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1. INTRODUCTION

A. Neo-Geography Toolkit

The Neo-Geography Toolkit (NGT) is a collection of tools for automated
processing of geospatial data, including images and maps. It is capable
of processing raw raster data from remote sensing instruments and
transforming it into useful cartographic products, such as visible image
base maps, topographic models, etc. Additionally, components of the NGT
can perform data processing on extremely large geospatial data sets (up
to several tens of terabytes) via parallel processing pipelines.
Finally, it can also transform raw metadata (i.e.  SPICE kernels and PDS
image labels), vector data (e.g., 2D/3D shape files), and geo-tagged
data sets into standard NeoGeography data formats, such as KML.  NGT is
an evolving collection of loosely connected open-source modules designed
by the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group. Modules of the NGT will be
released one at a time, as they reach maturity. To date, we have
completed only one module: the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline, but more will
soon follow. Check this website for the latest updates.

B. Stereo Pipeline

The NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline (ASP) is a suite of automated geodesy &
stereogrammetry tools designed for processing planetary imagery captured
from orbiting and landed robotic explorers on other planets. It was
designed to process stereo imagery captured by NASA spacecraft and
produce cartographic products including digital elevation models (DEMs),
ortho-projected imagery, and 3D models. These data products are suitable
for science analysis, mission planning, and public outreach.

This version of the Stereo Pipeline is designed as an add-on to an
existing installation of the USGS Integrated Software for Imagers and
Spectrometers (ISIS). ISIS is widely used in the planetary science
community for processing raw spacecraft imagery into high level data
products of scientific interest such as map projected and mosaicked
imagery.

This version of the Stereo Pipeline is tested against ISIS version
3.4.4.5390. The Stereo Pipeline binary distribution requires this
version.  The source distribution recommends this version, but may
work with other versions.

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2. LICENSE (see COPYING for the full text)

A. Copyright and License Summary

Copyright (c) 2009-2012, United States Government as represented by the
Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All
rights reserved.

The NGT platform (of which ASP is a part of) is licensed under the
Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file
except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the
License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

B. Third-Party Libraries

This distribution may include some bundled third-party software as a
convenience to the user.  This software, located in the "thirdparty/"
directory of the source code release, is not covered by the
above-mentioned distribution agreement or copyright. Binary releases
distribute third party software in both the "bin" and "lib"
directories. See the included documentation for detailed copyright
and license information for any third-party software or check the
THIRDPARTYLICENSES file.  In addition, various pieces of the NGT
depend on additional third-party libraries that the user is expected
to have installed.

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3. DOCUMENTATION

The primary source of documentation is the Stereo Pipeline Book. The
binary distribution contains the book, named "asp_book.pdf", and the
source distribution contains the LaTeX source of the book in the
docs/book subdirectory.

The book includes a gentle introduction to using the Stereo Pipeline, as
well as documentation for each of its major processes.  A copy of this
document in PDF format is also available from wherever you obtained this
package.

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4. CONTACTS & CREDITS

A. Mailing List

All bugs, feature requests, and general discussion should be sent to
the NGT user mailing list:

  [email protected]

To subscribe to this list, send an empty email message with the subject
'subscribe' (without the quotes) to

  [email protected]

To contact the lead developers and project manager directly, send mail
to:

  [email protected]

Please do NOT use this second list for technical inquiries, which
should all be sent to the main stereo-pipeline list above.

B. Credits

The NGT was developed within the Autonomous Systems and
Robotics area of the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA's Ames
Research Center.  It leverages the Intelligent Robotics Group's (IRG)
extensive experience developing surface reconstruction and tools for
planetary exploration---e.g. the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration
Rover missions---and rover autonomy.  It has also been developed in
collaboration with the Adaptive Control and Evolvable Systems (ACES)
group, and draws on their experience developing computer vision
techniques for autonomous vehicle control systems.

See the AUTHORS file for a complete list of developers.