BEAM Help - What's New

BEAM Version 5.0

Python

The new beam-python module enables Python developers to use the BEAM Java API from Python, and to extend BEAM by operator plug-ins for EO data processing written in the Python programming language. For an introduction on how to use it please refer to the README.md file in the beam-python module which you find in the $BEAM_HOME/modules directory.

Performance

For this release a special goal was the improvement of the runtime performance. Reading, writing, processing and displaying of EO data has been greatly enhanced in multiple cases.

Binning GUI

The graphical user interface for the Level-3 binning processor has been fully reworked and greatly improved.

Colour Manipulation

The Colour Manipulation window has been extended by another editor panel. Beside the already existing Slider and Table editors there is now also the 'Basic' editor. It allows to easily switch between stored colour palettes. Beside this change also the Apply button has been removed in order to instantaneously apply colour manipulation changes and therefore provide immediate user feedback.

Spectrum Tool

The spectrum tool window has been extended to display multiple spectra at the same time. Each spectrum can be displayed with its own style. The set of displayed spectra can be stored and reloaded.

Magic Wand

A new Magic Wand tool has been introduced. The purpose of this tool is to create regions of interest (ROIs) within images comprising pixels that are "similar" to a set of manually picked pixels. The similarity takes into account any number of bands or entire spectra.

Image Filters

New morphological image filters have been added: erosion, dilation, opening and closing. Users can now also create their own convolution and morphological filters using a graphical editor.

Usability

Also the overall usability of BEAM has been improved at various places, e.g. pins can now be copied to an other product just by a few clicks. Also the main menu of VISAT has been restructured in order to find processors and tools easier.

List of bug fixes and improvements

New Feature

[BEAM-108] - Missing function "Apply to other products" in contrast stretch window
[BEAM-745] - Propagate tile sizes through processing graph
[BEAM-750] - Grouping of spectral bands in spectrum view
[BEAM-753] - Manual adjustment of axes in spectrum view
[BEAM-1139] - Function to convert a virtual band into a real band
[BEAM-1323] - Add "magic stick" to VISAT that lets users create masks of similar pixels
[BEAM-1358] - Support parameter deprecation
[BEAM-1524] - Support Landsat8 in GeoTIFF format
[BEAM-1527] - Add missing Standard Deviation nonlinear image filter
[BEAM-1531] - Implement support for Landsat 4 GeoTIFF products
[BEAM-1558] - Support MSS data products of Landsat 1-5
[BEAM-1563] - Copy WKT of selected geometry
[BEAM-1625] - Add topological images filters
[BEAM-1633] - Allow users to define custom image filters
[BEAM-1639] - Support ASAR 4C specification

