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Spectral Processing Extension 1.0.0 has been released on March 3rd, 2010.

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Download Spectral Processing Extension

New Features

• Provide a importer to load Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ files into Opticks.
• Provides the following algorithms to convert an image from radiance to reflectance: Empirical Line Method (ELM) and Internal Average Relative Reflectance (IARR).
• Provides the following algorithms to find signatures matches in an images: Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) and Constrained Energy Minimization.
• Provides a specialized "Signature Window" plot to display and manipulate signatures including the ability to generate signatures from a scene (either a single pixel or a user created Area of Interest).
• Provides a specialized "Range Profile" plot to display and then manipulate signatures in order to better align them.
• Provides a number of methods to resample a signature to match the wavelengths of an image before applying a signature matching algorithm.
• Provides a capability to build libraries of many signatures which can then be exported to an ENVI Signature Library file.
• Provides some additional importers and exporters for both individual signatures and signature sets.
• Provides the Minimum Noise Fraction Algorithm (MNF) in order to preprocess an image and remove extraneous noise in order to improve later signature matching algorithms.

Supported Opticks Versions

Python Scripting Extension 1.0.0 has been released on March 3rd, 2010.

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Download Python Scripting Extension

New Features

• This extension provides the ability to combine the power of Opticks and the Python language. This extension provides the Python scripting window which allows you to use Opticks to load and visualize your imagery and then directly interface that imagery with Python from within Opticks to manipulate and perform algorithms using the full power of the Python language.
• Python interfaces are built on the SimpleAPI interface provided by the Opticks SDK. You can read details in the main Opticks SDK documentation.
• This extension will work with an install of Python 2.4, Python 2.5 or Python 2.6. There is a separate version of the extension installer for each of those versions of Python. You should note that the extension installers that target Python 2.5 and Python 2.6 have a bundled install of Python, so you are not required to already have Python installed on your computer when using those extension installers.
• If you have installed the NumPy Python extension into your Python installation, it can be used to expose Opticks data structures, both RasterElements and Signatures using the powerful NumPy array data type. The NumPy extension provides capability very similar to what is available in IDL, Matlab, Octave, J, and other array programming languages.
• The Python extension is supported on Windows 32-bit and (unofficially) Linux 64-bit versions of Opticks 4.3.X. Key Python components are not currently available for Windows 64-bit or Solaris SPARC.
• Help on the extension is available in the Python opticks module which can be accessed by typing:

  import opticks
  help(opticks)
  

  or by looking in $OPTICKS_HOME/SupportFiles/site-packags at the .py source files. Further help on the SimpleAPI interface is available in the Opticks SDK help documentation under the Simple datacentric API module. There are plans in the future to bundle html documentation along with extension.

Supported Opticks Versions

Opticks 4.3.3 has been released on March 3rd, 2010.

This release is intended to replace 4.3.2 as the recommended release.

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Application Changes

Download Opticks Application

New Features

• The Metadata tab in the Import Options dialog and Data Element Properties dialog now has a filtering capability to hide attributes based on name and/or value. (OPTICKS-660)
• A new wizard item, Run Interpreter Commands, was added. This wizard item can be used to run script commands for any supported scripting extension (currently IDL and Python with freely available extensions). This wizard item lets the user either specify the script commands directly or have them read from a file. (OPTICKS-780)
• Scripts (currently IDL and Python with freely available extensions) can now be packaged into an easily installable AEB. This is accomplished using the new Run Interpreter Commands wizard item, specifically the "Command File Location" argument. This argument can have a value like "$V(APP_HOME)/SupportFiles". When the wizard is executed, "$V(APP_HOME)" will be expanded into the full path of where Opticks is installed on the end-users computer. (OPTICKS-838)
• The user can now more easily edit vector<string> Value items in the Wizard Builder and vector<string> types in the Medata by configuring their text editor of choice in the Tools->Options. This feature was designed to be used with the new Run Interpreter Commands wizard item, so that users can directly edit script commands in the wizard builder using their text editor of choice. By default, the system configured editor for *.txt files will be used. (OPTICKS-779)
• Several new wizard items were added to query for Layers, Data Elements, Views, and more at wizard execution time. When the wizard is executed, the user will be able to interactively browse and select which Layer, Data Element, View to use. These wizard items can be created by double-clicking on an input node of a supported type. (OPTICKS-805)
• The Wizard Builder now supports editing the values of multiple Value Items simultaneously. In addition, a new keyboard shortcut was added to edit all of the selected Value Items (Ctrl+E). (OPTICKS-805)
• A new importer is available which allows FITS data to be loaded into Opticks. 2-D and 3-D data cubes can be loaded as well as 1-D signatures/spectra and 2-D signature/spectra libraries. (OPTICKS-828)
• The default behavior for importers in wizards has been changed. Importers will no longer show up as available wizard items. The Import Data Set wizard item should be used instead. This change was made to simplify wizard creation. Any existing wizards created with earlier versions of Opticks will continue to work. (OPTICKS-597)

