Opticks is an open source, remote sensing application

Remote sensing application

A remote sensing application is a software application that processes remote sensing data. Remote sensing applications are similar to graphics software, but they enable generating geographic information from satellite and airborne sensor data. Remote sensing applications read specialized file...

 that supports imagery

Imagery analysis

Imagery analysis is the extraction of useful information from bi-dimensional graphic formats, including screen shots. This includes color and black-and-white photographs, infra-red photographs and video, radar screens and synthetic aperture radar formats, ultrasound, EKG, EEG, MRI, echo...

, video (motion imagery), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)

Synthetic aperture radar

Synthetic-aperture radar is a form of radar whose defining characteristic is its use of relative motion between an antenna and its target region to provide distinctive long-term coherent-signal variations that are exploited to obtain finer spatial resolution than is possible with conventional...

, multi-spectral

Multi-spectral image

A multispectral image is one that captures image data at specific frequencies across the electromagnetic spectrum. The wavelengths may be separated by filters or by the use of instruments that are sensitive to particular wavelengths, including light from frequencies beyond the visible light range,...

, hyper-spectral, and other types of remote sensing

Remote sensing

Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon, without making physical contact with the object. In modern usage, the term generally refers to the use of aerial sensor technologies to detect and classify objects on Earth by means of propagated signals Remote sensing...

 data. Opticks is unlike other remote sensing applications because it treats imagery and video alike. Opticks is one of the only remote sensing applications that supports processing remote sensing video. Opticks was initially developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and other organizations for the United States Intelligence Community

United States Intelligence Community

The United States Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the...

. Ball Aerospace open sourced Opticks hoping to increase the demand for remote sensing data and broaden the features available in existing remote sensing software. The Opticks software and its plug-ins are developed by over twenty different organizations.

Opticks can also be used as a remote sensing software development framework

Software framework

In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by user code, thus providing application specific software...

. Developers can extend Opticks functionality using its plug-in architecture and public application programming interface (API)

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

. Opticks is open source, licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License

GNU Lesser General Public License

The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...

 (LGPL) 2.1. Opticks was brought into the open source community in Dec 2007 and has a large developer community. Over two hundred developers are registered on its site and over twenty different organizations are developing plug-ins.

See also

• Remote sensing
  Remote sensing
  Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon, without making physical contact with the object. In modern usage, the term generally refers to the use of aerial sensor technologies to detect and classify objects on Earth by means of propagated signals Remote sensing...
  
  
• Synthetic aperture radar
  Synthetic aperture radar
  Synthetic-aperture radar is a form of radar whose defining characteristic is its use of relative motion between an antenna and its target region to provide distinctive long-term coherent-signal variations that are exploited to obtain finer spatial resolution than is possible with conventional...
  
  
• Hyperspectral
• Multispectral
• Imagery analysis
  Imagery analysis
  Imagery analysis is the extraction of useful information from bi-dimensional graphic formats, including screen shots. This includes color and black-and-white photographs, infra-red photographs and video, radar screens and synthetic aperture radar formats, ultrasound, EKG, EEG, MRI, echo...
  
  
• LIDAR
  LIDAR
  LIDAR is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to, or other properties of a target by illuminating the target with light, often using pulses from a laser...
  
  
• RADAR
  Radar
  Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
  
  
• Open-source software
  Open-source software
  Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...