Skip to main content

MapReady Version History

MapReady Version History

MapReady 2.2.5 (released 2009 May 23)
New Functionality
- New 'external' tab in the MapReady GUI, allows running of a command-line
  tool after import, prior to terrain correction or polarimetric processing.
- Support for ingest of PolSARPro data in the MapReady GUI
- Improved radiometric terrain correction (new correction formula)
- Experimental support for TerraSAR-X and GAMMA data
- New tool: diffimage (reports statistical differences b/w images)
- New tool: diffmeta (report differences in metadata files)
- New tool: adjust_bands (allows combining/reordering/removing bands in
  multi-band files)

MapReady 2.1.11 (released 2009 March 30)
New Functionality
- New Polarimetric Decompositions:
  * The Cloude-Pottier decomposition, with 8 or 16 classifications,
    as well as the raw entropy/anisotropy/alpha values.
  * Freeman-Durden
- Faraday Rotation correction
- In ASF View, the ability to overlay a shapefile, or a generic
  CSV file, on top of the image.
- Support for ingesting GeoTIFFs which use angular pixel sizes.
- Support for viewing certain useful intermediate files generated
  during processing.
- MapReady now thumbnails GeoTIFFs loaded into the input file list.
- GUI support for AirSAR data (interferometric)
- Added support for ERSDAC ALOS mosaicks
- New tool: brs2jpg, converts ALOS .BRS files to jpeg.

Bug Fixes
- Eliminated streaking at the edge of an image with some Radarsat
  SLC data
- Changing the output directory during processing no longer breaks
  use of the "View Output" or "View Metadata" options.

MapReady 2.0.13 (released 2008 August 27)
New Functionality (GUI and command-line tools)
- Support for single-look complex (SLC) data, including Palsar
  Level 1.1.
- Allow processing quad-pol (Palsar Level 1.1, 1.5) data into
  the Sinclair polarimetric decomposition
- Allow processing quad-pol SLC (Palsar Level 1.1) data into
  the Pauli polarimetric decomposition
- Implemented correction for the ERS2 gain loss.
- Use the new ALOS 25-parameter transform block, available in data
  produced by the ALOS processor 9.0+.  Significantly improves
  geolocation of ALOS data.
- Support in asf_terrcorr for skipping the coregistration and
  using user-supplied offsets.
- Support for use of DEMs in the lat/lon pseudoprojection during
  terrain correction.
- New tool!  asf_proj2proj is a command-line interface to the ASF
  Projection Coordinate Converter.
- In ASF View, allow the user to move the crosshair to a specified
  lat/lon, line/sample, or projected x/y coordinate.
- Support for AirSAR data. [command-line only]
- Support for Gamma data. [command-line only]

Bugs Fixed
- When using "Save Clipped DEM" with terrain correction, the saved
  DEM was not always clipped properly.
- MapReady would crash on Windows Vista.
- MapReady's "Help" option would not work on Windows Vista.
- ASF View would not always find the CEOS Metadata file when that
  button was clicked.
- ASF View's "Save Subset" option would produce invalid ASF Internal
  files when generated from CEOS images.
- ASF View's "Save Subset" option would have incorrect geolocations
  when used on projected data.
- Projection converted would not detect the zone when converting
  back to UTM from lat/lon.

Features Enchanced
- On Windows, changed to use of the GTK+ browse-for-folder widget
  when using the "Browse" button on the "Destination Folder" dialog,
  instead of the Windows one.  Allows creating directories within
  the widget, and can be set to start up in the current directory.
- Allow terrain correction of calibrated and polarimetric data
  by adding an amplitude band that is used only for coregistration.
- Include processing settings and timing information in the MapReady
  log file.
- Geocode would produce grainy results when significantly
  downsampling.
- Improved ASF View's depiction of RGB images by using separate
  constrast expansion on all three bands, instead of a single mapping
  for all three.
- Pixel averaging in ASF View when zoomed out.  (Results in a less
  grainy image.)