Bug Fixes

• After loading an NITF data set with an RPC TRE, opening the Georeference dialog now correctly displays the RPC georeference option. (OPTICKS-481)
• Flattening an annotation layer when the data set has been flipped now works properly. (OPTICKS-537)
• The image no longer dramatically and unexpectedly changes size when the user shows the inset (Ctrl + Right-Click) on one of the views linked by two-way lat/lon link. (OPTICKS-568)
• The Movie Exporter can now export animations with frame speeds less than 1. (OPTICKS-578)
• Exported JPEGS on Solaris no longer display a progress dialog. (OPTICKS-627)
• The command text color in the Scripting Window no longer changes after pressing Enter with output text selected. (OPTICKS-689)
• An annotation object's size is now maintained when copying and pasting the object. (OPTICKS-702)
• An incorrect error message no longer appears in the message log after attempting to move the Layout layer on top of the Classification layer in a product. (OPTICKS-737)
• The spatial data window now correctly closes regardless of the Confirm Close option when deleting the raster element in the session explorer. Previously, the element would be deleted, but the window would remain open and empty. (OPTICKS-739)
• The animation performance of a view with shape file layers will now improve if the shape file layers are hidden. (OPTICKS-752)
• The animation toolbar slider now restores to the correct position when loading a session. (OPTICKS-754)
• The ENVI Library importer will now import the proper file when the user selects the sli file for import. (OPTICKS-769)
• The application no longer crashes when attempting to flatten a shape file annotation layer. (OPTICKS-776)
• Undo/redo now works correctly for adding and removing text and lat/lon insert annotation objects. (OPTICKS-777)
• The user can enter text containing a comma followed by a space into both vector<string> Value item in the wizard builder and into vector<string> items in the Metadata. (OPTICKS-788)
• The application no longer crashes when attempting to connect an input node to another input node or an output node to another output node in the wizard builder. (OPTICKS-791)
• The ArcProxy.exe no longer crashes when the ArcGIS license is missing. It will instead quietly disable those extra features that can utilize an ArcGIS license. (OPTICKS-793)
• The annotation toolbar is now correctly enabled automatically when creating a product. (OPTICKS-795)
• Closing a product that was restored from a session file no longer crashes the application. (OPTICKS-797)
• Opening a session containing a text object in a product no longer crashes the application. (OPTICKS-797)
• The following AOI types: point, line, polyline, polygon, and rectangle are now being drawn properly when off to the left or above the image. (OPTICKS-814)
• The AOI object text label is now properly restored in a session when the label is hidden. (OPTICKS-825)
• The annotation toolbar in a plot is now correctly enabled when loading a session where the Annotation mouse mode was enabled in the plot. (OPTICKS-839)
• The application no longer crashes on exit after loading a session with a histogram plot containing a text annotation object. (OPTICKS-840)
• The Measurement toolbar mouse mode now updates properly when switching between windows. (OPTICKS-841)
• The axis values on a plot are now restored correctly when loading a session. (OPTICKS-842)
• A data set histogram plot is now correctly closed when closing the data set after loading a session. (OPTICKS-843)
• ENVI Spectral Libraries (.sli) with bad bands (bbl) will now load, previously the file would be rejected as invalid. However, the bad bands are still not being handled correctly, that will be fixed later, you can follow OPTICKS-663 for more details. (OPTICKS-847)
• Editing metadata values on import and switching to another data set now correctly prompts the user to save the metadata changes. (OPTICKS-848)
• A bug has been fixed which prevented install of any additional AEBs after an AEB had been installed which had an Incompatible clause. (OPTICKS-845)
• AEBs with dependencies between them can now be installed in a single install action. Previously this might fail depending on the order the AEB filenames were processed by the application. (OPTICKS-852)

Extension Developer Changes

• Cg feedback filters are now initialized properly. (OPTICKS-822)
• A crash which could occur on session restore of custom data elements has been fixed. This occurred due to an uncaught XmlException. (OPTICKS-827)
• A possible crash which could occur on session restore of custom graphic objects with custom properties has been fixed. This occurred because of a double deletion. At the time of this fix no known code would cause this crash to occur. (OPTICKS-844)
• The "Bin" content of an AEB is now installed into the proper location (the directory where Opticks.exe resides) for developers that are running Opticks out of an SDK. For end-users using an Opticks install, any "Bin" content will be installed in the same directory it was prior to this release. (OPTICKS-800)

SDK (Software Development Kit) Changes

Download Opticks SDK

New Features

• The signature selector dialog now has the capability for the user to create, edit, and delete custom signature filters. The signature filters allow filtering out individual signatures in a signature set/signature library. Also, the signature filters now support filtering based on signature name in addition to metadata attribute name and/or value. In order to utilize this new capability, you need to rebuild against this SDK release. All of these changes are source compatible. (OPTICKS-659)
• This release marks the debut of the SimpleAPI. This is a simplified function oriented API to Opticks that only utilizes C calling conventions. The purpose of this API is to allow scripting or other simplified interfaces to be interfaced to Opticks. The SimpleAPI is distributed as a dynamic library (.dll, .so) with the Opticks application installer. The C interface files are distributed with the Opticks SDK, but are not directly required to utilize the SimpleAPI. For more information, the SimpleAPI has been documented along with rest of the Opticks SDK documentation. (OPTICKS-721) (OPTICKS-855)
• The BitMaskIterator was improved. Specifically, it can now be used traverse both a RasterElement with no BitMask and a RasterElement with a BitMask. This allows complicated algorithms previously using two code paths to collapse into a single code path. In addition a number of convenience functions were added to simplify usage of the class. (OPTICKS-801)
• A new RasterElementExt1 class was added, please read the SDK documentation for details. (OPTICKS-721)
• A new SignatureLibraryExt1 class was added, please the SDK documentation for details. (OPTICKS-847)

