What's New?

2024.01.15 Version

File->Open Image

MultiSpec can open hdf5 formatted ASI PRISMA hyperspectral images image files. The wavelengths for the bands are read from the metadata within the hdf5 file. Note that the data in the one file available for testing are in reverse wavelength order. One can link the VNIR and SWIR data sets together to work with an image with the full wavelength spectrum. One can use the option in the Change Image File Format Reformat processor to create a file in which the bands are in wavelength order.

Channel Descriptions

Changes were made so the channel descriptions are associated with the EO1 Hyperion image files. The file name needs to start with EO1H and have 242 channels so that MultiSpec identifies the file as an EO1 Hyperion image. The wavelengths are from a .hdr file that comes with some of the hdf4 formatted EO1 .LR1 files. The wavelengths are 'imbedded' in the MultiSpec resource file.

Processor->Reformat->Compare Image Files

This is a new processor that allows one to compare two image files. The output is a message indicating if the files are the same. If they are not, a message is listed indicating the first line, column, and channel that are different. One can also create a new image which is the difference between the two. An example of where this processor is being used is to compare min temp or max temp image files generated at two different times for the same area and time periods to determine whether the files are different. They may have changed if data from the weather stations from which the images are generated were updated sometimes many months later.

Selection Windows

The wavelength option for the graphs in the selection window will automatically display the data in wavelength order if the original data is not in wavelength order such as the PRISMA and Hyperion data. The data list option will list the data below the graph in channel order for channel display and wavelength order for wavelength displays.

Image Windows

The channel description (if one exists) will be displayed as part of the title for single channel grayscale or thematic image windows. Remember that one can use the left and right arrow keys to quickly change the display from one channel to another.

Edit Copy menu item

The Edit->Copy menu item now works for both MacOS and Windows OS platforms.

File Print menu item

The File->Print menu item has not been implemented using the wxWidgets interface.

WindowsOS Version:

The Windows version will look a little different from the previous Windows versions. The Windows version now uses the wxWidgets cross platform user interface library like the MacOS and Online (Linux) versions. This change makes it much easier to make changes in the user interface; a change only needs to be in one place and that change carries over to all three platforms with very few platform specific modifications. This does allow some features that were only in the MacOS version to also be in the Windows version like the Data List feature in Selection Windows. One item which is not great yet in the WindowsOS version is blinking for Thematic Image Windows. If one moves the mouse a little with the 'closed eye' cursor, the cursor changes back to a pointer.

NOTE: It is important that the Resource folder containing the 'xStringTable.def' file be kept at the same level as the MultiSpec app or MultiSpec will not work. I have not figured out yet how to make it a part of the application itself.

2022.08.11 Version

Reformat->Change Image File Format

A fix was made so that one can convert Band Interleaved by Pixel formatted images to Band Sequential images correctly. The changes made in the 2022.04.09 version caused this problem.

Also a couple new options were added to the New Channel from Function feature in the Transform Data dialog box. These are 'Latest Threshold Channel' and 'Earliest Threshold Channel'. These are for some very specific cases. The options were developed for images of minimum temperature in which the images have a channel for each day of the year (365 or 366 channels). The 'Latest Threshold Channel' creates an image with the day of year (channel number) after which the minimum temperature is always larger than the selected threshold value. In this case one limits the channels being used to 1 to 183 range. This gives one an image of the latest spring freeze dates of the year. The 'Earliest Threshold Channel' creates an image with the day of year (channel number) before which the minimum temperature is always larger than the selected threshold value. In this case one limits the channels being used to 184 to 365/366 range. This gives one an image of the earliest fall 'freeze' dates for the year.

File->Open Image

A status box is now displayed when linking more than 20 images together so that one knows the status of the linking operation. A message is listed in the Output Text Window indicating how many files were linked.

2022.04.09 Version

Channel Descriptions

Changes were made so the channel descriptions will be associated for the Landsat 9 data files as long as the files begin with LC9, L09, LT9, or LC09.

File->Open Image

Changes were made so that one can link a mixture of files in band sequential, band interleaved by line, and band interleaved by sample/pixel.

MacOS Version:

Universal (Apple Silicon and Intel version)

This version will work natively on both the Apple Silicon and Intel MacOS Computers. The file size is about double the usual size because it includes the code for both types of computers. One can run the Intel version on Apple Silicon computers using the 'Open using Roseta' option in the Get Info box for MultiSpec if one runs into problem with the native version for Apple Silicon computers. This version has only been tested on a MacBook Air with the M1 processor. Let me know if problems are found with any of the other Apple Silicon processors.

