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Software using HDF (4)

This information is incomplete and some of it may be out of date.
Please help us keep you up to date by sending your HDF related research and software links to help at hdfgroup.org.

Disclaimer:

Although THG is pleased that these products support the HDF file format, THG is not in a position to endorse any particular product. Descriptions on this page come from the official pages of the software vendors, and any claims made are theirs.

CONTENTS:

Freely Available Software

Commercial Tools

Freely Available Software

HDF Libraries Ported to:

THG Tools

THG HDF Utilities
Utilities included in the HDF distribution are of the following type:
  • conversion utilities (for eg. jpeg2hdf, hdftor8)
  • tools for analyzing the contents of an HDF file (hdp being one of the more useful)
  • tools for manipulating HDF files (for eg. hdfcomp, hdfpack, ...)

THG HDF Java Products
The HDF Java Products are a revised and reorganized version of the earlier Java HDF Products. They include: a) the Java HDF Interface for HDF4, b) the Java HDF5 Interface for HDF5, c) a NEW hdf-object packages which is a pure Java implementation of an abstract model of data and can read either HDF4 or HDF5 files, and d) HDFView, a Java-based tool for browsing and editing HDF4 and HDF5 files.

Other NCSA tools
These tools are older tools that have not been updated to run with the current version of HDF. However, in many cases, they are still useful. They are available from the NCSA ftp server:

  • Collage - NCSA Collage is a collaborative visualization program, allowing the user to collaborate and share data across the three supported platforms: X-Windows workstations, Apple Macintosh systems, Microsoft Windows systems.

  • Polyview - NCSA Polyview is a software tool for interactive visualization and analysis of 3D geometrical structures. Polyview 3.1 reads data files in NCSA HDF Vset format and automatically derives animation sequences based on available information.

  • X DataSlice - NCSA X DataSlice allows the user to manipulate 3D images under X11, using the HDF file format and libraries.

  • Other NCSA visualization software - Some of this software is dated.

Other Tools

Contributed Software
This is software contributed by HDF users, which is available from the THG ftp server.

BEAT
The Basic ENVISAT Atmospheric Toolbox (BEAT) is an open source toolbox that includes data access to a wide range of atmospheric data products, including HDF4 and HDF5. The BEAT project, funded by the European Space Agency, aims to provide scientists with tools for ingesting, processing, and analyzing atmospheric remote sensing data.

CoastWatch Format (CWF) Software Library and Utilities
The CoastWatch Format (CWF) Software Library and Utilities is a package of routines that convert, manipulate, and plot CoastWatch format data files. The software was developed at the CoastWatch West Coast Regional Node for use with the web site and other CoastWatch data processing applications. It includes utilities for converting to other formats such as netCDF, GeoTIFF, and ArcView.

Cube Visualization (cv) tool
The Cube Visualization or "cv" program is part of the ISIS image processing system (Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers), and includes many image processing functions. It runs on several versions of Unix. It is not supported on Windows because it uses CALL_EXTERNAL.

It has recently been enhanced to directly read the HDF and HDF-EOS file formats in addition to the native ISIS cube format. "cv" is also packaged to run separately from the ISIS software system.

"cv" is written in IDL and is available from the U.S Geological Survey.

DIAL
Data and Information Access Link (DIAL) is an experimental server, consisting of a suite of software tools for searching, browsing, visualizing, subsetting, and distributing HDF (and HDF-EOS) files through the World Wide Web. You can download the prototype DIAL executables to set up a DIAL site on your machine.

DDI
The Data and Dimensions Interface addresses a significant problem in the visualization of large data sets: Extracting only the relevant data and providing it to a chosen graphics engine in the required form without undue effort. DDI reads and writes a number of publicly available file formats, and sends data to public domain and commercial visualization systems.

DODS
The Distributed Oceanographic Data System, developed specifically for oceanographic data, provides flexible access to a wide variety of data and facilitates their analysis with existing software.

