[12-11-07 – Satellite Today] Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. has launched a new open source software project that will enable detailed analysis of remote sensing data, the company announced Dec. 10.
    Opticks will be used by scientists and analysts within the Department of Defense Intelligence Community to analyze remote sensing data and produce actionable intelligence. The program supports imagery, motion imagery, synthetic aperture radar, and multi-spectral and hyper-spectral remote sensing data. Ball Aerospace expects Opticks to increase the demand for remote sensing data and broaden the features available in existing remote sensing software.
    “Ball Aerospace’s Opticks demonstrates how government-sponsored code originally developed by a contractor can be maximized by releasing it as open source,” said John M. Weathersby, executive director of the Open-Source Software Institute. “This creative business development effort is consistent with the forward-thinking strategy outlined in the Department of Defense’s Open Technology Development roadmap.”
    More than 100 users have already registered at the Opticks Web site, which establishes an open source community for support and collaborative development. Opticks also enables software developers to easily extend the product’s capabilities or tailor Opticks to support new types of remote sensing data.