Bug Fixes

• In the Custom Mouse Mode sample plug-in, the Display Pixel Coordinate custom mouse mode toolbar button is now correctly restored onto the toolbar when restoring a session. (OPTICKS-454)
• The default behavior for importers which inherit from ImporterShell or a subclass has been changed. setWizardSupporter(false) is now the default setting. Only importer plug-ins which rebuild against this SDK release will see this change. (OPTICKS-597)

IDL Scripting Extension 1.0.2 has been released on March 2nd, 2010.

This release is intended to replace 1.0.1 as the recommended release.

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Download IDL Extension

New Features

• The IDL scripting extension now supports IDL 7.0 and IDL 7.1 in addition to the existing support for IDL 6.1, IDL 6.3, IDL 6.4. (EXTRAS-20, EXTRAS-19)
• The IDL scripting extension installer now includes the "debug binaries" so that it can be seamlessly used with "debug" builds of Opticks. This is most useful for developers building their own Opticks extensions that wish to use the IDL scripting extension. (EXTRAS-13)
• The IDL scripting extension has the following new functions, which were added to allow better interfacing to other parts of Opticks, such as wizard items:
  • opticks_array_ondisk_rows, opticks_array_ondisk_columns, opticks_array_ondisk_bands, opticks_array_original_rows, opticks_array_original_columns and opticks_array_original_bands (EXTRAS-23)

Supported Opticks Versions

Spectral Processing Extension 1.0.0rc1 has been released on February 12th, 2010.

This release is the first release candidate for 1.0.0. This release is marked as "not for production". The current plan is to allow two weeks for the community to validate this release. If you find any major issues please report them to our bug and issue tracker. If no major issues have been identified by March 1st, then creation of 1.0.0 will proceed. Currently, 1.0.0 is scheduled to be available on March 3rd and it will be a production release and can be used to create production products. Please download and validate this release to help ensure 1.0.0 is a great release!

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Download Spectral Processing Extension

New Features

• Provide a importer to load Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ files into Opticks.
• Provides the following algorithms to convert an image from radiance to reflectance: Empirical Line Method (ELM) and Internal Average Relative Reflectance (IARR).
• Provides the following algorithms to find signatures matches in an images: Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) and Constrained Energy Minimization.
• Provides a specialized "Signature Window" plot to display and manipulate signatures including the ability to generate signatures from a scene (either a single pixel or a user created Area of Interest).
• Provides a specialized "Range Profile" plot to display and then manipulate signatures in order to better align them.
• Provides a number of methods to resample a signature to match the wavelengths of an image before applying a signature matching algorithm.
• Provides a capability to build libraries of many signatures which can then be exported to an ENVI Signature Library file.
• Provides some additional importers and exporters for both individual signatures and signature sets.
• Provides the Minimum Noise Fraction Algorithm (MNF) in order to preprocess an image and remove extraneous noise in order to improve later signature matching algorithms.

Supported Opticks Versions

Python Scripting Extension 1.0.0rc1 has been released on February 12th, 2010.

This release is the first release candidate for 1.0.0. This release is marked as "not for production". The current plan is to allow two weeks for the community to validate this release. If you find any major issues please report them to our bug and issue tracker. If no major issues have been identified by March 1st, then creation of 1.0.0 will proceed. Currently, 1.0.0 is scheduled to be available on March 3rd and it will be a production release and can be used to create production products. Please download and validate this release to help ensure 1.0.0 is a great release!

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Download Python Scripting Extension

New Features

• This extension provides the ability to combine the power of Opticks and the Python language. This extension provides the Python scripting window which allows you to use Opticks to load and visualize your imagery and then directly interface that imagery with Python from within Opticks to manipulate and perform algorithms using the full power of the Python language.
• Python interfaces are built on the SimpleAPI interface provided by the Opticks SDK. You can read details in the main Opticks SDK documentation.
• This extension will work with an install of Python 2.4, Python 2.5 or Python 2.6. There is a separate version of the extension installer for each of those versions of Python. You should note that the extension installers that target Python 2.5 and Python 2.6 have a bundled install of Python, so you are not required to already have Python installed on your computer when using those extension installers.
• If you have installed the NumPy Python extension into your Python installation, it can be used to expose Opticks data structures, both RasterElements and Signatures using the powerful NumPy array data type. The NumPy extension provides capability very similar to what is available in IDL, Matlab, Octave, J, and other array programming languages.
• The Python extension is supported on Windows 32-bit and (unofficially) Linux 64-bit versions of Opticks 4.3.X. Key Python components are not currently available for Windows 64-bit or Solaris SPARC.
• Help on the extension is available in the Python opticks module which can be accessed by typing:

  import opticks
  help(opticks)
  

  or by looking in $OPTICKS_HOME/SupportFiles/site-packags at the .py source files. Further help on the SimpleAPI interface is available in the Opticks SDK help documentation under the Simple datacentric API module. There are plans in the future to bundle html documentation along with extension.