This version uses a newer version of the wxWidgets library (3.1.5). And a newer version of Xcode (13.3).

MultiSpec Online version

The MultiSpec Online version will be updated after the Spring Semester classes are over. There is no way to allow users to go back to the 2020.09.09 version if they run into problems with the new version. The 2020.09.09 MacOS and WindowsOS will continue to be available for download in case users run into problems with this new version.

2020.09.09 Version

Channel Descriptions

Changes were made so the the channels descriptions will be associated for the Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) sets and the Sentinel image files. Sentenel images files will be recognized as such as long as S2A_ and S2B_ are someplace in the full path name.

File->Open Image

A change was made so the the histogram statistics for ERDAS Imagine formatted files will be read correctly. It did not work correctly for some Imagine formatted files.

Windows Version:

File->Open Image

Fixes were made so that PDS image files and HDF5/netCDF image files with compression will be recognized correctly.

2020.08.30 Version

File->Save Selection To GeoTIFF/TIFF as

A fix was made so that MultiSpec will save the correct area when an image window selection was being used instead of the entire image window.

Processor->Histogram Image

A fix was made so that MultiSpec would not crash when saving histograms to a disk file. Crashes would occur frequently with the MacOS version; less often in Windows and Online versions. Changes were also made in the formatting for histogram summaries.

Channel Descriptions

The maximum length for channel descriptions, which are included in channel dialog boxes and processor output in the text window, was changed from 16 to 24. The default channel descriptions for known sensors such as those for Landsat and Sentinel now include the band identification as Bn) before the wavelength information. MultiSpec, by default, attempts to put the bands in wavelength order which in some cases is not the order of the sensor band identification.

Windows Version:

Processor->Reformat->Modify Channel Descriptions

This processor now works correctly.

2020.06.23 MacOS and MultiSpec Online Versions

Overlays in Cluster and Classify Processors

Another change was made so that overlays work correctly now when images are displayed with a start column and/or line greater than 1.

2020.06.22 Version

Processor->Open Image

Fill values in netCDF file attributes described as _FillValue are handled correctly.

Processor->Histogram

A change was made so that a fill (or ignore) value identified for an image file is not used when creating the histogram of an image. Large fill values can skew the range of the histogram if they are included.
Also a change was made when reading band sequential (BSQ) formatted image files with 4-byte and 8-byte data types so that the histograms will be computed faster; this particularly helps computing histograms for image files with many bands.

Mac OS and MultiSpec Online versions only

Overlays in Cluster and Classify Processors

Overlays work correctly now when images are displayed with column and line intervals greater than 1.

Processor->Statistics Histogram

A fix was made so that MultiSpec will handle the magenta color correctly in the histogram graphs. Also the histogram graphs work correctly when the number of classes are greater than 50.

2020.05.14 Version

Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format

A new feature was added to the New Channel from Algebraic Transformation option in the 'Transform Data' dialog box. One can select options to convert the respective thermal channel to radiance (if needed) and then to radiant temperature. Default constants (radiance conversions and K1 and K2 constants) are included if MultiSpec can recognize if the image data is Landsat 5, 7, or 8. However, users should always verify that the defaults are representative of the data they are using and modify them if needed. If the image data do not need to be converted to radiance, use 0 as the offset and 1 as the multiplier in the radiance conversion.

Processor->Display (multispectral) Image

A change was made so that the equal area and gaussian stretches will work correctly for 1-channel thematic images when the data are 32-bit integer and 32-bit & 64-bit real values.

Overlays in Cluster and Classify Processors

Overlays work correctly now when an overlay is drawn on a subset of the image when the image has been scrolled.

Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format

A fix was made so that MultiSpec would not crash when one selected this processor to work with a 1-channel thematic image; crashes occurred sporadically for this operation.

Processor->Cluster

The default to save the cluster statistics is now "Do not save" for both MacOS and Windows OS versions. It seems that more often and not one does not want to save the statistics. One can change to 'Save' if desired. One can also get the statistics from a saved cluster mask file if needed. Let me know though if users feel differently on this.

2020.04.17 Version

Processor->Open Image

Changes were made so that one can handle files with path names longer than 254 characters. The new limit is 1000 characters on the MacOS version. The limit is still 260 characters on the Windows OS version but the Windows OS will automatically reduce the length with '~' characters indicating the path length as been reduced. A message is displayed on the Windows OS version if the full path being written to is longer than 260 bytes. Windows 10 documentation indicates that path names longer than 260 characters are possible but a user has to change settings in the Windows 10 registry or system manifest to do this.
Many changes were made in file handling for this capability; let me know if you run into problems with any of these changes.

