Due to its proven reliability and freeware distribution among the scientific community, Stanford Method for Persistent Scatterers (StaMPS) InSAR implementation (Hooper et al.,2004; Hooper et al., 2007, and Hooper, 2008), which is based on the processing of multi-temporal SAR data, is widely used for ground deformation monitoring. However, some issues can make the interpretation of the results a difficult task: StaMPS supports data processing based on command prompt, which increases the difficulty of usage by users not familiar with the specificities of the programming language that supports StaMPS. Moreover, several visualization tasks are not implemented in the standard approach requiring that each user develops its own code for visualization and interpretation purposes.
viStaMPS (visual StaMPS) is a new visual application developed to enhance the visualization, manipulation and exportation of StaMPS results. The programmed application is developed in Matlab® through the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and no coding is required for running it, which avoids any programming language knowledge for standard uses. This tool integrates fully new features together with various scripts from StaMPS, allowing the generation of the desired plots/maps in a user-friendly interface. It is done by simply clicking some buttons or changing some parameters located in visual panels, instead of input commands in a prompt. Moreover, since it is written in Matlab, it gives the users the opportunity to access the data very easily and make their own modifications.
In summary, like StaMPS, viStaMPS is an open-source project and, in addition to StaMPS features it also includes entirely new functionalities.
Being a research tool, viStaMPS is continually under development and will count on the dynamism of its users to improve and/or add new features.
If you need to contact viStaMPS team: vistamps@utad.pt
| Publications that contain figures produced by the viStaMPS software should contain an acknowledgment. [For example: This figure was generated using viStaMPS (Sousa et al., 2013)]. |
Bibliography:
Hooper, A., Zebker, H., Segall, P., Kampes, B., 2004. A new method for measuring deformation on volcanoes and other natural terrains using InSAR persistent scatterers. Geophysical Research Letters 31, L23611.
Hooper, A., Segall, P., Zebker, H., 2007. Persistent Scatterer InSAR for Crustal Deformation Analysis, with Application to Volcán Alcedo, Galápagos, Journal Geophysical Research,, 112, B07407, doi:10.1029/2006JB004763.
Hooper, A., 2008. A multi-temporal InSAR method incorporating both persistent scatterer and small baseline approaches. Geophysical Research Letters 35, L16302.
Sousa, J. J., Magalhães, L. M., Ruiz, A. M., Sousa, A. M. R. and Cardoso, G. (2013): The viStaMPS tool for visualization and manipulation of time series interferometric results, series interferometric results, Comput. Geosci., 52, 409–421, doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2012.11.012.