Supported Opticks Versions

IDL Scripting Extension 1.0.2rc1 has been released on February 12th, 2010.

This release is the first release candidate for 1.0.2. This release is marked as "not for production". The current plan is to allow two weeks for the community to validate this release. If you find any major issues please report them to our bug and issue tracker. If no major issues have been identified by March 1st, then creation of 1.0.2 will proceed. Currently, 1.0.2 is scheduled to be available on March 3rd and it will be a production release and can be used to create production products. Please download and validate this release to help ensure 1.0.2 is a great release!

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Download IDL Extension

New Features

• The IDL scripting extension now supports IDL 7.0 and IDL 7.1 in addition to the existing support for IDL 6.1, IDL 6.3, IDL 6.4. (EXTRAS-20, EXTRAS-19)
• The IDL scripting extension installer now includes the "debug binaries" so that it can be seamlessly used with "debug" builds of Opticks. This is most useful for developers building their own Opticks extensions that wish to use the IDL scripting extension. (EXTRAS-13)
• The IDL scripting extension has the following new functions, which were added to allow better interfacing to other parts of Opticks, such as wizard items:
  • opticks_array_ondisk_rows, opticks_array_ondisk_columns, opticks_array_ondisk_bands, opticks_array_original_rows, opticks_array_original_columns and opticks_array_original_bands (EXTRAS-23)

Supported Opticks Versions

Opticks 4.3.3rc1 has been released on February 12th, 2010.

This release is the first release candidate for 4.3.3. This release is marked as "not for production". The current plan is to allow two weeks for the community to validate this release. If you find any major issues please report them to our bug and issue tracker. If no major issues have been identified by March 1st, then creation of 4.3.3 will proceed. Currently, 4.3.3 is scheduled to be available on March 3rd and it will be a production release and can be used to create production products. Please download and validate this release to help ensure 4.3.3 is a great release!

View complete list of new features and fixed bugs.

Application Changes

Download Opticks Application

New Features

• The Metadata tab in the Import Options dialog and Data Element Properties dialog now has a filtering capability to hide attributes based on name and/or value. (OPTICKS-660)
• A new wizard item, Run Interpreter Commands, was added. This wizard item can be used to run script commands for any supported scripting extension (currently IDL and Python with freely available extensions). This wizard item lets the user either specify the script commands directly or have them read from a file. (OPTICKS-780)
• Scripts (currently IDL and Python with freely available extensions) can now be packaged into an easily installable AEB. This is accomplished using the new Run Interpreter Commands wizard item, specifically the "Command File Location" argument. This argument can have a value like "$V(APP_HOME)/SupportFiles". When the wizard is executed, "$V(APP_HOME)" will be expanded into the full path of where Opticks is installed on the end-users computer. (OPTICKS-838)
• The user can now more easily edit vector<string> Value items in the Wizard Builder and vector<string> types in the Medata by configuring their text editor of choice in the Tools->Options. This feature was designed to be used with the new Run Interpreter Commands wizard item, so that users can directly edit script commands in the wizard builder using their text editor of choice. By default, the system configured editor for *.txt files will be used. (OPTICKS-779)
• Several new wizard items were added to query for Layers, Data Elements, Views, and more at wizard execution time. When the wizard is executed, the user will be able to interactively browse and select which Layer, Data Element, View to use. These wizard items can be created by double-clicking on an input node of a supported type. (OPTICKS-805)
• The Wizard Builder now supports editing the values of multiple Value Items simultaneously. In addition, a new keyboard shortcut was added to edit all of the selected Value Items (Ctrl+E). (OPTICKS-805)
• A new importer is available which allows FITS data to be loaded into Opticks. 2-D and 3-D data cubes can be loaded as well as 1-D signatures/spectra and 2-D signature/spectra libraries. (OPTICKS-828)
• The default behavior for importers in wizards has been changed. Importers will no longer show up as available wizard items. The Import Data Set wizard item should be used instead. This change was made to simplify wizard creation. Any existing wizards created with earlier versions of Opticks will continue to work. (OPTICKS-597)

