There’s a post in Government Computer News this morning about Ball Aerospace’s release of open source software for analyzing remote sensing data. The software called Opticks supports the analysis of imagery, motion imagery, SAR, multi-spectral, hyper-spectral, and other types of remote sensing data.

Opticks is both a remote sensing application as well as a development framework. One of the key differentiators of the application is that motion imagery has all the same features as traditional imagery, allowing you to zoom, pan, rotate and geographically link to motion imagery just like any other remote sensing data set. The complete source code of Opticks is open as a development framework under LGPL 2.1 licences. Functionality can be extended with plug ins to the core software or there are provisions for embedding these tools within commercial applications.

The GCN piece indicates that Ball hopes to increase the demand for remote sensing analysis by releasing the software, and also to extend the software’s functionality through open source development. The release also ties into the Department of Defense’s Open Technology Development roadmap.

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