MapReady 1.0.4 (released 2008 May 23)
New Functionality
- Added support for user-defined UTM projections used by GRASS.
- Metadata Viewer: Added support for the JAXA Facility Data Record.

Bugs Fixed
- MapReady: Fix crash when selecting Palsar IMG- file under some
  circumstances.
- MapReady: Fix problem viewing help under Vista.
- MapReady: Fix core dump importing USGS DEM under Solaris.
- MapReady: Some UTM DEMs using NAD27 were being incorrectly
  interpreted as WGS84.
- MapReady: Error out when trying to import SLC data, as this is not
  supported for 1.0.
- MapReady: Error out when trying to import Level 0 data, as this is not
  supported for 1.0.
- MapReady: Error out gracefully (instead of crashing) when trying to
  terrain correct with DEMs in the Lat/Lon pseudoprojection.
- MapReady: Use a different transformation block when geocoding Palsar
  data.  Should improve Palsar geolocations, particularly at higher
  latitudes.
- MapReady: Fix some incorrectly populated metadata fields for CDPF
  SSG data.
- MapReady: Fix some incorrectly populated metadata fields for RSI
  SGF data.
- MapReady: GeoTIFF import was not populating False Easting/Northing
  for some files using Lambert Conformal Conic.
- ASF View: Can now view non-map-projected TIFFs
- ASF View: Fix incorrect distance reported when trying to measure
  across a UTM zone boundary.



MapReady 1.0.3 (released 2008 February 12)
New Functionality (GUI and command-line tools)
- Added GeoTIFF DEM ingest support to asf_import
- New installer scripts for all tools

Bugs Fixed
- Some documentation topics were clarified (.meta files, ASF Internal
  format description)
- Location block in metadata not populated when importing certain RSI
  data
- Metadata viewer failed to display the data set summary record for
  certain CDPF data
- Configure script improved so that if GTK libraries are not available,
  it is made very clear that the applications with graphical user
  interfaces will not be built
- Some polar stereographic map projected data sets would not reproject
- Some polar stereographic SSM/I map projected data sets failed to
  import or imported with scaling errors
- Improved tool tips in MapReady GUI
- Better file clean up (temporary thumbnail files)
- asf_import fail to process long STF swath
- Resolved build errors for building on Sun Solaris v8 and v9 systems
- asf_geocode failed for missing projection parameters (parameters that
  could be surmised from existing information)
- Some ALOS L1.5 data failed to reproject



MapReady 1.0.2 (released 2008 January 2)
New Functionality (GUI and command-line tools)
- Convert GUI name changed to MapReady and redesigned and reorganized
  the user interface for more intuitive use, advanced tool tips,
  improved help.  Command line version, asf_convert, renamed to
  asf_mapready.
- New tool! Added new SAR and Optical image viewer (asf_view).
  Replaces, modernizes, and enhances capabilities previously found
  in the now-unsupported sarview tool, allows viewing geographic
  region covered by the dataset in Google Earth, and applies
  pseudo-color according to look-up tables available from a drop-down
  list.
- New tool! Added shift_geolocation (command line) to the tool set.
  Allows manual shifting of geolocation if a known offset exists.
  Similar to refine_geolocation but no DEM is required.
- New tool! Added Projection Coordinate Converter (GUI) to the tool
  set.  This tools converts projection coordinates in one map
  projection into projection coordinates in another map projection.
  The GUI allows you to specify map projection parameters, manually
  enter coordinates, or select a file that contains coordinate
  triplets (x, y, height) - one triplet per line.  Results can be
  saved to a file as well.
- New tool!  Added 'trim', a simple command-line utility that
  facilitates subsetting an ASF Internal Format file given
  starting line, number of lines, starting sample, and number of
  samples.
- New tool!  Added 'fill_holes', a tool that replaces values in an
  image below a given cut-off with values interpolated from the
  shape and height of the surrounding terrain.  The fill_holes tool
  is handy for manually patching 'holes' (regions with no-data values,
  typically very small negative values) in DEMs prior to using the
  DEM for terrain correction.  The result is that hole-related
  artifacts in terrain corrected images are minimized (available
  as a command-line flag to asf_mapready and as a checkbox in MapReady
  as well.)
- New tool!  The 'to_sr' tool has been added to the tool suite.  The
  to_sr tool converts a ground range (or map-projected ASF Internal
  format image with state vectors available in the metadata file)
  into a slant-range image.  Replaces deprecated gr2sr tool.
- New tool!  The 'deskew' tool has been added to the tool suite.  The
  deskew too removes satellite platform squint-induced skew from
  ground range images.