Bug Fixes

• After loading an NITF data set with an RPC TRE, opening the Georeference dialog now correctly displays the RPC georeference option. (OPTICKS-481)
• Flattening an annotation layer when the data set has been flipped now works properly. (OPTICKS-537)
• The image no longer dramatically and unexpectedly changes size when the user shows the inset (Ctrl + Right-Click) on one of the views linked by two-way lat/lon link. (OPTICKS-568)
• The Movie Exporter can now export animations with frame speeds less than 1. (OPTICKS-578)
• Exported JPEGS on Solaris no longer display a progress dialog. (OPTICKS-627)
• The command text color in the Scripting Window no longer changes after pressing Enter with output text selected. (OPTICKS-689)
• An annotation object's size is now maintained when copying and pasting the object. (OPTICKS-702)
• An incorrect error message no longer appears in the message log after attempting to move the Layout layer on top of the Classification layer in a product. (OPTICKS-737)
• The spatial data window now correctly closes regardless of the Confirm Close option when deleting the raster element in the session explorer. Previously, the element would be deleted, but the window would remain open and empty. (OPTICKS-739)
• The animation performance of a view with shape file layers will now improve if the shape file layers are hidden. (OPTICKS-752)
• The animation toolbar slider now restores to the correct position when loading a session. (OPTICKS-754)
• The ENVI Library importer will now import the proper file when the user selects the sli file for import. (OPTICKS-769)
• The application no longer crashes when attempting to flatten a shape file annotation layer. (OPTICKS-776)
• Undo/redo now works correctly for adding and removing text and lat/lon insert annotation objects. (OPTICKS-777)
• The user can enter text containing a comma followed by a space into both vector<string> Value item in the wizard builder and into vector<string> items in the Metadata. (OPTICKS-788)
• The application no longer crashes when attempting to connect an input node to another input node or an output node to another output node in the wizard builder. (OPTICKS-791)
• The ArcProxy.exe no longer crashes when the ArcGIS license is missing. It will instead quietly disable those extra features that can utilize an ArcGIS license. (OPTICKS-793)
• The annotation toolbar is now correctly enabled automatically when creating a product. (OPTICKS-795)
• Closing a product that was restored from a session file no longer crashes the application. (OPTICKS-797)
• Opening a session containing a text object in a product no longer crashes the application. (OPTICKS-797)
• The following AOI types: point, line, polyline, polygon, and rectangle are now being drawn properly when off to the left or above the image. (OPTICKS-814)
• The AOI object text label is now properly restored in a session when the label is hidden. (OPTICKS-825)
• The annotation toolbar in a plot is now correctly enabled when loading a session where the Annotation mouse mode was enabled in the plot. (OPTICKS-839)
• The application no longer crashes on exit after loading a session with a histogram plot containing a text annotation object. (OPTICKS-840)
• The Measurement toolbar mouse mode now updates properly when switching between windows. (OPTICKS-841)
• The axis values on a plot are now restored correctly when loading a session. (OPTICKS-842)
• A data set histogram plot is now correctly closed when closing the data set after loading a session. (OPTICKS-843)
• ENVI Spectral Libraries (.sli) with bad bands (bbl) will now load, previously the file would be rejected as invalid. However, the bad bands are still not being handled correctly, that will be fixed later, you can follow OPTICKS-663 for more details. (OPTICKS-847)
• Editing metadata values on import and switching to another data set now correctly prompts the user to save the metadata changes. (OPTICKS-848)
• A bug has been fixed which prevented install of any additional AEBs after an AEB had been installed which had an Incompatible clause. (OPTICKS-845)
• AEBs with dependencies between them can now be installed in a single install action. Previously this might fail depending on the order the AEB filenames were processed by the application. (OPTICKS-852)

Extension Developer Changes

• Cg feedback filters are now initialized properly. (OPTICKS-822)
• A crash which could occur on session restore of custom data elements has been fixed. This occurred due to an uncaught XmlException. (OPTICKS-827)
• A possible crash which could occur on session restore of custom graphic objects with custom properties has been fixed. This occurred because of a double deletion. At the time of this fix no known code would cause this crash to occur. (OPTICKS-844)
• The "Bin" content of an AEB is now installed into the proper location (the directory where Opticks.exe resides) for developers that are running Opticks out of an SDK. For end-users using an Opticks install, any "Bin" content will be installed in the same directory it was prior to this release. (OPTICKS-800)

SDK (Software Development Kit) Changes

Download Opticks SDK

New Features

• The signature selector dialog now has the capability for the user to create, edit, and delete custom signature filters. The signature filters allow filtering out individual signatures in a signature set/signature library. Also, the signature filters now support filtering based on signature name in addition to metadata attribute name and/or value. In order to utilize this new capability, you need to rebuild against this SDK release. All of these changes are source compatible. (OPTICKS-659)
• This release marks the debut of the SimpleAPI. This is a simplified function oriented API to Opticks that only utilizes C calling conventions. The purpose of this API is to allow scripting or other simplified interfaces to be interfaced to Opticks. The SimpleAPI is distributed as a dynamic library (.dll, .so) with the Opticks application installer. The C interface files are distributed with the Opticks SDK, but are not directly required to utilize the SimpleAPI. For more information, the SimpleAPI has been documented along with rest of the Opticks SDK documentation. (OPTICKS-721) (OPTICKS-855)
• The BitMaskIterator was improved. Specifically, it can now be used traverse both a RasterElement with no BitMask and a RasterElement with a BitMask. This allows complicated algorithms previously using two code paths to collapse into a single code path. In addition a number of convenience functions were added to simplify usage of the class. (OPTICKS-801)
• A new RasterElementExt1 class was added, please read the SDK documentation for details. (OPTICKS-721)
• A new SignatureLibraryExt1 class was added, please the SDK documentation for details. (OPTICKS-847)