Fink
The Fink project modifies Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X. It provides the ported HDF library on its pages. See the Scientific Applications list (sci).

FreeForm
This application provides a flexible method for specifying data formats to facilitate data access, management, and use. It was developed at the National Geophysical Data Center, NGDC.

GDAL - Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
GDAL is a translator library for geospatial data formats. It comes with a 'gdal_translate' program which converts HDF (and other formats) to other formats. GDAL runs on Linux, MS-Windows and other platforms.

GrADS
The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is an interactive desktop tool for the analysis and display of earth science data. and DOS or Linux based PCs. GrADS can read and write HDF-SDS files.

h5utils (h5fromh3)
The h5utils package contains utilities for HDF5 visualization. Among the utilities is the h5fromh3 utility for converting single-dataset HDF(4) files into HDF5 files.

HDF-EOS Tools
The HDF-EOS software used by NASA on the Earth Science Enterprise project, expands the capabilities of HDF, adding datatypes that are specifically designed for the storage of geophysical data. These datatypes are called swath, grid, and point.

For more information, see the page:
        /hdfeos.html

HDF Explorer
HDF Explorer is a data visualization program designed to read HDF and HDF5 files. Its main features are: reads all HDF data types, supports image generation from both scalar and vector data, easy browsing through 3D datasets, data exporting facilities, and an easy-to-use yet powerful interface. HDF Explorer is available for Windows NT/95. More information about HDF Explorer is available from Space Research, Inc.

hdfgen.pl
The hdfgen.pl perl script parses a C data structure from an input file (a .h file) to produce a set of C subroutines that will initialize a Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) file, and read/write data into/from the input C data structure. The purpose of hdfgen.pl is to automate many of the steps required to write C programs which read/write HDF data files. Using hdfgen.pl, the user needs only minimal knowledge of low-level HDF functions in order to use HDF to store his data. This script was written by the ACE Science Center at the California Institute of Technology.

HDFLook - MODIS
HDFLook - MODIS is a friendly Motif HDF and HDF-EOS viewer, useful for quality control of raster images and Scientific Datasets (up to 6 array indices, MODIS compress file format). It allows easy access to physical values and ancillary data, includes 2-D graphics (radial, histogram), and supports image print capabilities. It is available for Solaris, Alpha VMS, HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, and Linux.

Also see:

  • Msphinx. Msphinx is a friendly FREE Motif utility to handle satellite images. Available on HP, DEC, SG, IBM, SUN, and LINUX.

  • Mgraph. Mgraph is a 2-dimensional graphic software allowing fast visualization of scientific data (in ASCII or binary). Does not use HDF, but can be used with HDF files.

  • Gallery of Earth Imagery

Any suggestions to extend this software are welcome at: Louis.Gonzalez@univ-lille1.fr (4/05)

hdfv
The hdfv tool is an HDF read-only interface via TCL. It contains "tclhdf" and "hdfv". "tclhdf" is a simple extension of tclsh, with HDF's Vgroup/Vdata queries. "hdfv" is an HDF-Viewer with a GUI based on Tk. Currently, it only supports the Vgroup/Vdata model.

HIPHOP
HIPHOP is a widget based IDL application that largely facilitates the visualization and analysis of 2D, 3D, and 4D atmospheric science data, in particular atmospheric tracer distributions and meteorological fields. The program handles data in netCDF, HDF and GRIB format. Interfaces to other data formats (e.g. ASCII and binary data) can be added easily.

LCAVision
LCAVision is a free open-source application for, among many other things, visualization of 3D advanced mesh refinement data sets in the Chombo and FlexIO file formats. It provides many advanced ways of visualizing and navigating hdf5 (Chombo) amr data, hdf5, hdf4 and FlexIO unigrid data, including isos, slices of many flavors, vector visualization, and time animation. This tool is also mentioned on the What Software uses HDF5? page.