Bug

[BEAM-276] - Product flipping removes important metadata attributes
[BEAM-670] - Batch-mode of FUB/WeW Water processor is slow
[BEAM-692] - Incorrect Date in Pixel view for ATSR1/2 products
[BEAM-793] - L3 result does not span the globe
[BEAM-794] - Binning fails after 135 files
[BEAM-846] - Input product truncation
[BEAM-933] - Incorrect timing in pixel info display for ATSR-1 and 2 products
[BEAM-934] - Calculation of pixel info for AATSR products based on MPH timing information
[BEAM-953] - No-Data is disregarded in filtered band
[BEAM-1045] - L3 Binning leads to empty result when using different aggregation methods
[BEAM-1092] - Time information gets lost when reprojecting
[BEAM-1096] - File selection window freezes when saving session
[BEAM-1120] - Time to delete a set of selected pins disproportionately grows with the number of pins
[BEAM-1176] - L3 Binning repeats data at the right image border
[BEAM-1190] - Export button in the mask manager does not export geometry masks
[BEAM-1267] - Some operator parameters can not be used on the command line
[BEAM-1287] - Default RGB profile of MERIS L1b is Landsat but should be Tristimulus
[BEAM-1298] - ENVI reader does not correctly handle projection info
[BEAM-1299] - ENVI reader does not correctly handle certain filenames
[BEAM-1322] - Reflectance bands of the FUB/WeW output have only two different values
[BEAM-1326] - FUB/WEW Water processor failed to populate the input product file
[BEAM-1389] - When flipping axes in density plot, image is not re-rendered
[BEAM-1396] - Flux conserving resampling has an offset geometric error
[BEAM-1398] - SLSTR oblique-view images cannot be opened
[BEAM-1402] - Profile plot using correlative data and projected products used wrong pixels
[BEAM-1416] - The export of transect pixels from a reprojected data product results in an empty file
[BEAM-1418] - The BandMaths Operator cannot handle "division by 0" cases
[BEAM-1423] - Negative value used as stroke-width in vector data layer editor leads to Exception
[BEAM-1425] - NPE in Landsat GeoTIFF reader
[BEAM-1426] - Landsat GeoTIFF reader hides other format readers
[BEAM-1441] - want to get rid of a vector data set which I had imported. Deleting is not sufficient.
[BEAM-1445] - Pinned spectra barely visible in spectrum view
[BEAM-1446] - Label of samples is wrong for index-coded bands
[BEAM-1452] - Log-scaling is not correctly applied in scatter plot
[BEAM-1455] - Flag-Coding remains when subsetting
[BEAM-1460] - Component enablement in Radiometry Processor Dialog is wrong
[BEAM-1466] - Inconsitent state possible in Pixel Extraction user interface
[BEAM-1468] - Time difference not considered for pixel extraction if defaults are used
[BEAM-1469] - No PixEx result if products do not have time information
[BEAM-1470] - It is not correctly detected if measurements have been extracted
[BEAM-1472] - PixEx parameters are not correctly saved to file
[BEAM-1473] - PixEx parameters are not correctly loaded from file
[BEAM-1474] - Data type raw symbols in band maths do not consider the raw data type of the raster
[BEAM-1475] - Open in VISAT an ESA SST CCI AATSR L2P product causes reproducable VM crash using Java 1.6.0_32 and 1.7.0_11.
[BEAM-1483] - Percentil Aggregator shares state
[BEAM-1494] - FLH/MCI operator misses parameter description
[BEAM-1495] - NaN should be considered in L3-Binning
[BEAM-1496] - ApiDoc is generated with wrong version
[BEAM-1497] - Command 'Time Series as Google Earth KMZ' misplaced in tools menu
[BEAM-1506] - Scalar variables are wrongly written to NetCDF4
[BEAM-1507] - mosaic operator aborts with NullPointer exception when one of input products has no geo-coding
[BEAM-1508] - No progress indication in VISAT when writing files
[BEAM-1509] - Mosaic tool does not initiate the download of the selected DEM
[BEAM-1510] - GeoTiff coordinates are wrongly shifted
[BEAM-1514] - ProductUtils.getScanLineTime fails for products with height 1
[BEAM-1515] - Landsat products in GeoTiff format can not be opened
[BEAM-1516] - refer sourceProducts#.bandName not parsed
[BEAM-1518] - BandMaths operator does not copy time information to its target product
[BEAM-1520] - Scene view not refreshed when moving back and forth in time series
[BEAM-1525] - Incorrect Geo-Coding Read from Geo-Tiff
[BEAM-1533] - KMZ exports have slightly wrong image envelope coordinates
[BEAM-1547] - BEAM Help documentation for "Define Subset" dialog has not been updated
[BEAM-1550] - Link in help to general.html does not work
[BEAM-1556] - Size of heap space might be wrongly set
[BEAM-1557] - Cannot configure SubsetOp to not copy metadata
[BEAM-1560] - Profile plot ignores band selection changes
[BEAM-1561] - Slider labels of colour manipulation tool are all zero for small value ranges
[BEAM-1564] - Binning operator causes NPE with invalid graph XML
[BEAM-1568] - Numbers are displayed with too little #places after the comma
[BEAM-1569] - Documentation for 'statistical accuracy' missing
[BEAM-1572] - Landsat 5 TM in Fast format can have wrong scaling and offset
[BEAM-1576] - Running the GPF Operator from the console takes significantly longer as compared to executing the operator using xml file
[BEAM-1578] - Sensing start and stop time can be wrong
[BEAM-1579] - Opening product with GcpGeocoding two times leads to an exception
[BEAM-1582] - Too many tile (stack) computations using GPT with single operator
[BEAM-1585] - Creating a subset of a product with pixel based geo-coding fails
[BEAM-1586] - Export of placemark not consistent and not intuitive
[BEAM-1589] - The path to the parameter file by save and load parameters will be not stored
[BEAM-1593] - Harmonise transect + mask pixels outputs
[BEAM-1600] - The scanning for products by ProductGrabber is slow
[BEAM-1601] - Correlative plot does not reset point data correctly when switching between two products
[BEAM-1611] - Exception when loading paramters into Mosaic
[BEAM-1612] - PGX reader plugin may take very long to determine decode qualification
[BEAM-1613] - FUB/WeW processor suffers from Java bug
[BEAM-1631] - Placing a second pin takes a lot of time if many bands are opened
[BEAM-1636] - Vector data node is not shown after creating a geometry container
[BEAM-1640] - FUB/WeW processor treats source product as a parameter
[BEAM-1643] - Improve 'Accuracy' option in Statistics tool window
[BEAM-1647] - Detection of reprocessing is wrong for FSG products