Bug Fixes

• In the Custom Mouse Mode sample plug-in, the Display Pixel Coordinate custom mouse mode toolbar button is now correctly restored onto the toolbar when restoring a session. (OPTICKS-454)
• The default behavior for importers which inherit from ImporterShell or a subclass has been changed. setWizardSupporter(false) is now the default setting. Only importer plug-ins which rebuild against this SDK release will see this change. (OPTICKS-597)

Extras version 1.0.1 has been released.
Downloads:

• IDL Extension: https://extras.ballforge.net/files/documents/33/352/IDL-1.0.1.aeb

User Highlights:

• This Extras release provides an updated IDL scripting extension. The updated IDL scripting extension will work with Opticks 4.3.0 and later.

NEW CAPABILITY

• A new function has been added to the IDL scripting extension. The new function opticks_array_dimensions() can be used to query the size of an image in Opticks before using array_to_idl() to transfer the data over to IDL. This can be used to process very large imagery (multiple GB's) using IDL. (EXTRAS-6, EXTRAS-8)

BUG FIXES

• The IDL scripting extension now properly supports floating point complex data when moving images between Opticks and IDL using array_to_idl() and array_to_opticks(). Previously it appeared to support the floating point complex data, but would have corrupted the data in transit. (EXTRAS-18)
• The IDL scripting extension no longer crashes when calling get_data_element_names(). It will now properly report failure instead of crashing. (EXTRAS-8)
• The IDL scripting extension returns a properly formed array when calling array_to_idl(). Previously, the dimensions of the array were in the incorrect order, which required a manual use of reform() in order to use the result returned from array_to_idl(). This has been fixed and the array dimensions are now being set correctly. (EXTRAS-7)
• The IDL scripting extension now properly supports the WIDTH_OUT, HEIGHT_OUT and BANDS_OUT optional keyword parameters of the array_to_idl() function. (EXTRAS-7)
• The IDL scripting extension will now fail when passing an invalid interleave to array_to_opticks() instead of performing indeterminate behavior. (EXTRAS-7)
• The IDL scripting extension will now fail when using the OVERWRITE flag with array_to_opticks() if it cannot succeed because of the way the data was originally loaded into Opticks. Previously, it would silently fail. (EXTRAS-7)

Thanks,
The Opticks Extras Team

Opticks version 4.3.2 has been released.
Downloads:

• Win32 Link: https://opticks.ballforge.net/files/documents/8/354/opticks-4.3.2-windows-32Bit.zip
• Win64 Link: https://opticks.ballforge.net/files/documents/8/355/opticks-4.3.2-windows-64Bit.zip
• Solaris 10 Link: https://opticks.ballforge.net/files/documents/8/356/opticks-4.3.2-sol10-sparc.tar.bz2
• Opticks Windows Software Development Kit (used to create plug-ins for Opticks): https://opticks.ballforge.net/files/documents/8/353/opticks-sdk-4.3.2-windows.zip
• Opticks Solaris Software Development Kit (used to create plug-ins for Opticks): https://opticks.ballforge.net/files/documents/8/357/opticks-sdk-4.3.2-sol10-sparc.tar.bz2
• Opticks Windows Debugging (used to debug into Opticks on Windows, only needed for plug-in developers): https://opticks.ballforge.net/files/documents/8/351/opticks-pdb-sourcecode-4.3.2-windows.zip

User Highlights:

• This release is intended to replace Opticks 4.3.1 as the recommended release to create production products.
• You can view the entire list of bug fixes and new features in this release by viewing them in JIRA, our bug and issue tracker using the following URL:
  https://issues.ballforge.net/jira/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&&pid=10190&fixfor=10440&sorter/field=issuekey&sorter/order=DESC

NEW CAPABILITY

• The wizard builder now allows a user to double click on a wizard item input node to create and attach an associated value item. (OPTICKS-713)
• Wizards can now be created which prompt the user for input when the wizard is executed. Value items which are set to interactive mode will prompt the user when the wizard is executed in interactive mode. (OPTICKS-713)
• You can now change the direction that an image is zoomed when using the scroll wheel on a mouse using a newly available option under "Tools\Options...". The default zoom directions have not changed since 4.3.1. (OPTICKS-753)

