Community Satellite Processing Package

  CSPP Polar2grid Reprojection Software Version 2.1 Release

27 April 2017

The CSPP Polar2Grid Software was created to enable Polar Orbiter Satellite Instrument users (for example, VIIRS, AVHRR and MODIS), including the US National Weather Service (NWS), the capability to easily create high quality reprojected imagery. NOAA JPSS has funded this effort to create an open-source, modular application system in support of direct broadcast users. This bundled solution automates tools for converting satellite data including Suomi-NPP VIIRS into a variety of output formats, including GeoTIFFs, AWIPS compatible NetCDF files, NinJo forecasting workstation compatible GeoTIFF images, as well as binary and HDF5.

In addition to traditional visible, infrared and microwave imagery, the software provides the capability to easily create sharpened true color and sharpened false color images.

What is new in Version 2.1:

Polar2Grid Version 2.1 includes a number of updates, including expanding the number of sensors, products and functionality supported. A few of the Version 2.1 updates include:
  • Support for both VIIRS Sensor Data Records (SDR) and VIIRS Level 1B formatted files.
  • Support for the AMSR-2 microwave instrument onboard the GCOM-W1 satellite.
  • Support for CSPP NOAA/STAR Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS) products.
  • Added the capability to overlay borders, coastlines and grids to a Polar2Grid GeoTIFF file (add_coastlines.sh script).
  • Added the capability to add a color table to a Polar2Grid GeoTIFF file (add_colormap.sh script).
  • Added the ability to output float GeoTIFFs.
  • Improved Polar2Grid documentation. We have worked very had on reformatting the documentation to make it easier to read and navigate.
In addition, Please Note that the original Polar2Grid bash shell script executions "reader|writer".bash is being phased out to a more general script implementation: polar2grid.sh "reader" "writer" . In the future, only the latter implementation will be supported.

Features of Polar2Grid
  • The software is modular, robust and efficient.
  • Execution is performed through simple bash shell scripts, wrapping python underlying modules. For example, to create GeoTIFF files of Suomi-NPP VIIRS SDR I-Bands 1 and 5 using the default Platte Carrée (Google Earth) projection, you can execute a command like this:
    polar2grid.sh viirs gtiff -p i01 i05 -f << Path to SDR files >>
  • True color and False color reprojections can be created using a single command.
  • If more than one contiguous granule is provided as input, an aggregated output image file will be created.
  • Users can define their own grids. A grid definition helper script is included with the package.
  • Proj4 grid definitions can be used.
  • The Polar2Grid open source software code repository is also available through github at: http://github.com/davidh-ssec/polar2grid.

Software, execution scripts and documentation are included with the release.

This software is co-released with the International MODIS/AIRS Processing Package (IMAPP).

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