Processor->Feature Extraction

A fix was made so that the Nonparametric Weighting feature extraction (NWFE) algorithm would not crash like it did in certain situations.

Processor->Reformat->Convert ENVI ASCII ROI to Thematic Image

This feature now works correctly at least for the files that I have to test with.

Processor->Classify

A fix was made so that MultiSpec would not crash at times when using the ECHO classifier with the generate ECHO Field and Class image files option selected. The ECHO Fields image file generation would periodically cause a crash when the number of fields were significantly more than 256.

Mac OS version only

File->Save and Load Transformation Matrix

This feature is now available in the 64-bit MacOS version of MultiSpec.

Windows OS version only

Processor->Cluster and Classify

A fix was made so that MultiSpec would not crash if one requested an image overlay when the base image file was behind another window such as the text window.

Processor->Utilities->Create Statistics Images

The dialog box for this feature now works correctly.

Thematic Images

A change was made so that a right click on a legend color chip with shift key down would cause that color and all colors above the list to blink off. Note that for now one needs to select color chip with a left click and then do the right click with the shift key down. Let me know if one has problems with blinking; I am finding that Windows 10 on a VM system does not necessarily behave like a native Windows 10 system.

2020.03.31 Version

Edit->Map Parameters menu item

Problem was fixed which caused geographic coordinate systems specified by EPSG codes to not be recognized and/or handled correctly.

Mac OS version only

A change was made to allow more precision for horizontal and vertical pixel sizes. This may be needed for geographic coordinate systems. The Windows version already allowed for this.

2020.03.24 Version

Windows OS version only

A change was made so that MultiSpec would work with Windows 7 and Window 8. It was found that the change for handling high DPI monitors in the previous version only worked for Windows 10 OS. A fall back position is being used. More work will need to be done for one to work for cases when one has a combination of a high and low DPI monitors. Let me know if you run into problems with this version when running on Windows 7 or 8.

2020.03.09 Version

Processor->Open Image

This version can open the Sentinel QuickLook tiff images; a compression is used which was not enabled in the library used to read tiff format image files. It is enabled now.

Windows OS version only

Processor->Cluster

A fix was made so that the colors in cluster map overlays were correct and do not switch from pass to pass.

Other

A setting was changed so that the MultiSpec application tool bar and windows would look and work better on high resolution monitors. The icons and text are now sized similar to what the windows and toolbar look like on non-high resolution monitors. Note that changes need to be made so that windows work well for situations which include a mix of high and regular resolution monitors; this is a todo item.

2020.02.29 Version

Processor->Open Image

Changes were made so that one can open a larger range of image files with PDS header information.

Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format

Changes were made so that creating a thematic image from an image window being displayed with groups will work correctly.

General

Fixes were made in Cluster, BiPlot, and changing palettes in the legend view which would cause MultiSpec to crash at times.

The OpenJPEG library is now used for handling jpeg2000 images instead of the Kakadu library.

Mac OS version only

Tool tips are now displayed for the x1, zoom-in, zoom-out, zoom info, and overlay tool bar buttons. One can use the shift key to cause zoom-in and zoom-out to go as fast as the system will allow.

Open Source

The source code for this release is available on github.com. See the link in the home page.

2019.12.20 Version

Processor->Classify

Additional information is displayed in the output window to indicate the full path for the classified image, probability image, and ECHO homogeneous field images.

Processor->Display

The limit for the number of displayable lines has been changed to 100,000. The limit for the number of displayable columns has been changed to 1,000,000. Note though that it may take a while to load this large of a displayed image into memory. The limits are now the same for the MacOS and Windows desktop versions.

Selection Window

A problem was fixed which caused MultiSpec to crash sometime when data were being displayed for a selection graph in a hdf/hdf5/netCDF data set and then one changed to a different data set in the image data file.

Mac OS version only

Drop-down menus in dialog windows

The drop-down menus in dialog boxes have been changed to a different style so that one can now select anywhere in the displayed menu to cause the menu to drop down instead of needing to select the down arrow to the right of the displayed menu.

File Handling

Checks were implemented to make the user aware if disk space is not available for an operation. This feature was in the 32-bit version but had not been implemented in the 64-bit version. These changes also allow better handling of responses to situations when files are to be written to read-only folders.

 

2019.11.02 Version

Processor->Classify

A Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier has been added to this version. The LIBSVM support vector machine library developed by Chih-Chung Chang and Chih-Jen Lin is used. Several options are available. One can refer to www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm for details about this SVM classifier.

