A WISER Software Toolkit for Imaging Spectroscopy Visualization and Analysis

Abstract:

Imaging spectroscopy data are becoming increasingly widespread in the earth, environmental, and planetary sciences, yet there are few open-source tools available to facilitate the visualization of this data, develop and share codebases for novel analytical approaches, or provide dataset access for students and the public at-large. The most widely used image processing software packages are designed to work with two dimensional datasets and cannot handle the third, spectral dimension of imaging spectroscopy data. Further complicating this problem is data volume with some imaging spectroscopy datasets well into the TB range.

The Workbench for Imaging Spectroscopy Exploration and Research (WISER) is an open-source visualization and analysis tool aimed at addressing this capability gap, making it both easy and free for researchers and students to explore imaging spectroscopy datasets and perform scientific analyses. Implemented in Python 3, and leveraging Python libraries used widely in scientific computing, WISER uses modern techniques to provide a user-friendly and responsive interface for exploring imaging spectroscopy data. Version 1.0 of this software is available on Windows, MacOSX and Linux, and includes standard functionality for data visualization and analysis (wiser.caltech.edu). Besides more advanced visualization capabilities, subsequent versions will include a Python console for custom analysis directly within the tool, as well as a well-documented extensibility mechanism for researchers to develop and incorporate new functionality into the application.

We will be using WISER with field and laboratory imaging spectroscopy data, MRO/CRISM imaging spectroscopy and Mars-2020/Mastcam-Z multispectral imager data from Mars, upcoming EMIT Earth imaging spectrometer data, and upcoming Lunar Trailblazer imaging spectrometer and multispectral imager datasets from the Moon.