provide a good interface between visualization and analysis, especially a 3D globe view, and this tool fills this gap. The 3D globe feature is useful in providing a spatial location context for data and/or analysis results being visualized. This paper will describe some of the features available in the current GLIDER release. A short description of the GLIDER architecture will also be presented in this paper.