The Applications of McIdas

The Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS) is a combination of hardware and software developed for processing image data from high volume data sources such as satellites. This paper describes the use of McIDAS. Key features of McIDAS are: color television display with capability for rapid (up to 30 frames/sec) sequencing of set of images, analog and digital data storage, interactive data processing and display control, data flow and processing controlled by computer software, data processing by accessing subsets of data. Uses of McIDAS include: measuring cloud velocities from geosynchronous satellites, calibrating cloud pictures for rain from radar, classifying land use from ERTS images, assembling weather data for public broadcast.