DATA_SET_DESCRIPTION |
Data Set Overview
The natural form of imaging spectrometer data is the spectral image
cube. It is normally in band sequential format, but has a dual
nature. It is a series of 'images' of the target, each in a different
wavelength, in ascending order. It is also a set of spectra, each at
a particular line and sample, over the target area. Each spectrum
describes a small portion of the target. When transformed into cubes,
the data may be analyzed spatially, an image at a time, or spectrally,
a spectrum at a time, or in more complex spatial-spectral fashion.
NIMS Spectral Image Cube files are derived from NIMS Experiment
Data Records (EDRs), which contain raw data from the Galileo Orbiter
Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (CARLSONETAL1992). The raw EDR data
have been re-arranged into band sequential form, converted to spectral
radiance units based on ground and flight calibration of the NIMS
instrument, and (in most cases) projected onto the target based on
the position of the spacecraft and target and the orientation of
the spacecraft's scan platform. This dataset contains files of
unprojected data ('tubes') only. Another dataset contains files
of projected data ('mosaics').
Calibration and geometric information used are the best available
at the time of publication of these files, but they are subject to
continual improvements as data analysis proceeds. Thus better tubes
may be generated in the future.
Parameters
A band in a NIMS tube is generated for each of the 17 detectors
at each grating step. The motion of the grating is determined by the
commanded instrument mode:
Mode Grating Grating Bands
steps increment
Fixed Map/Spectrometer 1 0 17
Bandedge Map/Spectrometer 2 variable 34
Short Map/Spectrometer 6 4 102
Full Map/Spectrometer 12 2 204
Long Map/Spectrometer 24 1 408
The wavelengths of the bands are determined by the commanded start and
offset grating positions, and by wavelength calibrations conducted on
the ground and occasionally during flight. They are also weak functions
of grating temperature.
The pixels in a tube of a targeted observation are in (scaled)
units of radiance, derived from the 10-bit raw data numbers
by applying band-dependent sensitivities, which are in turn products
of ground and flight calibrations, of the commanded gain state and
chopper mode and of the focal-plane-assembly (FPA) temperature. The
radiance scaling is band-dependent, and is specified by vectors of
offset and multiplier values.
Processing
Tube files in this dataset were generated by the Multimission
Image Processing System (MIPS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
from raw NIMS data on EDRs, which are available in a separate CD-ROM
series (GO_10xx). For each planned observation, raw 10-bit data numbers
have been re-arranged into band sequential form, converted to spectral
radiance units according to ground and flight calibration of the NIMS
instrument, and (in most cases) projected onto the target according to
spacecraft and target position and scan platform orientation, using a
complex binning procedure. (For some sparse observations, the
projection step is not carried out, but an unprojected 'tube' is
produced.) A secondary 'browse' product of this procedure is a
hardcopy 'mask', a digital image of which accompanies the tube.
Data structure
The tube files follow PDS structure and labeling conventions.
A PDS/ISIS label begins each file, and describes all the 'objects'
within using ASCII keyword=value statements. The first object is
an ISIS history object [8] which describes the various steps of the
generation process. The second object is a 2-D histogram of the tube.
A third object is a 'sample spectrum qube': a 'stack' of six spectral
plots, each an average over a selected area of the tube. (These
also appear on the hardcopy and digital 'masks'.) The fourth and
principal object is the actual NIMS spectral image tube.
Spectral image tube structure follows PDS and ISIS 'qube' object
standards. The 'core' of the qube is a 3-dimensional array of 16-bit
signed integers, arranged in band sequential order: sample, line and
band. (ISIS also supports 8-bit unsigned integers and 32-bit real
values.) The core of NIMS tubes in this dataset contains
scaled 16-bit radiance values, the result of applying the NIMS
calibration to 10-bit raw data numbers. The scaling parameters (offset
and multiplier) for each band are stored in the label, as are the
wavelengths and other band-dependent quantities.
The core is followed by a set of backplanes, or 'extra' bands, made
up mostly of 32-bit VAX floating point pixels. The backplanes contain
a number of geometric parameters, native time, projected line and
sample and 0 to 10 'spectral index' bands, each a user-specified
function of the data bands. (The latter might be ratios of bands,
or band depths.) The geometric backplanes are latitude, longitude,
incidence, emission and phase angle, slant distance and 'intercept
altitude'. Projected line and sample backplanes describe the
position of each pixel had the data been actually projected on the
target, which, in a tube, it has not. Due to the way NIMS acquires
spectra, there are multiple backplanes of each of latitude, longitude,
projected line and projected sample, one for each grating position
(up to 24) in the instrument mode. (See NOTEs in the tube label
for details.)
Ancillary Data
A Postscript-format Guide to the planned observations, including
footprint plots on the target, instrument parameters, etc. is included
in the data set, as are tables of parameters for each observation.
Most of these parameters are also present in the tube labels.
A late version of the NIMS instrument paper (CARLSONETAL1992) is also
included.
Calibration files, spike files and SPICE files (spacecraft positions,
planetary positions and constants, processed pointing geometry,
spacecraft clock versus universal time, etc.) were used in generating
the tubes from EDRs but are not included in this dataset. But much
of the geometric information, transformed into 'images', is
present as backplanes of the tube.
Software
NIMS tubes were designed to be accessed by the ISIS system,
which includes extensive software for generating, manipulating,
analyzing and displaying them. ISIS exists in VMS and Unix versions,
which must be obtained independently, as described in the documentation
of this data set.
But simple software for displaying bands, backplanes and spectra of
tubes will be available by soon as an enhancement to the NASAview image
display program, under development by PDS. It will be included with
later versions of this data set.
Media/Format
The NIMS tubes and 'mask' images are archived on CD-ROM for
delivery to the Planetary Data System (PDS). Formats are based
on standards for such products established by PDS.
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