- Enhanced TIFF/GeoTIFF ingest to support a much broader spectrum of
  GeoTIFF types (scanline, tiled, striped, color; geocentric lat/long
  in decimal degrees)
- Added support for several new CEOS data formats (BEIJING ESA raw,
  CDPF)
- Terrain correction of ScanSAR and ALOS Palsar
- Sinclair decomposition upon export for real-valued radar images
- Added 'Display in Google Earth' buttons to the GUI for viewing of
  the data extents in the Google Earth (tm) program.
- Added ability to patch 'holes' (interpolate over missing data)
  in DEMs.  Also see new tool 'fill_holes'.
- Ability to export PNG graphics file format

Bugs Fixed
- Resolved some minor memory leaks
- shift_geolocation now works properly on map-projected images
- Fixed several (minor) metadata inconsistencies
- Resolved 700m to 1.5km geolocation offset which occurred in
  some ALOS AVNIR2 images
- Resolved file seek error which occurred when importing into
  a sigma nought power image
- Resolved band_count error when importing GeoTIFFs with empty
  color channels
- USGS Seamless Server DEMs in GeoTIFF format are now in tiled
  TIFF format.  Importing this format is now supported.
- Resolved issues with geocoding images that cross the zone 1
  to 60 boundary in UTM map-projections.
- Resolved minor inaccuracies in ScanSAR alpha-rotation projections.

Features Enhanced
- Improved Windows registry settings to allow parallel installations
  of multiple versions of the tool set (including uninstallation)
- Import of polar stereographic SSM/I CEOS data now defaults to
  utilizing the Hughes reference spheroid
- Enhanced import/export of image bands (channels, polarizations, etc)
- Added support in the command line version of asf_convert for
  exporting individual bands from multi-band files
- Improved JPEG output (reduced JPEG artifacts)
- Metadata now includes location block (corners, center, lat/long)
- Made input file name specification more flexible and removed
  some dependencies on the name of the file (less error prone)
- Added support for a broader variety of input file naming
  conventions
- Added support for bicubic resampling during geocoding of byte
  images



ASF Convert 3.1.16 (released 2007 July 13)
New Functionality (GUI and command-line tools)
- Added ALOS support for the import, radiometry, geocode, and export
  functionalities. This includes all ALOS sensors: PalSAR, AVNIR2, and PRISM.
- Polarimetric support added (HH, HV, VH, VV; bi-pole, quad-pole)
- Color support for multi-band/multi-polarization imagery
  - User-defined assignment of 1 or more bands to one or more
    color planes in any order, no requirement to use all 3 color
    planes (RGB)
  - True Color (2-Sigma contrast-expanded color planes, automatic
    assignment of optical 3-2-1 bands to R-G-B color channels)
  - False Color (2-Sigma contrast-expanded color planes, automatic
    assignment of optical 4-3-2 bands to R-G-B color channels)
- Added ability to import or export individual (or more) selected
  bands from multi-band imagery
- Added greyscale-to-pseudocolor image conversion via a look-up
  table definition which maps grey levels to colors.  Includes ability
  to define starting and ending colors over a range of greyscales
  and automatic color-interpolation between these values.
- Added radiometric terrain correction
- Colorized layover and shadow masks.  Saved in same format as output
  image.  Colors can be user-defined via configuration file.
- Added ability to export an ENVI-type header (.hdr) for ingesting
  ASF intermediate files (if saved) into ENVI or ENVI-compatible GIS
  and imaging software
- Added support for the Hughes datum with the polar stereographic projection
- New meta field "bands" in the "general" block (designates names for each band)
- New tool! convert2vector to assist in mask file creation

