Using IDL with Suomi NPP VIIRS Data

The Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP), began acquiring data on November 21, 2011. According to NASA, VIIRS 'will collect visible and infrared views of Earth's dynamic surface processes, such as wildfires, land changes, and ice movement.' We demonstrate, through programmatic examples, how to use IDL's HDF5 library to read Suomi NPP VIIRS data. To assist in exploring the datasets stored in a VIIRS file, we use a browser developed at the Tech-X Corporation in Boulder, CO. We perform some simple analyses on the data and visualize the results using IDL 8 (a.k.a. New) Graphics. The example programs we use can be downloaded from http://www.exelisvis.com/esg/Seminars.aspx.

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Last modified: 06/02/2017