vista-imagery 1.11.0

A PyQt6-based desktop application for viewing, analyzing, and managing multi-frame imagery datasets along with associated detection and track overlays

VISTA - Visual Imagery Software Tool for Analysis

An open-source MIT-licensed Awetomaton project for the GEOINT community

VISTA is a PyQt6-based desktop application for viewing, analyzing, and managing multi-frame imagery datasets along with associated detection and track overlays. It's designed for scientific and analytical workflows involving temporal image sequences with support for time-based and geodetic coordinate systems, sensor calibration data, and radiometric processing.

Documentation: https://awetomaton.github.io/VISTA/

Source Code: https://github.com/awetomaton/VISTA

Watch the Demo

Installation

pip install vista-imagery

Launch VISTA:

vista

Or install from source:

git clone https://github.com/awetomaton/VISTA.git
cd VISTA
pip install -e .

For detailed installation instructions, see the Installation Guide.

Quick Start

1. Load or simulate Imagery:

• (a) File > Open to load an HDF5 imagery file
• (b) File > Simulate to simulate example data

2. Navigate: Use playback controls or arrow keys (Left/Right or A/D)
3. Detect Objects: Algorithms > Detectors to run CFAR or threshold detection
4. Track Objects: Algorithms > Tracking to link detections into tracks
5. Export Results: Export tracks/detections to CSV from the Data Manager

For a complete walkthrough, see the Quick Start Guide.

Key Features

• Multi-frame imagery viewing with playback controls and histogram adjustment
• View frame imagery in image or geodetic space with tile servers to show imagery in geospatial context
• Background removal: Temporal median, Running sub-space tracker, Robust PCA, GoDec
• Signal Enhancement: Decimating or running Coaddition
• Detection algorithms: simple threshold detectors, CFAR, PSTNN
• Tracking algorithms: Simple, Kalman, Network Flow, and Tracklet trackers
• Sensor calibration: Bias removal, non-uniformity correction
• Geodetic support: Pixel-to-geodetic coordinate conversion
• Manual annotation: Create/edit/label tracks and detections interactively
• Feature overlays: AOIs, placemarks, and shapefile import

See the User Guide for detailed feature documentation.

App Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Left Arrow / A	Previous frame
Right Arrow / D	Next frame
CTRL + Z	Undo track / detection panel action
Spacebar	Play/Pause
Delete	Remove selected sensors, imagery, tracks, detectors, detection points
Drag and Drop on Sensors / Imagery panels	Load sensor / imagery data
Drag and Drop on Tracks Panels	Load tracks data
Drag and Drop on Detections Panels	Load detections data

Input Data Formats

VISTA uses HDF5 for imagery and CSV for tracks/detections. For format specifications, see:

• Imagery HDF5 Format
• Track CSV Format
• Detection CSV Format

Programmatic Usage

from vista.app import VistaApp
from vista.imagery.imagery import Imagery
import numpy as np

# Create imagery in memory
images = np.random.rand(10, 256, 256).astype(np.float32)
imagery = Imagery(name="Test", images=images, frames=np.arange(10))

# Launch VISTA
app = VistaApp(imagery=imagery)
app.exec()

See the API Reference for complete programmatic documentation.

Generating Test Data

Create simulated data via the GUI (File > Simulate) or programmatically:

from vista.simulate.simulation import Simulation

sim = Simulation(name="Test", frames=50, rows=256, columns=256)
sim.simulate()
sim.save("test_data")

Building an Executable

Windows:

pyinstaller vista/app.py --onefile -n vista --icon=vista/icons/logo.ico --hidden-import pyqtgraph.graphicsItems.PlotItem.plotConfigTemplate_pyqt6 --hidden-import pyqtgraph.imageview.ImageViewTemplate_pyqt6 --hidden-import pyqtgraph.graphicsItems.ViewBox.axisCtrlTemplate_pyqt6 --add-data="vista/icons*;vista" --add-data="vista/simulate/data*;vista"

macOS/Linux:

pyinstaller vista/app.py --onefile --windowed -n vista --icon=vista/icons/logo.icns --hidden-import pyqtgraph.graphicsItems.PlotItem.plotConfigTemplate_pyqt6 --hidden-import pyqtgraph.imageview.ImageViewTemplate_pyqt6 --hidden-import pyqtgraph.graphicsItems.ViewBox.axisCtrlTemplate_pyqt6 --add-data="vista/icons:vista/icons/" --add-data="vista/simulate/data:vista/simulate/data/"

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See the Contributing Guide for details.

License

MIT License

Acknowledgments

VISTA uses PyQt6, pyqtgraph, NumPy, pandas, h5py, astropy, scikit-image, scipy, and other open-source libraries.