Thematic Image Windows

The 'blinking' operation is now more consistent between the MacOS and Windows version (and also the Online version). One can 'blink' the color of the class or group by placing the cursor over the respective color chip in the legend or over the respective color in the image window and do the following:

Shift Key: If one holds the shift key down, the cursor will change to an eye. Clicking the (left) mouse button down will change the color of the class or group to the background color. Releasing the mouse button will change the color back to the original.

Shift and Control Keys: If one holds the shift and control keys down, the cursor will change to an eye. Clicking the mouse button down will change the color of all of the other classes or groups to the background color. Releasing the mouse button will change the colors back to the original.

Shift and Option Keys: (Macintosh version)
Shift and Right Mouse Button: (Windows version)
If one holds these keys or buttons down, the cursor will change to an eye. Clicking the mouse button down will change the colors of this class or group and all with class/group numbers less than the selected one to the background color. Releasing the mouse button will change the colors back to the original. This option was specifically made available for probability images generated by the classify processor.

Scrolling with Mouse Wheel (Windows version)

The ability to scroll using the mouse wheel has been added. The image window needs to be the top most window and the cursor needs to be over the image. By default the wheel controls vertical scrolling. Holding the shift key down allows one to scroll horizontally. There has not been a lot of testing with different devices for this feature.

Shape Files

MultiSpec will now handle PolygonZ type shape files.

Bug Fixes (Mac OS version)

Issue was fixed where one could use the quick key (command Y) when there was no active thematic image window which caused MultiSpec to crash.

 

2019.08.19 Version

Processor->Classify

The k Nearest Neighbor classifier has been add to this version. For this classifier, a pixel is assigned to the class which is most common among its k nearest training pixel neighbors. One can change the k value for nearest neighbors by holding the shift key down before selecting 'K Nearest Neighbor (KNN)' in the 'Procedure' dropdown menu in the Classify dialog box. One can threshold results by setting the minimum number of most common nearest training neighbors. For example setting the threshold to 4 will require that a pixel be assigned to a class only if there are 4 or more training pixels for that class in the k nearest neighbors. Note that the threshold has to be less than or equal to the 'k' value for the classifier. One can also create a 'KNN Values File' which is similar to a probability image file; the resulting image indicates the number of common classes for each pixel in the image. One can select a subset of the classes and/or channels for the classification.

 

2019.04.10 64-bit MacOS Version only

General

This release includes additional changes to better handle large image files (larger than 10,000 and more lines and columns).

Note that the menu item to display and hide the coordinate view has been moved back to a View menu and removed from the Window menu.

File->Open Image

A change was made in the HDF4 library so that hdf files with compressed images would be handled correctly. The code was not automatically swapping the bytes when needed. This problem occurred when the MacOS code base was changed to 64-bits.

Tip: One can drag an image file to the MultiSpec application icon to open the images without having the Display Dialog box being displayed. The default image display for the resulting image window is a natural color image if MultiSpec can determine the instrument type. One can drag multiple image files at a time to have multiple image windows opened at at time.

Processor->Display Image

Changes were made so that selection rectangles and polygons will be displayed properly in side-by-side image windows as one scrolls the image.

General

A change was made in reading a 'world file' so that the values would be read with more precision.

Let us know of any problems that you run into.

 

2019.03.12 64-bit MacOS Version only

General

This release uses a new version of the user interface library (wxWidgets 3.1.2). This appears to fix problems causing some debug messages when one would drag image files onto the MultiSpec icon to start MultiSpec. Let me know if you continue to run into problems with this.

Note that this new user interface version also added some menu items to the Window menu.

File->Open Image

Changes were made to better handle large images files (larger than 10,000 lines and columns).

Selection (Graph) Windows

A problem was fixed which caused MultiSpec to crash under a specific condition when two or more image windows were open and contained selections.

Map Coordinate Dialog

A problem was fixed which would cause a debug error and an incorrect listing of datum and ellipsoid names for some EPSG codes. Changes were made in the dialog layout.

2019.03.01 64-bit MacOS Version only

Opening Images by dragging onto MultiSpec Icon

This release fix some issues that users have had when starting up using MacOS Mojave. An error window is displayed. One can continue with no problems. The source of these errors is still being investigated.

File->Open Image

Problem with reading the projection information for ASTER hdf files was fixed.

Project Window->Histogram Statistics

The previous and next buttons on the histogram graphs now allow one to hold the button down to go to the previous or next channel in addition to clicking on them to do the same operation.

Reformat->Change Image

A serious problem was fixed when one uses the algebraic feature in the transformation dialog box. The only algebraic transformation that worked correctly was the default one. Also, the numerator and denominator are now saved correctly after closing the transformation dialog box.

