SLIDER: A Satellite Imagery Looper Capable of Viewing Every Pixel of GOES-16 Imagery in Real Time over the Web

The launches of the GOES-16 and Himawari-8 satellites bring with them immense data sets too large for conventional ways of looping through geostationary satellite imagery and new visualization tools are needed to facilitate their exploration. To that end, The Satellite Loop Interactive Data Explorer in Real-time (SLIDER) web application was recently developed by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) in partnership with the Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch (RAMMB), located at Colorado State University (CSU). SLIDER provides every pixel of real-time GOES-16 and Himawari-8 imagery to both the scientific community and the general public on a user-friendly web site. After a private beta for CIRA, NOAA, and NWS users, the public beta launched in June of 2017 and is available at http://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/ . Users of the SLIDER web application are able to view all 16 bands from both GOES-16’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and Himawari-8’s Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) for all available sectors from each satellite. Users can zoom in on interesting features while the imagery loops to see any part of it at full resolution, without the need to download the entire data set. This gives users the ability to explore many terabytes of satellite imagery over the web while using minimal network bandwidth. The SLIDER interface is even accessible from the browsers on many smartphones. The interface has many helpful features such as pan and zoom, map and lat/lon toggling, choices for time step and/or number of images to view, and the ability to view imagery from a multi-week archive. Some of the advanced features include overlaying multiple image loops on top of one another, varying each loop’s transparency, and showing or hiding each loop from view. True to its name, there is also a “slider” feature that allows users to directly compare loops side-by-side by moving a slider control back and forth horizontally. Extensive keyboard shortcuts make the use of a mouse optional, and all changes users make are immediately saved in the URL to facilitate sharing the exact same loop with colleagues or friends through email and social media. This presentation will share some of the technical details that make it possible to share large data sets of imagery over the web while providing users with fast performance. Also include will be a demonstration of the interface and it’s features displaying noteworthy GOES-16 imagery, such as CIRA’s Geocolor product showing smoke from wildfires in Canada ( http://col.st/lZVfd ) and an interactive side-by-side comparison of 5-minute visible and IR imagery of Hurricane Franklin (please see attached image and interactive site: http://col.st/jS24W ).