LinkWinds
LinkWinds is a visual data analysis and exploration system designed to rapidly and interactively investigate large multivariate and multidisciplinary data sets to detect trends, correlations and anomalies. It supports HDF files. It also supports HDF-EOS files, including SWATH data, and among LinkWinds' many types of display is one which allows unevenly spaced observations like SWATHs to be viewed on a globe. It can run on the SGI, Sun, HP, IBM, and Linux (PC) platforms.

Image Tools library
FTP link. The San Diego Supercomputer Center's Image Tools library includes the imconv command-line tool for converting among many image formats, including HDF.

IRI/LDEO CLimate Data Library
This tool is designed to manipulate large datasets and model input/output. It reads and writes netCDF files, writes HDF files, and generates plots, including line, contour, vector, and scatter plots, as well as histograms.

Marine Data Handbook
The Marine Data Handbook from the Phoenix Training Consultants is an open resource for the marine community, which includes information on marine software, data, data formats, and web sites, among other things. It also includes a list of conversion utilities.

MERLIN
MERLIN, the Multi-source EnviRonmental data dispLay for INternet archives, is intended primarily for researchers investigating climate and global change issues, and was developed for use by researchers using the NOAA/NASA Pathfinder Program. However, the software has been extended for use by other communities. It provides access, fusion, intercomparison, interpretation, and visualization of a wide variety of environmental data and derived products.

MICRODEM
MICRODEM is a freeware GIS program that aims to provide full functionality with a simple user interface.

MultiSpec
MultiSpec is a processing system for interactively analyzing Earth observational multispectral image data such as that produced by the Landsat series of Earth satellites and hyperspectral image data from current and future airborne and spaceborne systems such as AVIRIS. It runs on the Macintosh and PC platforms.

NAP
NAP (n-dimensional array processor) is a loadable extension of Tcl which provides a powerful and efficient facility for processing data in the form of n-dimensional arrays. It has been designed to provide an array-processing facility with much of the functionality of languages such as APL, F90,IDL, J, Matlab and Octave. It has interfaces to HDF and netCDF. NAP was developed as part of the CSIRO CAPS project, but can be loaded and used without the (satellite oriented) CAPS extension. (5/05)

NCAR Command Language (NCL)
The NCAR Command Language (NCL) is an integrated processing environment. It provides: (a) simple file interfaces for ascii, binary, netCDF, HDF-SDS, GRIB (including ECMWF complex coefficients) and NCAR's proprietary CCM History tape format; (b) numerous functions and procedures that facilitate processing of multi-dimensional datasets, (c) a graphics environment that is flexible and can produce publication quality graphics, and, (d) an environment that can readily incorporate codes written in traditional languages such as C and Fortran. Free binaries are available for: Dec Alpha, HP, IBM/AIX, SGI/IRIX, SUN, Mac/MacOSX and PCs running MS Windows, RedHat Linux, Debian Linux, Solaris X86

NCO (netCDF Operators)
The netCDF Operators, or NCO, are a suite of file operators which facilitate manipulation and analysis of self-describing data stored in the (freely available) netCDF or HDF4 formats.

netCDF
Most of the netCDF tools can be used with HDF, since HDF's netCDF can be used in place of the regular netCDF (except for creating new netCDF files). A non-exhaustive list of netCDF tools can be found at Unidata.

OpenDX
OpenDX is the open source software version of IBM's Visualization Data Explorer (DX). It is a general-purpose software package for data visualization and analysis. The data model is fully supported by an external disk-based representation (format) for import and export. Data may also be imported through public domain structures like Unidata's netCDF, NASA's CDF and THG's HDF, user-created custom filters and a general array handler.