Several other user interface issues have been fixed.

Let us know of any problems that you run into.

 

2019.01.18 64-bit MacOS Version only

This release contains all of the functionality that is in the 32-bit version for MacOS except for a few user interface differences. The 64-bit MacOS version will run on MacOS 10.7 and later including the latest MacOS (10.14 or Mojave).

- This version includes the ability to read ecw formatted files.

The few user interface differences include:

- One cannot hold the option key down to get a hand cursor for scrolling the image. However, one can use a mouse wheel or trackpad to do the same thing.

- One needs to hold the command key down (instead of the control key) to get selections to occur in all open image windows.

- One needs to select a category in the legend window and then use the shift key to blink that color in the image. One does not use the shift key when the cursor is over a color chip to get the eye cursor and then left click to change the colors. One cannot use the eye cursor over the image and use a left click to blink the color under the cursor.

2019.01.10 64-bit MacOS Version only

This release is an update in the 64-bit MacOS version which will run on MacOS 10.7 and later including the latest MacOS (10.14 or Mojave).

- This version fixes a serious problem in display dialogs in which one could not enter values in the numeric boxes such as channel number an line/column number.

- One now has the ability to use a mouse wheel or track pad to scroll the image. If one holds the command key down while doing this, one can zoom in and out of the image when moving wheel or sliding finger up and down. Holding both option and command keys down allow one to zoom in steps of 0.1.

- The color chips on thematic images our now rounded rectangles.

 

2019.01.08 64-bit MacOS Version only

This release is an update in the 64-bit MacOSX version which will run on MacOS 10.7 and later including the latest MacOS (10.14 or Mojave).

This version resolves several user interface issues.

- One can now zoom in and out continuously by mousing down (and holding) the zoom-in or zoom-out buttons. The zoom steps will occur around 3 per second. Hold the 'option' key down to zoom in steps of .1 instead of 1. Hold the 'command' key down to zoom as fast as the system will allow.

- Canceling the display, cluster, and classify operations with the 'esc' key and command + period keys now works much better.

- One can use the 'enter' key to select OK in dialog boxes.

- Filter function for open image dialog boxes has been improved.

- One can now force thematic images to be opened as multispectral images using the drop down menu in the open image dialog box.

- Images are rendered without interpolation; this speeds rendering for large images.

- And several more.

 

2018.12.20 64-bit MacOS Version only

This release is an update in the 64-bit MacOSX version which will run on the latest MacOSX (10.14 or Mojave).

Cluster and Classify overlays work correctly in this version. There have been some other user interface changes. One can use the enter key on the numeric pad to select OK in dialog boxes. A problem with reading some HDF4 files was fixed. The file filter drop down menu has been added to the open file dialog box.

 

2018.12.13 64-bit MacOS Version only

This release is a 64-bit MacOSX version which will run on the latest MacOSX (10.14 or Mojave). It uses the the cross-platform library call wxWidgets which is what is used for MultiSpec Online. Therefore the behavour of the two are similar.

One difference between prior MacOSX versions and this one is that for Thematic Image windows, one selects an item in the legend and then use the shift key to cause the colors to blink (not mouse clicks).

One does not have the ability to pan the image using the option key in the window ... only scroll.

Note: Cluster and Classify overlays do not work correctly yet and the ability to handle ECW formatted files is missing.

 

2018.08.30 Version

File->Open Image

This version will read PCI Geomatics PCIDSK (.pix) image files. It has been tested with a few PCIDSK files.

General (Windows version only)

Changes were made so that the wait cursor is handled consistently. Many times the wait cursor would revert to the arrow as the mouse was moved even though processing was ongoing.

 

2018.07.30 Version

File->Open Image

This version will open National Imagery Transmission Format (NITF) image files. This version has been tested with a few single and multi-segment NITF files.

Sentinel S2A and S2B jp2 image files do not need to have S2A or S2B in the file names as long as S2A_ or S2B_ are in one of the parent folder names for MultiSpec to recognize that the image files were collected by one of the Sentinel 2 sensors.

A problem was fixed which would cause MultiSpec to crash sometimes when one used the shift key to select a single data set (out of grouped data sets) in hdf, hdf5, netcdf and nitf multi-dataset files.

Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format

The ability to create a new file in wavelength order has been modified to allow one to do this with linked image files. An example for using this capability is to link the Sentinel 2 10 meter data, 20 meter data resampled to 10 meters and 60 meter data resampled to 10 meters as one 13 channel linked file. One can then use this processor to output a new image file in which all of the channels are in wavelength order.

