GDAL PALSAR Complex Driver

About 1 year ago I wrote the ALOS-PALSAR Driver for RAT in IDL. Since then I have replaced IDL with scientific Python in my kit. The objective is to eventually get RAT functions implemented into a Python Based Radar Toolkit which will attract greater developer and user base.

GDAL has a quite usable Python API and is great for getting Geographic Rasters into code for manipulation. So with some help from Frank Warmerdam and following the minimalistic tutorial I wrote a driver for the PALSAR Complex Level 1.1 products. Level 1.5 products are already supported in GDAL via the generic SAR_CEOS driver. I am planning to add the gcp support to the driver next so that polarimetric processing information can be interpreted in real world coordinates.

Australia Day and JAXA presentation

Happy Australia Day to everyone , well even though it is a bit belated. My neighbour had an ultra noisy party so I could not forget it was Australia day even in my sleep.



I have a chance to go to JAXA to present on the work I did on ALOS-PALSAR calibration. Mostly checking the reflectors were pointed at the satellite and analysing the data in RAT. Here is a sample analysis result and the location where the reflectors were. They are of course not there anymore.

RC-Heli

On an impulse I bought a Venom Night Ranger II heli. Now I can't stop dreaming up ways of toying with it and hooking up a feed to World Wind. I am still getting use to steering it. Quite easy to take off, but a nightmare to fly. Since it is new I am really scared of crashing it.

For a worldwind feed I will need readings from the builtin Gyro and will have to hook up Camera,GPS and some link gear. Getting it all in weight will involve plenty of looking around , but I am sure it is possible. If anyone has experience drop me a comment.

Cases, Races and Moonlight Cinemas

Yesterday was a fun day, the case monkeys are off my back and I am a free man. I also managed to stumble into the Tour Down Under Adelaide Sprint.

Finally I watched the slightly mind bending "Scanner Darkly" in the Moonlight Cinema - Botanical Gardens.

The other thing is that I have managed to get myself an RC - Chopper. Expect live feed hookups to Worldwind soonish.

Farewell at Glenelg and Comets

One of my friends is heading off to Canberra next week for work, sort of relocating for a long time. Since ACT is sort of land locked and all they have for large water body is a large lake he decided to have a farewell at the beach since beaches will be pretty rare in Canberra.

The day went pretty well with lots of running around in the water and on the sand, while facing the wrath of a disgruntled old lady who got hit by our ball.

We finished with dinner on the grass and sighting of Comet McNaught at sunset. All this was topped off with gems about every number being special and 1729 being extra special.

Take care and stay in touch Peter. Sorry about the bad astrophotography with the phone camera.

OssimPlanetQt first time from CVS to mingw-windows

To those not in the know , OssimPlanetQt is yet-another globe viewing application. Written using the cross-platform QT Windowing Kit and OpenSceneGraph , the rendering is done using OpenGL.
The main programming language is C++ and it can use the Worldwind Servers as data source as well as standard WMS's.

I am apparently the first one to compile and run it on Windows using the mingw compiler toolchain and the QT 4.2 kit from Trolltech.

A howto will shortly appear on the ossim wiki. Just to draw a few parallels - Google Earth is also C++/OGL based and uses the QT Windowing system and draws most of its data from Digital Globe.

Flickr Plugin

The last act during my x-mas/new year "break" is a semi-working Flickr Plugin for Worldwind. The GUI is still missing for the user's access code entry and tag/date/camera based searches, but that will be easy since the caching and rendering mechanisms are working. Here is a screenshot, guess which tag I used to search. No looking at the code ( Yes it is hard coded at the moment!).

Eventually the photos will show up as textured rectangles, hopefully someone nice will work out something to make it work with Photosynth which looks bare at times and without context/content. Worldwind can provide a Global Context and Flickr can provide Global Content.

New Year and New Measure Tool

Well I have finally got over the New Years with minimal drinking and dancing on New Years Eve. I did manage to polish off a whole bottle of Bordeaux and dance with a girl while her boy friend glared. I know when not to push my luck too far.

Just getting back into coding Worldwind. The Release candidates are doing fine. I am coding up the MeasureToolNG with Withak utilizing the enhancements in the core rendering API. This tool will also support terrain profiling and area calculations.

I have also got my name down in another open source project. Qgis release is out , and I helped Tim put together an MSYS build environment to build it on Windows.

And of course my new year resolution is to not have any new year resolution and let the universe surprise me.