Applications That Read HDF-EOS

Following is a list of some of the applications available that read HDF-EOS files.

Please check the "What Software uses HDF?" for other applications that read HDF files.

Cube Visualization (cv) tool
The Cube Visualization or "cv" program is part of the ISIS image processing system (Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers), and includes many image processing functions. It runs on several versions of Unix. It is not supported on Windows because it uses CALL_EXTERNAL.

It has recently been enhanced to directly read the HDF and HDF-EOS file formats in addition to the native ISIS cube format. "cv" is also packaged to run separately from the ISIS software system.

"cv" is written in IDL and is available from the U.S Geological Survey.

DIAL
Data and Information Access Link (DIAL) is an experimental server, consisting of a suite of software tools for searching, browsing, visualizing, subsetting, and distributing HDF (and HDF-EOS) files through the World Wide Web. You can download the prototype DIAL executables to set up a DIAL site on your machine.

ENVI
ENVI, the Environment for Visualizing Images, is an image application for processing, analyzing, and displaying multispectral, hyperspectral or radar remote sensing data. It operates on Windows, Unix, and Macintosh platforms. It supports numerous formats, including HDF. ENVI is available from Research Systems, Inc.

EOSGIS Translators

GDB
The GeoGateway (also known as GDB) is a tool used by PCI's Works programs and some PACE programs to access image and auxiliary information from data files. This allows different file types to be used interchangeably. HDF 8-bit Raster Images and Scientific Data Sets are readable by the GDB library. It also offers read support of HDF-EOS 'Swath' products. It does not support grid or point datasets.

Global Land Cover Facility Software
Software used by the Global Land Cover Facility at the University of Maryland.

GSFC Open Source Software page
Tools such as XML to HDF-EOS convert, HDF-EOS plug-in, and many others can be found from this page.

HDFBROWSE
HDFBROWSE is a MS Windows command line utility that can be used to dump a slice of any HDF's SDS into a common image format (JPEG, Windows BMP and TIFF). This tool was created having MODIS (and generally EOS-produced data, e.g. ASTER) data handling in mind and so it has several specific features:

HDF-EOS to Binary Converter
This tool works for all the gridded MISR datasets such as Level 1B2 and Level 2.

HDF Explorer
HDF Explorer is a data visualization program designed to read HDF and HDF5 files. Its main features are: reads all HDF data types, supports image generation from both scalar and vector data, easy browsing through 3D datasets, data exporting facilities, and an easy-to-use yet powerful interface. HDF Explorer is available for Windows NT/95. More information about HDF Explorer is available from Space Research, Inc.

HDFLook-MODIS
HDFLook-MODIS is a friendly Motif HDF and HDF-EOS viewer, useful for quality control of raster images and Scientific Datasets (up to 6 array indices, MODIS compress file format). It allows easy access to physical values and ancillary data, includes 2-D graphics (radial, histogram), and supports image print capabilities. It is available for Solaris, Alpha VMS, HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, and Linux.

Also see:

Any suggestions to extend this software are welcome at: Louis.Gonzalez@univ-lille1.fr (4/05)

HEG
HEG is a tool for converting many EOS products written in HDF-EOS to GeoTIFF, native binary or HDF-EOS Grid. The tool also has re-projection, resampling, subsetting, stitching (mosaicing), and metadata creation capabilities. The tool is assessable via a command line interface or by a GUI. About 40 ASTER, MODIS and MISR HDF-EOS Swath and Grid products processed from data taken on the EOS Terra platform have been tested to date. The tool is operable on Sun, SGI and Windows platforms. A Linux version is in the works.

HEW
HEW is a Dataset-Independent Subsetter for HDF-EOS files that can extract a subset of an HDF-EOS grid or swath data file, and subset on latitude and longitude, data and time span, and dataset parameter.

IDL
IDL is a software package for data analysis, visualization, and application development. IDL's features include: advanced image processing, interactive 2D and 3D graphics, insightful volume visualization, a high-level programming language, integrated mathematics and statistics, flexible data I/O, a cross-platform GUI toolkit, and versatile program linking tools. IDL offers support for virtually any data format including CDF, netCDF and HDF.

IMAPP to HDF-EOS Conversion Tool
This tool upgrades IMAPP generated files to nearly true HDF-EOS. Fetch the imapp2daac.zip archive.

IONIC RedSpider Image Archive
The IONIC RedSpider Image Archive is a multi-platform solution, designed to help organizations deploy a scalable imagery management solution, offering an efficient way to search on line imagery information and allowing direct access to imagery data or portrayed images. Once registered, your imagery is immediately available through OGC compliant web services. The RedSpider Image Archive is able to decode, process and serve HDF-EOS and HDF4 data, with the help of the Nasa/Raytheon HEG tool and the GDAL library.

IONIC RedSpider Web
The IONIC RedSpider Web product is an out-of-the-box easily-configurable portfolio of OGC/ISO compliant web services. The IONIC Web Coverage Service implementation is able to decode, process and serve HDF-EOS and HDF4 data, with the help of the Nasa/Raytheon HEG tool and the GDAL library.