Processor->Reformat->Rectify

Another change was made in this processor. The fix in the previous version to correct an issue with missing data around edges caused another problem for other files. Hopefully the fix now works for all situations.

2018.07.10 Version

File->Open Image

This version will recognize PeruSat-1 data and associate the band description information with the channels as long as PER1 is in the file name. The bands are plotted in wavelength order for the selection graphs when one plots the data by wavelength or band width. One has the option to create a new image file in wavelength order using the Processor->Change Image File Format menu item. Newly created files do not need to have PER1 in the file name for GeoTIFF formatted files; the instrument name is included with the TIFF description tag.

This version will also recognize Sentinel 2B data and associate the band description information with the channels as long as S2B is in the file name. The band description information for Sentinel 2A has been changed from the design specs to the actual specs.

Macintosh version: This version fixes a problem reading the projection information in jp2 formatted files such as is in the Sentinel files.

Processor->Reformat->Rectify

Problem was fixed which caused part of the output rectified scene to have missing data around the edges for some situations.

 

2018.05.21 Version

Processor->Cluster

This version fixes a problem reported by a user which caused MultiSpec to crash sometimes when one creates cluster mask files in GeoTIFF format for a requested number of clusters greater than around 35.

Some changes were also made in the status dialog box when clustering to provide more consistent information.

2018.05.02 Version

General (Windows version only)

This update is only for the Windows version. I figured out the issue where a user reported that the image overlay would lock the system up. The issue was caused when one selects the overlay button in the tool bar but then does not select an option. MultiSpec seemed to be locked up until one actully selects one of the overlay options. The problem has been fixed. MultiSpec will not lock up if one opens the overlay drop down menu and then does not select an option in it.

2018.04.30 Version

File->Open Image

MultiSpec will recognize the GDAL VRT file structure for images.
(http://www.gdal.org/gdal_vrttut.html)

Window->New Selection Graph & Processor->List Data Graphs

The ability has been added to plot selected multispectral data in a graph versus the wavelength, if available, for each band (channel). The x-axis label popup menu allows the user to select channel number, wavelength, or wavelength band width as the units for the x-axis. Additionally if the image data represents both reflective and thermal data, the x-axis label popup menu allows one to plot only the reflective data or thermal data against the wavelengths that the respective bands represent.

General

There were other text changes and small bug fixes in both versions.

2018.01.04 Version

File->Open Image

MultiSpec will recognize the naming being used for the Landsat Surface Reflectance and Analysis Ready products when linking these separate band files together so that the respective wavelenth bands will be assigned properly.

General

The version number for the application was made to be consistent in the text window listing and in the About dialog box. The convention is year.month.day (2018.01.04); a version number like n.m (e.g. 3.5) will not be used.

Windows Version

Selection Graph Windows

A problem was fixed which caused the y-axis labels for graphs to not line up correctly; for some cases the left portion of the labels was not readable. This problem was caused in the conversion to unicode.

Legends for Thematic Windows

A problem was fixed which caused the MultiSpec application to crash when one tried to group classes together.

2017.10.2 Version

Windows Version

A problem was fixed which caused MultiSpec to crash when grouping classes together..

Note that this problem did not affect the Macintosh version. The 2017.8.25 Macintosh version is still the latest one.

2017.8.28 Version

Windows Version

A problem was fixed with the file filter feature in the open and save file dialog boxes.

Note that this problem did not affect the Macintosh version. The 2017.8.25 Macintosh version is still the latest one.

2017.8.25 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

File->Open Image

MultiSpec will recognize Sentinel MSI data. If one uses open image, then selects a set of the Bnn files in the IMG_DATA folder, the like spatial resolution files will be linked together based on the spatial resolution of the first band in the selection. If one selects bands 1 through 12, the linked set will include the 3 60-meter bands. If one selects 2 through 12, the linked set will include the 4 10-meter bands. If one selects 5 through 12, the linked set will include the 6 20-meter bands. Spectral descriptions will be assigned to each band.

If one then uses the Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format processor to create a GeoTIFF image, the default output file name will include the spatial resolution to differentiate the output file from others; e.g. _60m is at the end of the file name for the 3 60-meter band file.

Processor->Utilities->Create Statistics Image

This processor is now available in the Windows version.

One statistics image is now created for all of the project classes instead of one file for each class. It is now easier to visually compare the class correlation matrices.

Macintosh Version

A fix was made so that the projection information in jpeg2000 images will be read. This error was caused by creating an Intel only version last May in place of a combined Intel/Power PC version.