Improvement

[BEAM-601] - Add temporal information to L3 products
[BEAM-602] - Copy pins to other products
[BEAM-784] - Help should mention that SMAC is intended for land
[BEAM-1104] - Support of L1B MODIS data processed by the OBPG.
[BEAM-1059] - User-defined band sets shall be saved/restored
[BEAM-1060] - make y-axis of spectrum view user defined
[BEAM-1285] - Use band grouping for selection of bands in spectrum view
[BEAM-1338] - A small proposal: deprecate the old processors that can be used as GPF.
[BEAM-1363] - Write NetCDf 4 files using compression
[BEAM-1388] - Allow inverting of colours in density plot
[BEAM-1404] - Image views shall draw pixel grid at high zoom levels
[BEAM-1443] - Spectrum View line thickness too thin
[BEAM-1456] - All bands shall use same image pyramid model
[BEAM-1457] - Display a spectral band's wavelengths next to its name
[BEAM-1459] - Allow aggregating pixel values even if not all pixels of the window are valid
[BEAM-1471] - The time extraction from file name should support DAY_OF_YEAR
[BEAM-1486] - Binning operator GUI has no menu
[BEAM-1487] - If expression is used for a variable it shall be possible to define a name for the variable
[BEAM-1488] - The valid expression shall be defined per variable
[BEAM-1489] - Parameter target height (numRows) is not self-explanatory
[BEAM-1491] - Allow multiple aggregator per variable
[BEAM-1499] - In L3-Binning No-data should always be represented by NaN
[BEAM-1502] - Binning should (optionally) support a postprocessor
[BEAM-1504] - Update NetCDF library to latest version
[BEAM-1511] - Binning operator shall make use of a 'spatial data-day' definition
[BEAM-1512] - Saving time has increased significantly with 5.0 alpha
[BEAM-1513] - BEAM shall enable users to use Modified Julian Date (MJD) in band arithmetics
[BEAM-1523] - GeoTIFF Product Reader performance poor
[BEAM-1528] - FLH/MCI operator does not set valid mask of output bands
[BEAM-1534] - Landsat TM Reader: Naming is misleading
[BEAM-1535] - Check GeoCoding for the implementing class
[BEAM-1536] - Use Pins in JSON template generation action
[BEAM-1538] - Test that there is only one intended reader per product
[BEAM-1539] - Split JSON test file into one file per product
[BEAM-1541] - Spectrum view does not remember the selection of bands
[BEAM-1542] - Legend in the new spectrum view
[BEAM-1545] - Date filter in OPeNDAP-tool shall use European date format
[BEAM-1562] - Add version and name of module in metadata
[BEAM-1565] - Binning shall use parameter 'region' to subset source products
[BEAM-1580] - Binned Level 3 products from the oc-cci project should be readable
[BEAM-1584] - Binner should include used source products in metadata
[BEAM-1587] - Allow closing internal frames by click with middle mouse button
[BEAM-1588] - Show close button on internal frames' tabs
[BEAM-1592] - Line-Geometries shall be easier selectable
[BEAM-1598] - GPF operators shall be able to prevent GPT automatic writing
[BEAM-1602] - Histogram toolview shall remember last computed histograms
[BEAM-1603] - Info tool window shall display data as table
[BEAM-1607] - PixEx GUI should remember last directory when selecting files (or directories)
[BEAM-1609] - Convert Cloud Processor to GPF
[BEAM-1610] - Move ENVI-Reader from Glob-Box to BEAM
[BEAM-1614] - ENVI Reader shall consider 'Full width at half maximum'
[BEAM-1615] - Sort entries in View->ToolViews sub-menu
[BEAM-1616] - Geocoding toolview shall display data as table
[BEAM-1621] - ENVI reader shall consider "data ignore value"
[BEAM-1622] - ENVI reader shall have metadata
[BEAM-1623] - ENVI reader shall read data in BIP format
[BEAM-1626] - ENVI reader shall consider classification attributs in HDR files
[BEAM-1629] - PixEx shall output number of pixels
[BEAM-1634] - Use IF,THEN,ELSE in band maths expressions
[BEAM-1635] - support .tar.gz format for Landsat 4 products
[BEAM-1637] - Improve performance by using Apache commons-math
[BEAM-1638] - Envisat/Doris Orbit interpolation not sufficient
[BEAM-1641] - Simplify project module structure and versioning
[BEAM-1642] - Create geometry from WKT

