McIDAS prototype (Mc 1972)
The Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS) was developed to measure cloud motion vectors from Applications Technology Satellite spin-scan camera images and resulted from a number of parallel efforts undertaken at the Space Science and Engineering Center in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was the culmination of over four years of intensive effort to achieve easy access to satellite data in the time domain, the dimension which opens up the earth’s atmosphere to observation as a dynamic system. In 1972, the McIDAS prototype was functioning daily, providing University of Wisconsin meteorologists with quick and easy access to Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) data. Plans for expansion would enable the system to efficiently access and process multispectral image data in many different formats from other spacecraft such as SMS, Mariner, EERTS, ITOS, and ESSA.
From: McIDAS: An interim report on the development of the Man-Computer Interactive Data Access System.
Investigators
- Dr. Verner E. Suomi Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC)
Related Websites
Publications
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Gehrels, T.; Suomi, V. E. and Krauss, R. J.. The capabilities of the spin-scan imaging technique. Space Research XII. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1972, pp.1765-1769. Call Number: Reprint #452.
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Lazzara, M, et al. The Man computer Interactive Data Access System: 25 years of interactive processing. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society v.80, no.2, 1999, pp 271-284. Reprint #2548.
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McIDAS: An interim report on the development of the Man-Computer Interactive Data Access System. Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), 1972, 39p. SSEC Publication No.72.11.M3.
Images
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McIDAS TV display hardware; the prototype McIDAS display included a standard TV monitor mounted above a central control panel.
Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), University of Wisconsin-Madison -
Breadboard electronics; the heart of the McIDAS display system is the fast core, a set of parallel shift registers which store digital image data line by line as it comes from the computer.
Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), University of Wisconsin-Madison -
Processing earth resources data may be considerably speeded up using the image comparison and measurement capabilities of McIDAS.
Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), University of Wisconsin-Madison