Windows Version

A fix was made so that the values entered in some of the fields in dialog boxes would be handled correctly. The error occurred only in specific situations. An example of this was defining a user range of thematic image values in the Display processor for 1-channel thematic display for a ndvi image. If the range entered was 0 to .7, the range used was 7 to .7. If one used 0. to 7, then all worked correctly. This issue could happen in other dialog boxes also. Microsoft has an error in one of their libraries beginning with Visual Studio 2015 which we started using in the May version.

As mentioned above the Create Statistics Image processor is now available. The Windows version now contains all of the processors that the Macintosh version does.

2017.5.24 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

Processor->Statistics

One can now select a layer (or channel) in a file to define a training or test mask. For example one can select channel 4 in a png file where channel 4 represents the alpha (or mask) layer. In prior versions one was limited to just the first layer (or channel) in the selected file.

Processor->Cluster and Processor->Classify

Image file overlays for training and test classes defined by a mask file work correctly.

Macintosh Version

Code was reorganized so that the limit of 500 files can be linked.

Windows Version

The application is now generated with Visual Studio Community 2015 (instead of version 2008).

The Windows version can now read the ecw file format again. This capability was lost in the conversion to UNICODE.

The BiPlot processor is now available.

Image file overlays for classes defined by mask files will now display like they do in the Macinstosh version. The base image not covered by the mask will not be covered by black. The transparency value defined in the image overlay option box is now used for the image overlays.

2017.3.29 Version

Windows Version

An error was fixed which caused the class list in the select mode of the Project window to be 'scrambled'.

 

2017.3.28 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

An error was fixed which caused MultiSpec to crash when saving ECHO classification homogenous fields which had more than 256 classes.

Macintosh Version

An error was fixed which cause the dialog box to go into a race condition when a popup menu was displayed upon a selection in the dialog box.

Windows Version

An error was fixed which caused the histogram information to be lost when changing the display type for an image window.

 

2017.3.25 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

The primary change in this version is the ability to handle non-Roman characters in the path and file names. It has not been tested though with a wide range of non-Roman characters. Let me know if you find problems. The previous (2016) versions are still easily available in case you are not able to work with this version.

Windows Version

The windows version is now a 64-bit application.

 

2016.2.8 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

File->Open Image

MultiSpec now handles NASA's Planetary Data Systems (PDS) formatted data such as that from the MARS rovers. One can select either the .img or the associated .lbl files to open the image.

MultiSpec now also handles a wider range of ENVI formatted image files.

Processor->Classify

In response to a couple of requests, the Mahalanobis classifier has been added as an option to the classify processor. This classifier is very similar to the quadratic likelihood classifier.

Macintosh Version

Note a user has indicated that they have a problem when trying to open a dropbox folder on a laptop. The cursor starts spinning and never stops. They can open the same dropbox folder on a desktop with no problem. I have not been able to debug the cause of this. Let me know if you have similar issues accessing dropbox folders from within the Mac version of MultiSpec.

Windows Version

Some users have reported that they are having problems accessing files in folders whose names contain cyrillic characters since the 2012 versions of MultiSpec. This issue has been traced to the usage of the gdal library to read tif formatted files. A second version of MultiSpec is being made available for those users which does not use the gdal library to read tif formatted files. However, one gives up the ability to read compressed tif files with this version. Hopefully this issue can be resolved in a later version of MultiSpec using a new version of the gdal library.

 

2015.2.12 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

General

In response to requests for a version of MultiSpec with fewer menu options for use in K-12 settings, this version has the capability to allow only the menu options for basic capabilities to be available. One controls this by:

Macintosh version: hold the control key down before selecting the MultiSpec->About MultiSpec... menu item

Windows version: hold the ctrl key down before selecting Help->About MultiSpec... menu item

Then select the "Simpler Version of MultiSpec" check box.

The setting will be saved so that when one closes MultiSpec and starts MultiSpec later, the last setting of "Simpler Version" will be used. Note that if the Windows version of MultiSpec is moved without the associated INI file, MultiSpec will default back to the full version.

The simpler version does not have the ability to create projects and run supervised classifications. One can still run unsupervised (cluster) analyses but the results will not be saved to a project.

This is not a perfect solution to this request, but it does allow users to try it out and provide feedback on it.

Processor->Cluster

Change was made for better default names for cluster mask files.

Macintosh Version

General

This version includes an official Apple Developer certificate which "signs" the application as one from a known developer. One should not get warnings about an unknown developer and have to go through the process of moving the downloaded MultiSpec application out of quarantine on the more recent versions of OSX. Let me know if you still have problems with this warning.