BUG FIXES

• Image smoothing has been disabled while using GPU tile generation. (OPTICKS-114)
• The application no longer crashes when running principal component analysis with a toggled AOI or an AOI with its extents beyond the extents of the raster layer. (OPTICKS-152)
• Images now appear correctly in the overview window on Solaris. (OPTICKS-210)
• The application now correctly imports, georeferences and displays DTED files. (OPTICKS-305)
• Images now appear correctly in the preview on Solaris. (OPTICKS-467)
• Objects added to an annotation layer after a scale bar object are now properly saved in an annotation file. (OPTICKS-500)
• When loading a session, the correct mouse mode button is depressed on the toolbars. (OPTICKS-509)
• Images now appear correctly when not using dynamic texture generation when the Worker Threads option is greater than 1. Previously, black boxes might appear sporadically in the image. (OPTICKS-558)
• The error message in the second moment inversion calculation now mentions bad bands as a possible cause. (OPTICKS-570)
• A wizard containing the Set Threshold Options item now successfully saves if the wizard has not yet been executed. (OPTICKS-617)
• Images now appear correctly in the chipping window on Solaris. (OPTICKS-655)
• The scale bar object now correctly updates when georeference data becomes available or is modified. (OPTICKS-674)
• The ENVI Exporter no longer appends duplicate extensions when one is provided by the user. (OPTICKS-679)
• Entering text at the beginning of the wizard name and menu location edit boxes in the wizard builder no longer moves the cursor to the end of the text. (OPTICKS-680)
• Pasting wizard items in the wizard builder now properly preserves the batch/interactive mode of the item. (OPTICKS-681)
• The ENVI Export wizard item now works for filenames ending in .bip, .bil, and .bsq. (OPTICKS-682)
• User no longer gets error messages when attempting to install an extension twice. (OPTICKS-684)
• Executing the RunScript plug-in in a wizard without any input connections no longer crashes the application. (OPTICKS-690)
• The session directory that is created when saving a session file with multiple extensions in the file name now has the correct name. This fixes a crash when loading the session file with a mismatched directory. (OPTICKS-693)
• The following input and output types are now correctly displayed in wizard items in the wizard builder: ColorType, DynamicObject, LayerType, ProductWindow, RasterChannelType, RegionUnits, SignatureLibrary, SpatialDataWindow, SymbolType, TiePointList, and Window. (OPTICKS-695)
• Duplicate tabs are no longer added in the histogram window when deriving a product. (OPTICKS-700)
• A scale bar object now displays the correct distance values when deriving a product. (OPTICKS-707)
• The scripting window now properly restores all interpreter plug-ins when loading a session. (OPTICKS-712)
• The application no longer crashes when loading NITF file with the Generic GDAL Importer. (OPTICKS-726)
• An incorrect error message indicating that data sets could not be imported was removed when running certain wizards using the Import Data Set item. (OPTICKS-732)
• The ASPAM/PAR parser has numerous display and parsing fixes. Fixes are included for paragraphs F and H. Paragraph I duplicates paragraph F and is now parsed as paragraph F if present. (OPTICKS-735)
• Saved sessions are no longer deleted when session saving is locked. (OPTICKS-736)
• The application no longer crashes when closing the progress dialog by hitting the Esc key. (OPTICKS-740)
• The import options dialog is now properly displayed when importing a file where the importer does not select any data sets to load by default. (OPTICKS-742)
• A file browser window is no longer unresponsive when dragging session, wizard, or extension files onto the application. (OPTICKS-749)
• The application no longer crashes when dragging a wizard file on top of a data set window where the wizard closes the data set. (OPTICKS-749)
• Animations are now correctly displayed in the session explorer after loading a session. (OPTICKS-755)
• The ENVI Signature Library Importer will now load some libraries that it was previously failing to load. (OPTICKS-731)
• Exporting a product to an image should now properly include all of the paper. Previously part of the product was cut-off. (OPTICKS-561)
• The application no longer crashes when canceling the PCA algorithm. (OPTICKS-757)

Plug-In Developer Highlights:

• When upgrading your plug-in from 4.3.1 to 4.3.2, there are a number of changes. For details on the changes and instructions on upgrading your plug-ins, please read the documentation included with the SDK.

NEW CAPABILITY

• The scripting window now supports interpreter plug-ins which have multi-line contextual input. (OPTICKS-586)
• The interpreter shell now provides default implementations for many of the Interpreter interface's methods. (OPTICKS-586)
• A new TimeUtilities namespace is available in PlugInUtilities/Interfaces that provides convenience methods for working with time values. (OPTICKS-723)
• A new TestUtilities namespace is available in PlugInUtilities/Interfaces that provides convenience methods for writing test code in Testable plug-ins. (OPTICKS-724)
• A new GlTextureResource class is available in PlugInUtilities/Interfaces that provides a resource class for managing the lifetime of OpenGL textures. (OPTICKS-669)
• Some new methods were added to the existing GlContextSave class to assist in saving/restoring OpenGL contexts. (OPTICKS-669)
• A new BitMaskIterator class is available in PlugInUtilities/Interfaces. This class simplifies all of the complex code required to properly determine which pixels are on/off in a BitMask or AOI, when implementing an algorithm in a plug-in. (OPTICKS-152)