Bugs Fixed
- Minor issues related to the importation of very large images resolved
- Resolved some minor memory leaks that affected some Windows users
- Reduced memory requirements during calculation of image statistics
  (helps some Windows users)
- Fixed incorrect latitude of origin for southern hemisphere UTM
  projections
- Corrected incorrect map projected pixel size in Y direction which occurred in
  some circumstances
- Intermittent failure to display input thumbnail resolved
- Intermittent failure to display output thumbnail resolved
- Fixed crash when the chosen file for the "load settings" button doesn't exist
- No longer always have the "Save intermediates" checkbox checked after loading
  settings
- Fixed calculation for center lat/lon in metadata
- Get image thumbnail pop-ups to show up in the proper place when the scroll
  bar has been moved
- Fixed instances of geocode dying with the error:
  "Failed to determine line and sample from latitude and longitude"
- Fixed swapped lat/lon in ENVI .hdr file when using the Albers projection
- When geocoding account for the given average height correction when
  'refine geolocation' has been chosen as opposed to  full terrain correction
- Improved GeoTIFF metadata population which had caused problems viewing
  polarstereo projected images in ArcMap

Features Enhanced
- GUI format adjusted for more intuitive batch processing
- Better error and fault reporting
- Improved projection parameter checking when geocoding
- Trade PPM output option for PGM output for more efficient greyscale
  file sizes.  (Uncompressed RGB may be saved as a TIFF or GeoTIFF
  instead)
- ASCII metadata enhanced to include new fields for ALOS (etc)
- Improved threading
- Increased responsiveness of the "Stop" button
- Install missing documentation



ASF Convert 3.0.23 (released 2007 April 12)
Fixed crashes when an image came near or crossed the International Date Line
Fixed a failure when geocoding some ScanSAR images



ASF Convert 3.0.21 (released 2007 February 8)
Improved datum and spheroid support
Added new metadata values:
  In the "general" block:
    sensor_name (name of sensor used by the satellite)
    no_data (value a pixel is set to if there is no data available there)
  In the "sar" block:
    earth_radius_pp (earth radius calculated by the precision processor)
    polarization (polarization of the beam)
Moved metadata value "average_height" from the "general" block to the
  "projection" block
Adjustment made for erroneous earth radius given by the precision processor
Added azimuth scaling to correct for precision processor velocity errors
Fixed off-by-one error in x/y pixel sizes (perX, perY) in the ddr to meta data
  conversion
Fixed north direction in geotiffs created from scenes that have descending
  orbits
Added SGF (RADARSAT fine beam) as a valid product type for RSI and CDPF data
Added installation documentation
Several minor bug fixes (eg memory leaks)

GUI
Added datum selection drop-down and "Ignore projection errors" checkbox
On Windows, use the native file selector dialog instead of the GTK file selector
Added support to view a bounding box representing the geolocation of the output
  image in the Google Earth (tm) software
Eliminated "scale output" option on export tab. Pixel size option on Geocode
  tab is utilized instead.
Corrected inaccuracies in summary section when histogram equalization has been
  selected
Default to UTM projection, applying the most-appropriate zone, when geocoding is
  selected but no map projection is specified.
Better thumbnailing support and thumbnails for output images
New "DEM" tab allows for terrain correction or refinement of the SAR geolocation
  with the assistance of a user provided DEM
Made the "Stop" button more responsive
Add labels to the checkboxes on geocode and export

