GLIDER: A comprehensive software tool to visualize, analyze and mine satellite imagery

There is a dearth of software tools that allow users to easily visualize, analyze and mine satellite imagery. The few tools that are available are expensive commercial packages that provide limited functionality. As part of a NASA funded project, a software tool named GLIDER is currently being developed to fill this void. GLIDER allows users to visualize and analyze satellite data in its native sensor view. Users can enhance the image by applying different image processing algorithms on the data. GLIDER provides the users with a full suite of pattern recognition and data mining algorithms that can be applied to the satellite imagery to extract thematic information. The suite of algorithms includes both supervised and unsupervised classification algorithms. In addition, users can project satellite imagery and analysis/mining results onto a 3D globe for visualization. GLIDER also allows users to add additional layers to the globe along with the projected image. Users can open multiple views within GLIDER to manage, visualize and analyze many data files all at once. This paper describes the features of GLIDER version 1.0.