BUG FIXES

• The Solaris SDK is now including both "Application" and "application", which include all of the header files for the SDK. Plug-in developers should update their plug-ins to compile using the lower-case version of "application". Previously, only the upper-case version, "Application" was provided. It has been retained for backwards compatibility purposes but is subject to removal in a future release of the Solaris SDK. (OPTICKS-683)
• A number of grammatical errors have been fixed in the API documentation. (OPTICKS-478)
• Fixed a bug in MultiThreadedAlgorithm where runInMainThread was called but sometimes did not run its command. (OPTICKS-558)
• Running the Multi-Movie sample plug-in multiple times no longer causes the close window confirmation dialog to appear when views are created. (OPTICKS-686)
• The deleteOnClose parameter of the FileResource constructor is now used properly by the resource. (OPTICKS-692)
• When a SpatialDataView is deleted, all layers are deleted before a LayerList AttachmentPtr is NULLed. (OPTICKS-741)
• The DesktopServices::registerCallback() API documentation was updated to correctly indicate that Opticks assumes ownership of the callback object and will delete it after the callback is executed. (OPTICKS-743)
• ImportAgent::execute() now returns the correct value as described in the API documentation. (OPTICKS-744)
• RasterLayer::setDisplayedBand() no longer incorrectly allows a RasterElement to be displayed that has a different number of rows and columns from the layer's RasterElement. (OPTICKS-750)
• The Import Options dialog now in all cases properly checks or unchecks data sets as imported based on the return value from ImportDescriptor::isImported(). (OPTICKS-734)
• The rendering of annotation text objects should no longer be corrupting another OpenGL context that a plug-in developer might be using. (OPTICKS-669)
• The following subclasses of Subject now properly notify the Deleted signal when they are destroyed: Classification, FileDescriptor, RasterDataDescriptor, RasterFileDescriptor, MessageLog, Message, and Step. (OPTICKS-773)

Thanks,
The Opticks Team

Win a Wii in the Opticks Programming Contest!

COAN announces the first Opticks Open Source Programming contest. Write a cool extension and win a Nintendo Wii! Opticks is an open source imagery and video analysis workbench. The contest announcement, rules, and a FAQ are available here.

I bought my wife a new laptop last week and it has a swiveling touchscreen. I decided to install Opticks and see how well the touchscreen worked. Most of the gestures and dragging worked quite well. The "throw down/up" gestures map to PgUp/PgDn (fairly standard keys for web browsers, etc.) which change viewed bands in Opticks and the rotate gestures didn't do anything, but everything else worked quite well.

Gestures and multitouch are starting to make some definate advancements. MacOS has build-in gesture support and so does Windows 7. The Qt toolkit (used by Opticks and at least one other ELT) is working on defining a gesture API. Touchscreen laptops with gesture support are easy to find and relatively inexpensive and early versions of more advanced (and larger) devices like the Microsoft Surface are already available. There are a number of research projects desiging low cost multitouch systems out of the Wii, LASER pointers, and other commodity hardware.

So, how will this effect GEOINT/MASINT/IMINT? Would you, as an analyst or production manager, use a Surface or similar device to perform analysis? Would you use it for presentation (Google Earth, etc.) purposes? How about a hybrid system like the one used in Quantum of Solace which has a Surface multitouch table and a variety of wall mounted displays which integrate seamlessly?

Here's how I see a possible future for exploitation labs. Data comes into a TPED system and goes through a variety of preprocessing steps and then gets pushed onto a queue alongside the applicable task. A production manager's workstation consists of a large (50"+) display above his/her station which is viewable by anyone in the lab. This contains the currently assigned tasks and the next few incoming tasks. The PM also has a smaller touchscreen system with items in other parts of the workflow; tasks waiting for review, deferred items, recently complete items, etc. Also present are avatars for analysts who have completed (or nearly completed) their current tasking. Drag and drop on the touchscreen assigns tasks or defers them.

An analyst has a larger (30") monitor for active data and a couple of smaller displays (all touchscreens) for suplemental information including "social networking" and collaboration displays. Their computers have nice graphics processing capability and reasonable CPU and RAM resources so basic algorithms can be applied. Long running algorithms get queued and run on a cluster of computer servers shared by the lab. Common computation tasks will begin running automatically when the data is ingested. While these run, the analyst can perform background research, etc. or can begin working another task.

Final products are published and show up in the TPED system. There's a conference room with a large Surface and a variety of passive wall mounted (or projection) displays. When a briefing begins, background information and slides are displayed on the wall. Google Earth show up on the surface for interactive viewing or analysis products. Links and imagery products can be "thrown" onto the wall as needed.

Note there isn't a keyboard or a mouse in the system with the possible exception of the analyst who would use a keyboard for background searches, etc., but this could be a "soft" keyboard on a touch screen. This removes devices which hamper common workflows and maximizes physical space which can be used for additional displays or additional personel. Smaller analysis computers concentrate on visualization and HCI performance while computational (especially backgrounded computation) performance is moved to shared compute servers. This lowers the cost (monetary, power, and heat costs) of individual work stations while concentrating on the resources most needed. The product display system is a look back to traditional light tables and wall boards, a system that encourages collaboration and group interaction. Since it is an electronic system, another briefing room (perhaps in a mobile command center) can mirror the views and interact with the expert analysts in real time.

Thoughts?

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