Command Line
asf_convert
  Added ability to specify a name for the temporary directory in the Convert
    configuration file (asf_convert).
asf_import
  Ingest USGS seamless server format GeoTIFF DEM files (for terrain correction
    only)
  Ingest ENVI ArcGIS format GeoTIFF files (for terrain correction masking only)
  Added -image-data-type option (can specify dem, mask, or geocoded)
  Fix bug that would cause a crash if latitude constraints were not set when
    importing STF format data
asf_terrcorr - New tool!
  Terrain corrects data
  Added Terrain Correction capabilities:
  Can mask out regions that yield poor co-registration using a user-provided
    mask file
  Ability to mask out water regions automatically
  Automatic layover and shadow masking
  SAR co-registration with DEM (foreword-geocoded with DEM converted to slant
      range in SAR-coordinates)
  Option to keep intermediate files
refine_geolocation - New tool!
  Refines the geolocation of SAR data using a DEM the user provides
mosaic - New tool!
  Rudimentary tool that can combine many ASF-format geocoded images into one
    image. Inputs must have the same projection parameters and pixel size.
akdem_grab - New tool!
  Retrieves a DEM from the USGS seamless server when given corner coordinates
asf_geocode
  Added background fill option
  Exit with an error if no projection is specified
  Added ability to project ingested lat/lon format DEM files (for terrain
    correction only)
asf_export
  Fix scaling calculation used in histogram equalization when downsampling
    output to byte
  Can now accept other input data types (no longer needs to be floating point)
  Allow input basename to have a "." in it.
metadata
  n/a



ASF Convert 2.1.9 (released 2006 May 15)
RPM installer for Linux
Use autoconf/configure for source distribution
Added meta->sar->azimuth_processing_bandwidth field to the metadata file
Added meta->sar->chirp_rate field to the metadata file
Added meta->sar->pulse_duration field to the metadata file
Added meta->sar->range_sampling_rate field to the metadata file
Added meta->general->average_height field to the metadata file
Fixed metadata error reading whitespace on Windows
Fix memory error when internally copying the metadata structure
Fix for infrequent crash regarding the library level "get_look" function

GUI
Change "output directory" & "naming scheme" buttons no longer obliterate
  changes made by the other.
Items in the batch list update automatically (no longer require a mouse over)
When you right click on a dataset you can bring up CEOS metadata
  (in the metadata GUI)
When you right click on a dataset you can bring up asf metadata
  (after processing)
Windows file selector is now used on Windows instead of the GTK file selector
By default the GUI will now clean up intermediate files (this can be disabled
  via a checkbox)
CEOS Metadata viewer integrated into GUI

Import tab
  Keep intermediate files checkbox added
Radiometry
  Added a checkbox to output in the decibel scale instead of power
Geocode tab
  Output pixel size option
  New projection: Lambert conformal conic
Export tab
  Histogram equalization sample mapping method option (for mapping float to
    byte)

Command Line
All Convert command line tools
  Logging enabled
  Information in the help updated
  New -license option to display copyright & license
  New -version option to display version number and copyright
asf_convert
  Now operates via use of a configuration file
  Geocoding now available in the processing flow
asf_import
  Remove 0 fill on left or right of image
  Will now allow projected CEOS data to be imported (though it cannot be
    reprojected at this time)
  New -dB option to output calibrated data in decibels instead of the power
    scale (only works with -sigma, -beta, & -gamma flags)
asf_geocode
  New option "force" added (allows projections in bizarre locations)
  Reading & writing of projection files completely revamped
  Fixed bug which caused program to fail if a projection file was used
    with the UTM projection
  Properly update datum in the metadata
  Output pixel size option
  If the polarstereo projection is used, the default hemisphere is dynamically
    chosen based on the metadata (instead of always north)
asf_export
  Histogram equalization sample mapping method option (for mapping float to
    byte)
metadata
  n/a



ASF Convert 2.0.1 (released 2005 April 28)
The ASF software tools are designed to make it easier for users to process ASF
data products and translate them into a variety of other formats. A graphical
user interface exists which guides the user through the process of ingesting,
geocoding, and exporting datasets.

The tools can currently ingest most Level 1 ASF products, and produce geocoded
(or non-geocoded) GeoTIFF, TIFF, JPEG, or portable pixmap images. The GUI that
runs on the windows environment has 4 different tabs which allows the user to
import, export, geocode to apply one of four projections and to modify how the
radiometry is displayed.