OSSIM
The Open Source Software Image Map (OSSIM) library is used in image processing for geospatial solutions. (3/05)

Overture
This application is an object oriented C++ framework for solving PDEs on complicated geometries. It has been tested on SunOS 4.1.3, Solaris, SGI and DEC systems.

pyhdf
This package is a Python interface to the HDF4 library. It lets one manage an HDF file from within a Python program, using an OOP approach. "pyhdf" currently implements the following API's : SD, V, VS. Other API's will be included in the future. SD datasets are handled using the Numeric package. It includes extensive documentation and examples, and easily installs with a "python setup.py". command. Note that pyhdf is currently not compatible with HDF5.

REINAS
The Real-time Environmental Information Network and Analysis System (REINAS) is a system built to support realtime data acquisition, management, and visualization of environmental data. The Santa Cruz Laboratory for Visualization and Graphics (SLVG) group at the University of California, Santa Cruz, uses HDF as the choice of file input for REINAS.

Rocketeer
Rocketeer is a powerful tool for visualizing 3 dimensional scientific data sets. Rocketeer differs from many visualization tools in its ability to handle many different types of grids on which the data is defined. Rocketeer can display data from multiple files and/or multiple data sets from the same file on a single image. Rocketeer can perform the same graphics operations on a series of data sets automatically to produce frames for animation. For further information see the home page for the Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets (CSAR) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ScanMagic
General purpose software for viewing, analyzing and processing remote sensing data for Windows (free version is available)

SHARP
SHARP is an IDL-based viewer for MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) HDF data. It is a prototype for the kinds of functions necessary for visualizing MODIS Level 1B data. It will run on any platform (Unix/Linux/NT/Mac) where IDL is installed. Sample MAS HDF data and cloud mask results are also available.

Tela
Tela (the TEnsor LAnguage) is a numerical computing environment mainly targeted for numerical simulation pre- and post-processing work. It supports multidimensional integer, real and complex arrays and uses HDF as the native save/load format. Speed was an important design goal, and Tela is often faster than other interpreted languages. Tela has been written in C++ and it can be installed on most Unix platforms.

VCS
The Visualization and Computation System VCS version 2.7 supports the HDF format for both read and write operations. VCS greatly facilitates the selection, manipulation, and display of scientific data. By specifying the desired data set, the graphics method, and the display template, the VCS user gains virtually complete control over the appearance of the data display and associated text. Although VCS is designed expressly to meet the needs of climate scientists, the breadth of its capabilities make it a useful tool for other scientific applications. VCS was developed by the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

VISTAS
VISTAS Visual Data Probe is an interactive, large volume data browsing and probing environment, developed for the NASA TOVS Pathfinder. The purpose of VISTAS is to provide users who have gained access to TOVS Pathfinder data the ability to easily and quickly browse large datasets without having to write their own data-handling programs.

WebWinds
WebWinds, the successor to LinkWinds, is an interactive science data visualization system written in Java. It is modular, allowing flexibility in tool construction and application, and largely platform and operating system independent. It can handle large datasets by subsetting and subsampling data on input or display output, and allows you to present and manipulate 2 and 3 dimensional data in a variety of 1 and 2 dimensional display tools. Formats supported are raw binary data (see web page for details), HDF, NetCDF, PDS, VICAR, FITS, ASCII, and HDF-EOS.

Commercial software

ACTRAN
ACTRAN is an acoustic code based on the use of Finite and Infinite Element Methods, developed by Free Field Technologies. For aeroacoustic applications, the sources are predicted separately, e.g. by CFD software. The use of HDF files allows for a much more efficient exchange of this huge amount of data across different platforms.

Array Visualizer
The Intel® Array Visualizer is a software package included with Intel Fortran for Windows that can be used to read, write, and display HDF4 and HDF5 data. Array Visualizer can be used with C, Fortran, .Net, or script languages . The product also includes Array Viewer®, a Windows application that can be used to browse and edit HDF4 and HDF5 files.

EASI/PACE
This application is a powerful remote sensing software package, offering extensive capabilities in image classification, geometric correction, orthorectification, enhancement filtering, vector edit with image backdrop, terrain analysis and visualization, radar image processing, DEM extraction, atmospheric correction, and hyperspectral data analysis. It operates on Windows, Macintosh, and several UNIX platforms, and is available from PCI.

