Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., needed a tool to analyze satellite data on global precipitation. They found a solution in VisiQuest software from AccuSoft Corp.
Technicians in the Precipitation Analysis Group (PAG) at NASA’s Laboratory for Atmospheres use VisiQuest scientific software to analyze and visualize precipitation data from 13 different satellites.
They use the data to calculate global rainfall estimates and post them as visual images online, at precip.gsfc.nasa.gov. The result is PAG’s newest offering, the global real-time three-hourly Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis.
International relief agencies use the data to assess risks to food resources and to detect floods and landslides. Other researchers include forecasters of hurricanes, El Nino effects, and global climate change.
“VisiQuest, with its visual programming interface, enables us to quickly and easily visualize and analyze our data, not just read it,” says George Huffman, technical area project manager at NASA contractor Science Systems and Applications Inc. of Lanham, Md.
The VisiQuest visual programming environment allows nonprogrammers to build applications by dragging and dropping icons on the screen. Users can create a visualization tool, target-acquisition project, or signal-processing application. For more information, see www.accusoft.com.
