Why Not Using BEAM?

BEAM is an open-source toolbox and development platform for viewing, analysing and processing of remote sensing raster data. Originally developed to facilitate the utilisation of image data from Envisat‘s optical instruments, BEAM now supports a growing number of other raster data formats such as GeoTIFF and NetCDF as well as data formats of other EO sensors such as MODIS, AVHRR, AVNIR, PRISM and CHRIS/Proba. Various data and algorithms are supported by dedicated extension plug-ins.

Software Components

• VISAT – An intuitive desktop application to be used for visualization, analyzing and processing of remote sensing raster data. To get an impression of how VISAT looks and feels like, please take a look at the related screenshots page.
• A set of scientific tools running either from the command line or invoked by VISAT, also entirely written in Java.
• A rich Java API for the development of new remote sensing applications and BEAM extension plug-ins.

Supported Instruments

This following table lists the data product formats which are supported by BEAM using the reader modules provided in the standard installation.

Instrument	Platform	Formats
MERIS L1b/L2	Envisat	Envisat N1
MERIS L3	Envisat	NetCDF
AATSR L1b/L2	Envisat	Envisat N1
ASAR	Envisat	Envisat N1
ATSR L1b/L2	ERS	Envisat N1, ERS
SAR	ERS	Envisat N1
CHRIS L1	Proba	HDF4
AVNIR-2 L1/L2	ALOS	CEOS
PRISM L1/L2	ALOS	CEOS
MODIS L2	Aqua, Terra	HDF4
AVHRR/3 L1b	NOAA-KLM	NOAA, METOP
TM	Landsat 5	FAST, GeoTIFF
SPOT VEGETATION	SPOT	HDF

Generic EO Data Formats

BEAM supports the following generic raster formats:

1. BEAM-DIMAP
2. GeoTIFF
3. NetCDF
4. HDF-EOS

Feature Highlights

• Very fast image display and navigation even of giga-pixel images
• Advanced layer management allows adding and manipulation of new overlays such as images of other bands, images from WMS servers or ESRI shapefiles
• Rich region-of-interest definitions for statistics and various plots
• Easy bitmask definition and overlay
• Flexible band arithmetic using arbitrary mathematical expressions
• Accurate reprojection and ortho-rectification to common map projections,
• Geo-coding and rectification using ground control points
• Store and restore the current session including all opened files, views and layers
• A standard set of scientific data processorswhich includes
  • Level 3 Binning and Mosaicing (all sensors)
  • Collocation (all sensors)
  • EM and K-Means Clustering, Linear Spectral Unmixing (all sensors)
  • Radiance-to-Reflectance, Smile Effect Correction, Cloud Probability, SMAC Atmospheric Correction, Case 2 Water Constituents (MERIS)
  • Sea Surface Temperature (AATSR)
  • FLH/MCI, NDVI (all sensors)

Beam now are working on several operating system. You can download freely from Brockmann Consult Web. To extent Beam’s ability, there are some plugin for you. Feel free to learn directly form BEAM User Manual