ENVI
ENVI, the Environment for Visualizing Images, is an image application for processing, analyzing, and displaying multispectral, hyperspectral or radar remote sensing data. It operates on Windows, Unix, and Macintosh platforms. It supports numerous formats, including HDF. ENVI is available from Research Systems, Inc.

ER Mapper
This application is an advanced digital image processing and remote sensing system created to help earth scientists integrate, enhance, visualize, and interpret their geographic data. It allows truly interactive "real time" integration and processing of data.

ERDAS Imagine
IMAGINE is a mapping and visualization tools that allows different types of geographic data to be combined with imagery and organized into a mapping project. It supports HDF-EOS and Landsat data, as well as SPOT data. Refer to the FAQs

GDB
The GeoGateway (also known as GDB) is a tool used by PCI's Works programs and some PACE programs to access image and auxiliary information from data files. This allows different file types to be used interchangeably. HDF 8-bit Raster Images and Scientific Data Sets are readable by the GDB library. It also offers read support of HDF-EOS 'Swath' products. It does not support grid or point datasets.

IDL
IDL is a software package for data analysis, visualization, and application development. IDL's features include: advanced image processing, interactive 2D and 3D graphics, insightful volume visualization, a high-level programming language, integrated mathematics and statistics, flexible data I/O, a cross-platform GUI toolkit, and versatile program linking tools. IDL offers support for virtually any data format including CDF, netCDF and HDF.

IGOR Pro

WaveMetrics' IGOR Pro is a graphing, data analysis, and programming tool for scientists and engineers. It can handle large data sets, and imports data from a variety of file formats, including HDF. It is available on Macintosh and Windows.

IONIC RedSpider Image Archive
The IONIC RedSpider Image Archive is a multi-platform solution, designed to help organizations deploy a scalable imagery management solution, offering an efficient way to search on line imagery information and allowing direct access to imagery data or portrayed images. Once registered, your imagery is immediately available through OGC compliant web services. The RedSpider Image Archive is able to decode, process and serve HDF-EOS and HDF4 data, with the help of the Nasa/Raytheon HEG tool and the GDAL library.

IONIC RedSpider Web
The IONIC RedSpider Web product is an out-of-the-box easily-configurable portfolio of OGC/ISO compliant web services. The IONIC Web Coverage Service implementation is able to decode, process and serve HDF-EOS and HDF4 data, with the help of the Nasa/Raytheon HEG tool and the GDAL library.

Mathematica
Mathematica, from Wolfram Research, Inc. supports HDF. Mathematica is an integrated technical computing system, which combines interactive calculation, visualization tools, and a programming language.

MATLAB
MATLAB from The MathWorks, Inc. supports the HDF format. It is a high-level programming language for technical computing that combines numeric computation, advanced graphics and visualization.

Noesys
Noesys is the only desktop software program specifically designed to easily access, analyze, visualize and archive data using the HDF standard. Noesys opens HDF files, displays their full contents, and provides editors for working with all of the types of scientific data objects that can be stored within an HDF file. Noesys now has an interface to IDL®, the Interactive Data Language, from Research Systems, Inc., allowing data to move back and forth between Noesys and IDL with the click of a mouse. Noesys includes the easy-to-use visual data analysis tools, Transform, T3D and Plot, for menu driven plotting, rendering, and image analysis. Noesys can import HDF, HDF-EOS, netCDF, ASCII, Binary, DTED, GeoTIFF, SDTS, TIFF, PICT, and BMP files, create annotations, macros, images, projections and color palettes specific to the data and save it all as an HDF file. Data objects can also be exported as binary or ASCII. Noesys also includes a HDF-EOS Grid Editor. Noesys runs on Windows 95/98 & NT and Power Macintosh OS. More information about Noesys is available from Research Systems, Inc.

