.. _intro:

Introduction
============

Abot BEST
---------

The Basic Envisat SAR Toolbox (BEST_) is a collection of executable software
tools that has been designed to facilitate the use of ESA_ SAR data.
It is able to handle the SAR products obtained from ASAR_ (Advanced Synthetic
Aperture Radar) and AMI_ (Active Microwave Instrument) on-board Envisat_ and
ERS_ 1&2 respectively.

The BEST toolbox includes tools for the:

- Data Import and Quick Look
- Data Export
- Data Conversion
- Statistical
- Re-sampling
- Co-registration
- Support for Interferometry
- Speckle Filtering
- Calibration

For more detail you should refer to the BEST_ Home Page.

BEST operates according to user-generated parameters files. The software is
designed with an optional graphical interface that simplifies specification of
the required processing parameters for each tool.
The interface does not include a display function.

BEST is available at http://earth.esa.int/services/best

.. _BEST: http://earth.esa.int/services/best
.. _ESA: http://earth.esa.int
.. _Envisat: http://envisat.esa.int
.. _ERS: http://earth.esa.int/ers
.. _ASAR: http://envisat.esa.int/instruments/asar
.. _AMI: http://earth.esa.int/ers/eeo4.128

About BESTGUI
-------------

BESTGUI is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for BEST written in Python_ and
`GTK+`__.

__ GTK_
.. _GTK: http://www.gtk.org
.. _Python: http://www.python.org

It allows you to easily specify the processing parameters for the various BEST
tools and launch the processing from the GUI.

BESTGUI aims to be a replacement of the Tcl/Tk HMI, the default GUI front-end
included in the BEST software distribution. It inherits all the interesting
features already present in the Tcl/Tk HMI and adds some useful ones:

:a prettier look an feel:
  thanks to the GTK+ toolkit and its rich set of widgets BESTGUI has a modern
  look and feel.

:improved menus and toolbars:
  BESTGUI has all the menus that the user usually expects (*File*, *Help* etc)
  further than the *Tools* menu that give access to the BEST tools.
  It also provides an useful toolbar.

:persistent preferences:
  like the *bestw*, the GUI front-end for Windows\ :sup:`TM` provided with the BEST
  software distribution, BESTDUI allows you to set your preferences providing a
  easy configuration dialog. Preferences are saved in a configuration file in
  the user home directory.

:smart environment handling:
  BESTGUI is able to automatically set the three environment variables required
  by BEST (i.e. BESTHOME, FLAGFILE and the PATH) provided that at least the
  *best* executable location or the *BESTHOME* is known. Similarly to *bestw*
  BESTGUI allows to set this parameters using the preferences dialog.

:colorized output log:
  BESTGUI provides an *output log area* in which the messages coming from the
  running BEST instance are reported using different colors for *standard* and
  *error* messages. The *output log area* automatically pops-up when BEST is
  launched and can be hidden by the user.

:progress bars:
  the amount of progress of the task is reported both as number (percentage)
  and graphically using a progress bar.

:stop button:
  in some cases the execution of a task can take a long time. BESTGUI provides
  a *Stop Button* that allows the user to stop the running task from the GUI if
  necessary.

:an improved AoI dialog:
  some of the BEST tools allow the user to specify the AoI i.e. the *Area of
  Interest* of the image to be processed. Like *bestw*, BESTGUI provides an
  improved dialog to make this settings.

:output preview:
  a preview of the output image is showed in a separate tab together with the
  image annotations (for almost all the tools that produce an image as output).
  The output view is also available for the Header Analysis and the Ancillary
  Data Dump tools and for all the tools that produce a standard TIFF file as
  output (Quick Look Generation, Footprint etc).

License
-------

BESTGUI is released under the terms of the `GNU General Public License`__
version 2.

__ GPL_
.. _GPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html