Pixel-by-Pixel Classification for Zoning and Monitoring
Version 0.3b (April 2013)
conceived and written by Silvio Griguolo, with the collaboration of Antonio Ciavarella


This package can be freely used by anybody for any type of application. The authors' only expectation is its use to be acknowledged in publications, as it is customary in the scientific community.

Some years ago I wrote the package ADDAPIX for DOS to perform some multivariate analyses (Principal Components, Clustering) on a time series of satellite images. It was targeted to Early Warning applications, and specially aimed at constructing an eco-climatic zoning, monitoring the evolution of the cropping season, or assess its performance ex-post.
The rationale under the development of the package was that:

"...NDVI images are timely available for whole continents, and it would be a waste of resources to omit any effort to draw from them all possible useful information. ADDAPIX is an attempt to obtain useful synthetic results, at least from a qualitative viewpoint and in spite of the NDVI scarce reliability, by processing large amounts of NDVI data." (ADDAPIX Manual, Introduction)

Version 2.03.05 was the last one, partially funded by FAO, project  GCP/INT/578/NET, and released in 1996. However, with the developing and spreading of Windows 32 DOS applications became obsolete. The main drawback concerned the graphic utilities, unable to take advantage of Windows drivers to control video cards.

I started to convert the software to Win32, but that was indeed a very slow process, as most of my time was dedicated to my academic duties. For several years a provisional version was used only in my research, or by my students. Along the way I found the necessity to adapt the software to various types of applications, sometimes quite far from the initial Early Warning area, like neural networks or neuro-biological applications. I did not find the time to make it easy for anybody's use, with online help, a detailed manual and all tests and cross-controls necessary to prevent inappropriate use.

Now it seems to me that the software works acceptably well, at least in the hands of  someone who knows what to do. Certainly more options should be added, and it still is certainly plagued by some bugs - no illusion about that - but the analytical sequences I usually follow, and the graphic visualization application, appear to work smoothly. As I think that waiting for perfection might mean to wait forever, at least considering the limited time I intend to dedicate to its completion, I decided to make it available for others 'as is'.

I hope that feedbacks from users will help me to improve it, albeit in the limit of a non-professional application.

Features and use

Though mostly conceived for SPOT/VGT NDVI images in RAW or IDA/WINDISP format, WINADX can be used to process 8-bit images of any type and in any format, after suitably filling a DEFinition to describe them (i.e., after providing their 'Image Type'). Some operations can be extended to 16-bit images (but only some...).

Various types of operations on (even very) numerous sets of images can be carried out in one go.

The software links some DLLs or runs some external applications to include the facilities offered by some other software I wrote over years for UN-FAO, specially MADAM (computation of long-term statistics for a time series of images) and AICON (cropping/recoding/reprojecting a set of satellite images), to prepare the images for the analyses to follow.

CropVGT, used to extract images from a set of SPOT/VGT zipped distribution files, is also included.

After suitably preparing (extracting, correcting, merging) the series of input images, the final goal is to perform a multivariate analysis (Principal Components Analysis and Clustering, both for zoning and monitoring purposes). Some graphic tools are available to inspect the resulting classified images pixel by pixel.

Sets of images not making up a time series (e.g., some radiometric bands) are also accepted as input.

The package

When unzipped, the zipped file downloaded from this page will create a directory <ADDAPIX> containing all the files (.EXE, .DLL, online help, etc.) necessary for execution, and the following subfolders:

<TANA>, which includes all the files necessary for a quite detailed sample exercise. Please open the file <instructions_for_Addapix.pdf >, describing the exercise.
The <TANA> directory contains some other subfolders (<prova>, <zoning>, <monitoring>, etc.) whose files are used in some sample exercises described in the Help system.

<DEFS>, with some DEFinitions needed in the <Tana> exercise or in examples proposed in the online help, and many sample DEFinitions  I had the occasion to use in the past. Any new DEF created by the user is automatically saved in this folder. The currently existing DEFS, loaded at program's startup, can be visualized/edited/deleted by selecting  Edit/SetImage Type DEFinitions, View/Edit/Create  from the Addapix Menu. A DEF can also be removed by deleting from the <DEF> folder the file having the DEF's name .

<IMAGES>, contains some auxiliary information specially used when dealing with SPOT/VGT files. It includes also some shapefiles. You can have a look at its contents, but please do not delete or modify any file in this directory.

<LOGS>, where the Log files are saved (one per day) if so is requested in the Preferences file winadx.ini.

Run the executable winadx.exe to start. Do not launch directly any of the other .exe files included in the <ADDAPIX> folder: they are meant to be internally managed by  winadx.

 

Changes from version 0.3a (February 2012)

Some bugs have been corrected, affecting the two utilities 'Reproject/crop/recode' and 'Recode pixel values' in the Utilities Menu.

A short note on the conversion of VGT and Metop NDVI images has been added.

 

Changes from version 0.3 (October 2012)

A bug which caused Addapix to crash when processing a set of WINDISP images in Madam, Step1, was brought to my attention by Esther Amler of the UN-WFP. The bug was fixed in version 0.3a (October 2012). Thanks, Esther.

A program crash occurring when choosing "Select classes" from the Analysis Menu, and then exiting Display without selecting any class, has been fixed.

 

Click here to download the package (version 0.3b, April 2013 - 113 MB,  119,330,822 bytes).

 

Problems with the help online?

ADDAPIX for Windows (WINADX) offers an online help in WINHELP format. It is quite detailed, and the user is advised to have frequent recourse to it for explanations and instructions. At the time being I have no time to convert it to HTML. WINHELP is supported  by Windows XP, but unfortunately it is no longer included neither in  Windows Vista nor in Windows7: the user should  download it  from the Microsoft site and install it.
As WinHelp can be useful not only for WINADX but also for other applications, please
download here below the file appropriate to your Operational System (Vista or Win7) and run it to manage the installation of  WinHlp32 from the Microsoft site. In alternative, you will find the same files in the <addapix> folder (you can recognize them from their '.msu' extension).

WINHELP for Vista            WINHELP for Windows7

Credits

Large merit for DISPLAY, the utility used to visualize images, goes to the collaboration of Antonio Ciavarella.

Operations on set of images make use of some DLLs. Among them, AICON.DLL and MADAM.DLL are respectively derived from AICON (the Artemis Image CONverter) and MADAM, two programmes I wrote some years ago for FAO/ARTEMIS.

Any remark, suggestion, request, feedback on analyses carried out using ADDAPIX, and bugs encountered (specially bugs!) will be highly appreciated. Please write to

silvio.griguolo@iuav.it


(page maintained by Silvio Griguolo - last update: April 2013)