Plot
Analyze huge datasets of column data with Plot for Windows 95/98 & NT and Power Macintosh. Plot reads in many data formats including HDF, ASCII and binary. With easy menu commands, you can generate line plots, color scatter plots, parametric plots and double-Y plots, as well as complex graphs. Analyze data with an interactive spreadsheet, built-in functions, and macro language. Plot is now bundled as a part of Noesys. More information about Plot and Noesys is available from Research Systems, Inc.

PV-Wave
This is a software environment from Visual Numerics for solving problems requiring the application of graphics, mathematics, numerics, and statistics to data and equations.

ResMod, ResSeis, ResGram, ResCalc, ResScape, ResPrep, ResScale
ResMod, ResSeis, ResCalc, ResPrep, ResGram, ResScape, and ResScale, from RC-Squared, are a collection of tools for modeling geologic (petroleum or hydrologic) reservoir data. Currently on the Solaris and Irix platforms a PC port will be available soon. These tools are spatial statistics (geostatistics) based and allow the user to model continuous (porosity and permeability) as well as facies (categorical) data and utilitize the primary/secondary characteristics of the data (ResMod). Both Estimation and Simulation (multiple realization) techniques are available. Seismic data can be utilized as soft data after first being processed by ResSeis. ResCalc can perform connectivity analysis, uncertainty analysis, virtual well planning, plus model and surface operations. ResScape can perform 3D visualization on the unequal cell thickness models that are produced. ResPrep provides the ASCII to HDF conversion function along with quality control.

Slicer Dicer
Slicer Dicer (formerly Spyglass Dicer) is a volumetric-data visualization program currently available for Windows XP, ME, 2000, NT, and 98 platforms. It reads netCDF and HDF data and DICOM, as well as arbitrary binary array data. You literally "slice and dice" the data volume to create 3D renderings of selected portions of the data rendered on orthogonal and oblique slices and on arbitrary rectilinear blocks and cutouts. Isosurface and projected volume renderings are also available. You can generate animation sequences featuring continuous rotations, moving slices, blocks, etc., parametric variation (time animation), oblique slice rotation, and varying transparency. Slicer Dicer comes with the optional program Seeker, a powerful browser for DICOM medical image files. Slicer Dicer is owned and marketed by PIXOTEC, LLC.

T3D
T3D provides powerful volumetric data analysis and visualization for Windows 95/98 & NT and Power Macintosh. Create isosurfaces, cutouts, orthogonal and oblique slices of volumetric data sets. Images can be rotated and animated. T3D reads HDF, netCDF, binary and ASCII matrices. T3D is now bundled as a part of Noesys. More information about T3D and Noesys is available from Research Systems, Inc.

Tecplot
Tecplot, from Amtec Engineering Inc., is a fast, interactive visualization program that allows users to view their data in a wide variety of ways: wire-mesh plots, contour lines and flooding, vector fields, light-source shared plots, and many types of XY plots. It supports reading and writing of HDF files. Tecplot runs on most UNIX platforms and on IBM PCs running most versions of MicroSoft Windows (and soon on VMS).

Transform
Transform is a powerful and flexible tool for analyzing 2D matrix and image data on Windows 95/98 & NT and Power Macintosh platforms. Transform reads in many data formats including HDF, ASCII, binary, and FITS. Create raster images, surface plots, contour plots, vector plots with simple menu driven commands. Rotate images, create animations and generate publication quality graphics. Analyze data with an interactive spreadsheet, built-in functions, and macro language. Transform is now bundled as a part of Noesys. More information about Transform and Noesys is available from Research Systems, Inc.

Windows Image Manager (WIM)
WIM is a general purpose image display and analysis program for MS Windows, with special features for Satellite Images.

zeGraph
zeGraph is a 3D data visualization library. It includes a utility for reading and writing HDF with Lua (The standard version of zeGraph is free, but the maximum render size is limited to 800 by 800 pixels.)

- - Last modified:September 03rd 2007