footprints

Purpose

Interactive footprint map viewer for ISIS cube files. Shows image coverage areas on a map with per-image coloring and optional control network overlay. Also supports static PNG export for reports and publications.

Usage

# Interactive browser viewer (default)
isistools footprints cubes.lis

# With control network overlay
isistools footprints cubes.lis --cnet control.net

# Native matplotlib window (with hover tooltips)
isistools footprints cubes.lis --win

# Static PNG export
isistools footprints cubes.lis --png
isistools footprints cubes.lis --png --title "MC-13E Gap Region" --dpi 200

# PNG with custom output path
isistools footprints cubes.lis --png-path my_overview.png

Options

Option Default Description
--cnet, -c — Control network file (.net) to overlay
--png off Save static PNG instead of launching viewer
--png-path footprints_overview.png Custom output path (implies --png)
--dpi 150 PNG resolution
--title, -t cubelist filename Figure title
--win off Native matplotlib window instead of browser
--port, -p 0 (auto) Server port for browser viewer
--no-browser off Start server without opening browser

Output modes

Browser viewer (default)

Launches a Panel/HoloViews app in the browser with:

  • Interactive pan, zoom, and box-select
  • Per-image color coding with legend
  • Hover info showing image metadata
  • Optional control network point overlay

Native matplotlib window (--win)

Opens a native Qt window with:

  • Standard matplotlib zoom/pan toolbar
  • Hover tooltips showing CTX product ID (via mplcursors)
  • Per-image color coding with right-side legend

Static PNG (--png)

Generates a publication-ready PNG using the headless Agg backend. No GUI dependency — works on remote servers and in CI pipelines.

Example

Two overlapping CTX images (K05_055343 + V05_082075) in the MC-13E gap region:

Figure 2.1: Footprint overview showing the overlap between two CTX strips. Each image is colored separately, with a right-side legend identifying the product IDs.

With --cnet, control network points are overlaid and color-coded by status (registered, unregistered, ignored):

Figure 2.2: Footprints with control network overlay. Registered tie points (black crosses) fill the overlap region; ignored points (gray) are scattered along the edges.

Input format

The cube list file is a plain text file with one cube path per line. Blank lines and lines starting with # are skipped:

# K05 and V05 level-1 cubes
/path/to/K05_055343_1840_XI_04N287W.lev1.cub
/path/to/V05_082075_1840_XN_04N287W.lev1.cub

Python API

from isistools.io.footprints import load_footprints
from isistools.plotting.footprint_mpl import footprint_png, footprint_window

gdf = load_footprints("cubes.lis")

# Static PNG
footprint_png(gdf, "overview.png", title="My Mosaic", dpi=200)

# Interactive window
footprint_window(gdf, title="My Mosaic")