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Setting Up the ISIS Data Area

Many ISIS apps need extra data to carry out their functions. This data varies depending on the mission, and may be quite large, so it is not included with the ISIS binaries. It resides in the ISIS Data Area.

More Info on the ISIS Data Area

Structure

Each mission supported by ISIS has a directory with mission-specific processing data (like flat files and SPICE kernels). There is also a base data area with shared data, and a test data area for ISIS testing and development.

Output of tree -L 2 $ISISDATA

~/isis_data/
├── apollo15
│   ├── calibration
│   ├── kernels
│   └── reseaus
├── apollo16
│   ├── kernels
│   └── reseaus
├── base
│   ├── dems
│   ├── examples
│   ├── kernelTesting
│   └── kernels
├── cassini
│   ├── calibration
│   ├── kernels
│   └── unitVectors
├── chandrayaan1
│   ├── bandBin
│   └── kernels
├── clementine1
│   ├── calibration
│   └── kernels
├── dawn
│   └── kernels
...

Hosting

The ISIS Data Area is hosted on a combination of AWS S3 buckets and public http servers (NAIF, Jaxa, ESA), not through conda like ISIS binaries. The downloadIsisData script facilitates downloading ISIS data from various sources.

Versions

For ISIS 4.1.0 and above, some apps require the base and/or mission-specific data areas, while other apps may run without them.

Apps from ISIS versions lower than 4.1.0 require the legacybase area.

Example ISISDATA usage in ISIS Apps

  • Calibration apps need flat files to do flat field corrections.
  • Map Projection apps need DTMs to accurately compute intersections.
  • spiceinit uses SPICE Data is used to initialize ISIS cubes.

Size

All the ISIS data from various missions adds up to a total of over 2TB. But, using the ISIS SPICE Web Service (instead of downloading all the SPICE files) reduces the necessary download to a much more manageable ~10GB base.

Setting the ISISDATA Environmental Variable

Any location can be used for the ISIS Data Area, ISIS just needs the $ISISDATA environmental variable to point to it.

# Activate your environment (assuming it's named isis)
conda activate isis

# Set the variable
conda env config vars set ISISDATA=<path/to/isisdata>

# Reactivate your environment
conda deactivate
conda activate isis

export ISISDATA=<path/to/isisdata>

Downloading ISISDATA

You can use the downloadIsisData script to download ISIS data.

# General Usage
downloadIsisData [mission] [download destination] [optional flags]

# More Info
downloadIsisData --help

Full Download

To download ALL Isis data, including the base and all of the mission data areas:

downloadIsisData all $ISISDATA

That's a lot of data!

Downloading all takes over 2TB of space! See Partial Downloads if you want a smaller subset, or try the ISIS SPICE Web Service.

Partial Downloads

The Base Data Area

Some data (like DEMs and Leap Second Kernels) are shared between multiple missions; this is the base data area.

If you work with camera models (using cam2map, campt, qview, etc.), or are using a legacy version of ISIS, we recommend downloading the base data area:

# For ISIS versions 4.1.0 and up
downloadIsisData base $ISISDATA

# For ISIS versions before 4.1.0
downloadIsisData legacybase $ISISDATA


Mission Specific Data Areas

If you are only working with a few missions, save space by downloading just those data areas (find your download command on the following list).

Mission Names & Download Commands

  • For versions of ISIS prior to ISIS 4.1.0, please use the --legacy flag.

  • Reference rclone.conf if you can't find/download data for your mission with one of these commands.

Mission Command
Apollo 15 downloadIsisData apollo15 $ISISDATA
Apollo 16 downloadIsisData apollo16 $ISISDATA
Apollo 17 downloadIsisData apollo17 $ISISDATA
Cassini downloadIsisData cassini $ISISDATA
Chandrayaan 1 downloadIsisData chandrayaan1 $ISISDATA
Clementine 1 downloadIsisData clementine1 $ISISDATA
Dawn downloadIsisData dawn $ISISDATA
ExoMars downloadIsisData tgo $ISISDATA
Galileo downloadIsisData galileo $ISISDATA
Hayabusa 2 downloadIsisData hayabusa2 $ISISDATA
Juno downloadIsisData juno $ISISDATA
Kaguya downloadIsisData kaguya $ISISDATA
Lunar Orbiter downloadIsisData lo $ISISDATA
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter downloadIsisData lro $ISISDATA
Mars Exploration Rover downloadIsisData mer $ISISDATA
Mariner10 downloadIsisData mariner10 $ISISDATA
Messenger downloadIsisData messenger $ISISDATA
Mars Express downloadIsisData mex $ISISDATA
Mars Global Surveyor downloadIsisData mgs $ISISDATA
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter downloadIsisData mro $ISISDATA
Mars Science Laboratory downloadIsisData msl $ISISDATA
Mars Odyssey downloadIsisData odyssey $ISISDATA
Near downloadIsisData near $ISISDATA
New Horizons downloadIsisData newhorizons $ISISDATA
OSIRIS-REx downloadIsisData osirisrex $ISISDATA
Rolo downloadIsisData rolo $ISISDATA
Rosetta downloadIsisData rosetta $ISISDATA
Smart1 downloadIsisData smart1 $ISISDATA
Viking 1 downloadIsisData viking1 $ISISDATA
Viking 2 downloadIsisData viking2 $ISISDATA
Voyager 1 downloadIsisData voyager1 $ISISDATA
Voyager 2 downloadIsisData voyager2 $ISISDATA

ISIS SPICE Web Service

ISIS can retrieve the SPICE data over the internet with a web service. Using the ISIS SPICE Web Service significantly reduces the size of the required downloads from the data area.

Not all operations are supported by the SPICE Web Service

Some instruments require mission data to be present for radiometric calibration, which is not supported by the SPICE Web Server. Some programs that are designed to run an image from ingestion through the mapping phase do not have an option to use the SPICE Web Service.

  • MEX HRSC is a commonly used unsupported instrument.
  • For info on specific apps/instruments, see the ISIS Application Docs.

Enabling the Web Service for spiceinit

To use this instead of local SPICE data, click the WEB check box in the spiceinit window. Or at the command line: 

spiceinit from=<yourimage.cub> web=yes

Skipping Kernel Downloads with downloadIsisData

--exclude

To skip downloading the SPICE kernels, use the exclude argument (like a blacklist) on a mission-specific downloadIsisData command. For example:

downloadIsisData cassini $ISISDATA --exclude="kernels/**"

--include

You can also use the include argument (like a whitelist) to partially download specific kernels. For example, to include only cks and fks in your LRO mission download:

downloadIsisData lro $ISISDATA --include="{ck/**,fk/**}"

The ISIS Test Data Area

There is an ISISTESTDATA area containing files needed to run some of ISIS's older Makefile-based tests. See ISIS Test Data for more info.