CAPS is initially designed to implement standard processing algorithms for Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data from the NOAA TIROS N series polar orbiting satellites. CAPS is being developed to work as an extension to Tcl/Tk and will use HDF as the primary file format. Tcl is an embeddable scripting language which will run under a number of environments including Unix, Windows 95 and Windows NT. Tk is a GUI scripting language which is platform independent. The use of Tcl/Tk allows a rapid development cycle for CAPS by providing many necessary support functions and a simple method for writing GUI interfaces. CAPS performs six primary functions:

• general array processing operations

• reading HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transmission) data.

• reading and writing HDF files.

• geographic location of AVHRR image pixels.

• conversion of radiometer counts to radiance, reflectance and brightness temperature.

• mapping data from the satellite coordinate system to standard geographic coordinates.

The basic CAPS functions listed above are supported by a numeric array processor. The relationship between the various software elements of CAPS and Tcl/Tk can be found at the CAPS software homepage.

The CAPS project is being supported by the
  CSIRO Earth Observation Centre,
  CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences,
  CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the
  Australian Bureau of Meteorology.