Keywords
geovisual analytics, animations, data mining, geonetcast, ilwis
Start Date
1-7-2012 12:00 AM
Abstract
Satellite image time series provide valuable information on the Earth’sdynamics at a variety of spatio-temporal scales. Progress on information andcommunication technologies has greatly improved the access to such time series.For instance, the GEONETCast system freely distributes near real time rawsatellite images and higher level products to end-users all over the word. Thisexplains the ubiquitous use of satellite image time series in a wide range ofenvironmental applications. However, geospatial software and, in particular,geographical information systems (GIS), generally lack robust functionality tovisualize and to analyze large time series of data. This paper presents ongoingwork to enhance an open source GIS software package, ILWIS, by developing anopen source toolbox for the visual and analytical exploration of satellite image timeseries. Presently, the toolbox offers advanced functionality for animating andinteracting with time series, for filtering the data based on area of interest or onattribute values and for aggregating the data to different temporal granularities.Three examples are used to illustrate the functionality. Finally, we show that thereis a lot of potential in linking this toolbox with the R open source programminglanguage so that advanced geo-statistical and data mining functionality can also beused during the analysis.
Geovisual analytics of Satellite Image Time Series
Satellite image time series provide valuable information on the Earth’sdynamics at a variety of spatio-temporal scales. Progress on information andcommunication technologies has greatly improved the access to such time series.For instance, the GEONETCast system freely distributes near real time rawsatellite images and higher level products to end-users all over the word. Thisexplains the ubiquitous use of satellite image time series in a wide range ofenvironmental applications. However, geospatial software and, in particular,geographical information systems (GIS), generally lack robust functionality tovisualize and to analyze large time series of data. This paper presents ongoingwork to enhance an open source GIS software package, ILWIS, by developing anopen source toolbox for the visual and analytical exploration of satellite image timeseries. Presently, the toolbox offers advanced functionality for animating andinteracting with time series, for filtering the data based on area of interest or onattribute values and for aggregating the data to different temporal granularities.Three examples are used to illustrate the functionality. Finally, we show that thereis a lot of potential in linking this toolbox with the R open source programminglanguage so that advanced geo-statistical and data mining functionality can also beused during the analysis.