BEAM Version 4.11

BEAM 4.11 is a release featuring lots of new tools.
The Time Series Tools has been included into BEAM, which allows users to create, inspect, and analyse time series of EO data. The new Temporal Percentile Operator has been introduced; it allows users to create multiple kinds of gap-filled percentile computations. The old binning has been replaced by a new one which adds a number of useful functions and aggregation methods. It is now possible to download data witihn BEAM using the novel OPeNDAP client which provides an easy interface to arbitrary OPeNDAP servers.
BEAM 4.11 now allows to write NetCDF-4 data. Some outdated parts of the software have been dropped in order to keep it lean, such as the former mosaic processor, which has been fully replaced by a faster, more modern variant. Additionally, many changes in the API have been made that allow users to even better develop software on basis of BEAM.

BEAM Version 4.10

Besides many bug fixes, these are the most important features and enhancements introduced in BEAM 4.10:

Enhanced support for vector data import (such as MERMAID Extraction files, see here)
Image views may be synchronised via geographical center coordinates (see here)
Completely revised profile plot; added support for correlative data (see here)
Completely revised histogram; added support for logarithmic histogram and logiarithmic x-axis (see here)
Completely revised look and feel of scatter plot (see here)
Completely revised look and feel of statistics toolview (see here)
Created completely new correlative plot (see here)
Added support for import of correlative data, such as SeaDAS-6.x ship tracks, generic CSV or MERMAID data
Added support for logarithmic x-axis in colour manipulation tool view (see here)

BEAM Version 4.9

The most important features and enhancements introduced in BEAM 4.9 are summarized here:

Product files can now be dragged from the file explorer into the products view.
Introduced a new operator for MERIS named 'Radiometry Correction'. It combines a SMILE correction, an equalisation, a radiance-to-reflectance conversion and a new radiometric re-calibration.
A new tool for exporting pixels from a bunch of data products has been introduced.
Subsets can now be created by specifying geo-coordinates.