Also note that the Macintosh version that is now downloaded will only run on Intel-based Macintosh platforms. One can still download a version that will run on older PowerPC platforms by selecting the "Archive Versions" link on the Download MultiSpec for Macintosh page.

 

2014.12.17 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

Menu Bar

The Options->Palette menu item was removed. This was originally included for testing. Decision made that it was not useful to continue to have.

Edit->Map Parameters

A change was made to correct for situations when images from the southern hemisphere are UTM but the falsing northing is set to 0 in the file instead of 10,000,000. The original code (and applications like ENVI, Imagine, ArcGIS) would indicate that the data was from the northern hemisphere. The latitude and longitude calculations would still be correct, however.

Corrected problem with images that have model tie points and other parameters were changed and saved. The upper left corner location was being changed.

Made changes so that geotiff images with tie points which had longitudes defined by 0 to 360 degree range would be handled properly.

Processor->Display

Fixed problem in which the legends for 1-channel thematic displays were not being updated properly when changes were made.

Processor->Histogram

Change made to handle situation where ERDAS Imagine formatted files do not contain the image statistics. The statistics will be computed and saved to/read from ERDAS .sta files.

Corrected situation where the standard deviation would be listed incorrectly for signed data values if the image statistics were read from a .sta file.

Processor->List Data

Changes were made so that large data values would be listed correctly.

Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format

Modified settings for header format options in the dialog window.

Processor->Cluster

Change was made in procedure to determine the initial clusters for Isodata to handle the situation where the data values have a very limited range (such as 12-13) plus a no_data value. Intial clusters will now be generated.

Fixed a problem in which the default single pass threshold values were very large negative numbers for some situations.

Made a change so that the default colors loaded into the tiff formated cluster mask files would be the same as those saved in the associated .clr files.

Processor->Statistics

Corrected problem when generating default names for classes created from a mask file. For some situations the last class would be random characters.

Processor->Classify

Probability files in TIFF format now have .clr type associated files which contain the colors, class names and grouping information. Probability map files in ERDAS GIS format have the normal .trl type associated files.

Better handling of cases where one the covariance matrix for one of the classes cannot be inverted. The classifier will now cancel the classification if any of the classes have ill formed covariance matrices.

 

2014.3.22 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

File->Open Image

A change was made so that Landsat 4 files will be handled correctly when selecting all of them to be linked together as a single file similar to the process for Landsat 5 data files.

The ability to read the meta data in the Land Information System (LIS) netcdf files was added so that the projection information could be obtained along with the fill data value.

Edit->Image Description

A new parameter was added to the image description dialog window to allow one to view and/or enter the 'no data' or 'fill data' value for the scene. This parameter is read from the file when available. The data value is also saved in output geotiff image files. The information is written in the geotiff tag that gdal has defined; therefore it can be read by packages that use gdal.

The statistics that are computed for classes will ignore these data values. You can turn this affect off by turning off the check box for the 'no data' values in this dialog window.

One can hold the shift key down when selecting a grouped data set in hdf4, hdf5 or netcdf files to indicate that only the selected data set is to be used. (Grouped data sets are indicated by the _Gn suffex.) One will notice that only one data set is selected by observing that the number of channels for the selection will change to 1.

Processor->Reformat->Change Image File Format

Changes were made to keep settings of data type, band interleave, header format and output file in better sync with what is possible for the selected file format. For example one cannot have a tiff/geotiff file which is band interleaved by line.

Processor->Reformat->Convert Project Fields to Thematic Image File

The capability was added so users can save the output thematic image files as either geotiff files or ERDAS .gis files.

Processor->Reformat->Mosaic

The Mosaic processor is now available in the Windows version.

Also a new feature was added to allow one to mosaic two images top to bottom. This processor was originally created to allow one to mosaic two Landsat quad scene together side by side ... way back when Landsat data were distributed as 4 separate quad scenes. The ability to combine two image file top and bottom is much more flexible than the append-to option in Reformat->Change Image File Format processor. One can combine images with different band interleave formats, data types and file header formats. The top - bottom capability was added so that users have an easy way to combine two granules of MODIS NDVI data that one obtains from the USGS glovis site.

Processor->Cluster

A correction was made so that the statistics in a project generated by a cluster operation could be used for supervised classification, listing statistics, etc. This error was created by changes a couple of versions back.

Processor->Classify

A change was made to correct a problem which a user found when creating a classification matrix using a project file with more than 2600 training fields. Also a correction was made in the Windows version so that the labels in the drop down menu for the output format choices would be correct; geotiff was being written in the wrong place.

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