Exploring the Synergies between ‘Commercial’ and Open Source

Software

Gregg Petrie, Cosmic Project

Lee Miller, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Outline

• Introduction

• Study Approach

• Specific Examples

• Conclusions

• Action Items

• Questions

Introduction : Disclaimer• Represent Users-Hyperspectral Remote Sensing

NOT claiming to be an expert hacker

Introduction : Motivation

Current Impression

Current Hope: The Whole > Parts

Introduction : Goals

• Identify, develop, test, refine, and demonstrate synergies using real world examples

• Demonstrate how open source community can support users of commercial software

• Promote the support of open source by commercial vendors

Introduction : More Information

COSMICPROJECT.ORG

Outline

• Introduction

• Study Approach

• Give Some Concrete Examples

• Conclusions

• Action Items

• Questions

Approach

• Survey of Open Source Possibilities

• Create and Experiment With a Loosely Coupled Environment

• Create and Experiment With a Tightly Create and Experiment With a Tightly Coupled EnvironmentCoupled Environment

Approach: Survey

• 238 Open Source Geospatial Packages

• 24 Scientific Open Source Python Packages

Approach-Survey Observations : Python

• Provide access to a wide range of additional tools

• High level structures promote rapid prototyping

• Self Documenting• Builds on the Python/ESRI Experience• Widely used to glue capabilities together• Well supported (e.g. .NET)• Python supports both UNIX and WINDOWS • Use of Python growing in the scientific world

Approach-Survey Observations : Python Issues

•SPEED .NET

Moore's Law

More C code

Approach-Loosely Coupled Environment: Dealing with the ‘Tower of Babel’ file format problem

GDAL

Vendor DLL

Write your own

Loosely Coupled Environment: Actual Solution for the ‘Tower of Babel’ file format problem

TIFF files•Flexible

•Supported by many commercial packages

•Stable

•Dealing with large file sizes

•Well Known

Tiff Flexibility :Two Edged Sword

Outline

• Introduction

• Study Approach

• Specific Examples

• Conclusions

• Action Items

• Questions

Examples: Leica Imagine

Imagine provides ‘standard’

remotes sensing tools that include:

Registration

File creation

Display

Registration

Classification

File import/export

Python tools Interface to Windows/UNIX AIP

AI tools

Easy access to FORTRAN and C software packages

Quick GUI development tools

Access to .NET

SciPy toolkit

WEB tools

SDC Morphology toolbox

‘Twisted’ for event-driven networking

CGAL for computational geometry

IDL like capabilities to write advanced Hyperspectral

analysis tools

COSMIC

Photoshop for presentation graphics

Python

Example: Imagine

Example: Imagine

Advantage

Essentials

Professional

Cost

Cap

abili

ties

Example 1: Web Mapping

Examples: Web Mapping

Step 1: Trail Extraction

Step 2: Annotation of Nodes

•Used Open Source to translate to ASCII files

•Used Python to add USGS elevation data to nodes and calculate distance

•Used the Open Source PIL software to create gif file

Example 2: Color Compression

Example 2: Imagine Approach

Example 2: Combined Approach

For each class find the average color and update the LUT

Example 2: Results Top Half=RGB image

Lower Left= Unsupervised color

Lower Right =Imagine color

Menu Maze Problem

Example 2: Real Usefulness

Image source:http://www.csr.utexas.edu/projects/rs/hrs/hyper.html

Pick the 3 best BANDS for each land cover

Outline

• Introduction

• Study Approach

• Specific Examples

• Conclusions

• Action Items

• Questions

Conclusions

Advantage

Essentials

Professional

Cost

Cap

abili

ties

Whole > Sum of the Parts

0 Cost

Open Source

Conclusions: NumPy and Python can be used to “glue” software

And now for something completely different...

+

Conclusions: Tiff files, with a ‘little’ improvement’ can greatly mitigate

the ‘Tower of Babel’ file format problem

Advantage

Cost

Professional

Conclusions: Vendor Specific

Essentials

Cap

abili

ties

Commercial Advantages

Know QA factors

Good documentation

Not all users programmers

Can be faster

Can be cheaper

Can by bureaucratically compatible

Open Source

Conclusions: Vendor Specific

• Empower Users• Help current developers reduce both prototyping

costs and time to market• Increase the rate at which new ideas· developed

by users could be prototyped, tested and moved into ‘native’ proprietary commercial tool kit

• Provides an alternative to the Menu Maze• Build on the Python/ARC ESRI Experience• New pathway for new users

Outline

• Introduction

• Study Approach

• Specific Examples

• Conclusions

• Action Items

• Questions

Action Items For Vendors

• Continue Support BigTiff• Work together to establish Tiff conventions for

hyperspectral data sets• Build on the ESRI/Python Model• Support a Tightly Coupled Environment

Action Items For Open Source

• Support BigTiff• Work together to establish Tiff conventions for

hyperspectral data sets• Move toward tightly coupling commercial and open

source data• Improve Documentation for GeoTiff data• Couple systems (e.g. GRASS) to Commercial packages

Questions