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1. INTRODUCTION

A. Neo-Geography Toolkit

The Neo-Geography Toolkit (NGT) is a collection of tools for automated
processing of geospatial data, including images and maps. It is capable
of processing raw raster data from remote sensing instruments and
transforming it into useful cartographic products, such as visible image
base maps, topographic models, etc. Additionally, components of the NGT
can perform data processing on extremely large geospatial data sets (up
to several tens of terabytes) via parallel processing pipelines.
Finally, it can also transform raw metadata (i.e.  SPICE kernels and PDS
image labels), vector data (e.g., 2D/3D shape files), and geo-tagged
data sets into standard NeoGeography data formats, such as KML.  NGT is
an evolving collection of loosely connected open-source modules designed
by the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group. Modules of the NGT will be
released one at a time, as they reach maturity. To date, we have
completed only one module: the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline, but more will
soon follow.

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2. LICENSE (see COPYING for the full text)

A. Copyright and License Summary

Copyright (C) 2006-2009 United States Government as represented by the
Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA).  All Rights Reserved.

This software is distributed under the NASA Open Source Agreement
(NOSA), version 1.3.  The NOSA has been approved by the Open Source
Initiative.  See the file "COPYING" at the top of the distribution
directory tree for the complete NOSA document.

THE SUBJECT SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, ANY WARRANTY THAT THE SUBJECT SOFTWARE WILL CONFORM TO
SPECIFICATIONS, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR FREEDOM FROM INFRINGEMENT, ANY WARRANTY THAT
THE SUBJECT SOFTWARE WILL BE ERROR FREE, OR ANY WARRANTY THAT
DOCUMENTATION, IF PROVIDED, WILL CONFORM TO THE SUBJECT SOFTWARE.

B. Third-Party Libraries

This distribution may include some bundled third-party software as a
convenience to the user.  This software, located in the "thirdparty/"
directory, is not covered by the above-mentioned distribution
agreement or copyright.  See the included documentation for detailed
copyright and license information for any third-party software.  In
addition, various pieces of the NGT depend on additional
third-party libraries that the user is expected to have installed.

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3. CREDITS


The NGT was developed within the Autonomous Systems and
Robotics area of the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA's Ames
Research Center.  It leverages the Intelligent Robotics Group's (IRG)
extensive experience developing surface reconstruction and tools for
planetary exploration---e.g. the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration
Rover missions---and rover autonomy.  It has also been developed in
collaboration with the Adaptive Control and Evolvable Systems (ACES)
group, and draws on their experience developing computer vision
techniques for autonomous vehicle control systems.

See the AUTHORS file for a complete list of developers.