MSIV: A tool for interactive visualization and analysis of multispectral satellite images

Visualization of satellite data frequently takes the form of gray-scale images representing radiance or brightness temperature in a single spectral channel. Such display approaches have two drawbacks: 1) they do not make efficient use of the capabilities of color display devices, and 2) they present a limited amount of information to the user. To address these problems, AER has developed a software tool known as the Multispectral Image Viewer (MSIV). This software generates color composite images by mapping different spectral channels to the red, green, and blue components of a display device. Default channel / color combinations for any given satellite can be configured, and the user can change these combinations interactively. Different color compositing approaches greatly improve the user's ability to distinguish physical features of a remotely sensed scene.

MSIV can be used to support analyses involving arbitrary data sources, including polar-orbiting or geosynchronous sensors, making measurements in visible, infrared, or microwave imaging channels. Co-located images from different sources or from different dates and times can be easily merged, displayed, and analyzed. Multiple images at closely spaced time intervals from geosynchronous satellites can be loaded simultaneously and displayed as an animated sequence. Image data can be read from several popular file formats, and enhancement and analysis products can be output as either data files or as graphical images.

The software supports a number of spectral enhancement algorithms. Look-up table enhancements and color saturation modifications dramatically improve the quality of displayed images. Toggling of red, green, and blue components is supported, along with gray-scale visualization of single-channel data. MSIV also supports mathematical combinations of image data (e.g. channel ratios and brightness temperature differences), channel thresholding operations, principal components analysis, and several automated meteorological analyses.