IVICS
The Interactive Visualizer and Image Classifier for Satellites (IVICS) version 1.0.2 is a general purpose visualization tool with many display options. It is specifically tuned for simultaneous comparisons of image channels and algorithm results. It was designed using efficient memory and I/O techniques to improve interactivity even on very large multispectral images. It currently runs on SGI, Linux, and Sun workstations, and supports the following data formats: 
   AVHRR LAC/GAC (up to NOAA-14)
   MODIS Airborne Sensor (MAS) - 50 channel variety
   VIRS
   MODIS 1KM (DAAC processed 39 channel, DAAC processed
              subsetted 19 channel, Direct Broadcast)
   ASTER (at 15m 30m and 90m resolution)
   CloudVis (NASA Langley)
LinkWinds
LinkWinds is a visual data analysis and exploration system designed to rapidly and interactively investigate large multivariate and multidisciplinary data sets to detect trends, correlations and anomalies. It supports HDF files. It also supports HDF-EOS files, including SWATH data, and among LinkWinds' many types of display is one which allows unevenly spaced observations like SWATHs to be viewed on a globe. It can run on the SGI, Sun, HP, IBM, and Linux (PC) platforms.

McIDAS-Lite
McIDAS-Lite is a free image viewer that provides a simple tool for working with image files that are in McIDAS Area or MODIS HDF-EOS format. It can be used with local or remote data from public data sources. A list of publicly accessible data sources is updated each time McIDAS-Lite is started for easy access to free data. McIDAS-Lite is a binary distribution for: AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Solaris Intel, Linux, Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP [with Services for Unix].

McIDAS-X
McIDAS-X is a general purpose system designed to work with image data [McIDAS Area format, MODIS data and products in HDF-EOS format], grids [in McIDAS grid and netCDF formats], and point data [in McIDAS, HDF, and netCDF formats]. McIDAS-X is designed to integrate data from different sources and output products in binary or graphical formats. McIDAS-X is for: AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Solaris Intel, Linux, Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP [with Services for Unix]. For questions, contact: mcinfo@ssec.wisc.edu

MISR_VIEW
misr_view is an IDL-based graphical user interface-driven display and analysis tool for use with many types of MISR and AirMISR data.

misr_view has been developed by the Visualization and Earth Science Applications Group of the Image Processing Applications and Development Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. To obtain the license to allow you to get the misr_view software if you have not already done so, go to the following url: 

   http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/software/

MODIS Reprojection Tool (Land)
The MODIS Reprojection Tool from the EROS Data Center (EDC) DAAC is a software tool for re-projecting MODIS Level-3+ land products. Some of the features of it are: imports MODIS Level 3 Land products in HDF-EOS format, provides options for subsetting and output formats (ie geotiff), can reproject from the gridded ISIN projection to other projections (such as UTM). Platforms supported are: Windows (9x, NT), SUN, SGI, and Linux.

MODIS Tools (Oceans and Atmospheres)
Information on MODIS Oceans and Atmospheres tools.

MODIS Tools (Snow/Ice)
Information on MODIS Snow/Ice tools.

Noesys
Noesys is the only desktop software program specifically designed to easily access, analyze, visualize and archive data using the HDF standard. Noesys opens HDF files, displays their full contents, and provides editors for working with all of the types of scientific data objects that can be stored within an HDF file. Noesys now has an interface to IDL®, the Interactive Data Language, from Research Systems, Inc., allowing data to move back and forth between Noesys and IDL with the click of a mouse. Noesys includes the easy-to-use visual data analysis tools, Transform, T3D and Plot, for menu driven plotting, rendering, and image analysis. Noesys can import HDF, HDF-EOS, netCDF, ASCII, Binary, DTED, GeoTIFF, SDTS, TIFF, PICT, and BMP files, create annotations, macros, images, projections and color palettes specific to the data and save it all as an HDF file. Data objects can also be exported as binary or ASCII. Noesys also includes a HDF-EOS Grid Editor. Noesys runs on Windows 95/98 & NT and Power Macintosh OS. More information about Noesys is available from Research Systems, Inc.

SHARP
SHARP is an IDL-based viewer for MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) HDF data . It is a prototype for the kinds of functions necessary for visualizing MODIS Level 1B data. It will run on any platform (Unix/Linux/NT/Mac) where IDL is installed. Sample MAS HDF data and cloud mask results are also available.
SPOT
SPOT is a "Subsettability Checker" for HDF-EOS Files. A companion program to HEW, SPOT can be used to check HDF-EOS files for subsettability by HEW. SPOT is invoked using a simple command-line interface. It checks that: a) the file exists and is readable; b) the file is in HDF format; c) the file is in HDF-EOS format; d) the file contains valid HDF-EOS structures; and e) the file contains the data needed for subsetting by HEW.

VisAD
VisAD is a Java class library for interactive and collaborative visualization and analysis of numerical data. It uses Java3D for graphics, which currently only runs on Solaris and Windows NT/95. It can access data in HDF-EOS, netCDF, FITS and Vis5D files (plus GIF and JPEG images).

WebWinds
WebWinds, the successor to LinkWinds, is an interactive science data visualization system written in Java. It is modular, allowing flexibility in tool construction and application, and largely platform and operating system independent. It can handle large datasets by subsetting and subsampling data on input or display output, and allows you to present and manipulate 2 and 3 dimensional data in a variety of 1 and 2 dimensional display tools. Formats supported are raw binary data (see web page for details), HDF, NetCDF, PDS, VICAR, FITS, ASCII, and HDF-EOS.

Windows Image Manager (WIM)
WIM is a general purpose image display and analysis program for MS Windows, with special features for Satellite Images.