This application mosaics together ISIS cubes from a user-entered text file containing the input cube filenames (FROMLIST). If the output file (MOSAIC) does not already exist, the program will create it from the input cubes. Otherwise, the input cubes will be placed into the existing mosaic cube.

REQUIREMENT: The listed input cubes must be map projected (Level2). The input cubes are required to be projected to the EXACT SAME ProjectionName, PixelResolution (or MapScale), EquatorialRadius, PolarRadius, LatitudeType, LongitudeDirection, as well as specific map projection keywords (e.g., CenterLatitude, CenterLongitude). If these map projection requirements are not met, an error will be encountered.

By default, the input cubes are placed into the mosaic in the order in which they appear in the input list. Automos automatically determines the size of the new output mosaic by examining the latitude and longitude range of each input cube. The user may override this by entering their own latitude/longitude extents for the output mosaic cube by setting the GRANGE parameter.

Integrity-check Parameters:

MATCHBANDBIN = TRUE, the default is to require all the bandbin group and wavelength keywords of the input cube files exactly match the output mosaic.

MATCHDEM = FALSE, the default does not check the SHAPEMODEL keyword of the input cube files and does not propagate what DEM Shapemodel that was used when the input files were projected.

The PRIORITY parameter will determine how each input cube is combined with the current output mosaic cube. The process involves replacing an output mosaic pixel (or not) with an input pixel at the same location. There are many user options and criteria that influence the pixel replacement. Use of the PRIORITY parameter with and without other options is explained in the tables and descriptions below.

The TRACK feature creates a separate tracking cube in addition to the mosaic cube, and contains information for the source files of every pixel within the output mosaic. This cube will have the same base-name as the mosaic cube but will end in "_tracking.cub". The tracking cube must always reside in the same directory as the mosaic cube to be properly accessed; this means that if the mosaic cube is copied or moved, then its associated tracking cube must be copied or moved to the same location. The tracking cube will always be of type unsigned integer. Depending on the bit-type of the mosaic cube and/or the number of bands it contains, the tracking cube may be as much as four times the size of the mosaic cube itself.

The tracking cube can be used appropriately through the QVIEW-AdvancedTracking tool. As the user pans across the displayed mosaic, for every mosaic pixel location, QVIEW-AdvancedTracking will interactively report the index, the filename and the serial number of the input cube that was input to automos for that specific pixel location. Since the tracking cube is of bit-type unsigned integer, the DN values of 0, 1 and 2 are reserved for NULL, LRS and LIS, respectively, so valid pixel DN values will begin at an offset of 3. In other words, a pixel of DN value 3 in the tracking cube means that this same pixel within the mosaic was taken from the first input image. The tracking cube cannot be used outside of the QVIEW-AdvancedTracking tool except as a visual representation of the source cubes for the different pixels.

The TRACK feature works with Priority options ONTOP and BENEATH for single band input cubes. It works for multiband cubes for PRIORITY=ONTOP only when the NULL, HIGHSATURATION and LOWSATURATION options are set to true. It also works for multiband cubes when PRIORITY=BAND. Furthermore, this feature is NOT supported when PRIORITY=AVERAGE.

Please Note: Prior to ISIS version 3.6.0, tracking for the various mosaicking apllications was being handled with an internal tracking band. Tracking is now being handled by an external tracking cube that contains the associated tracking information. This application can no longer add to mosaics of the old format. In order to continue to use these older mosaics with the updated mosaicking applications, you must first use the trackextract utility application to extract the tracking band and the associated tracking information into an external tracking cube.

The following table describes how the program will determine the pixel value in the output mosaic for areas of image overlap.

Each of the following priority option tables indicates the resulting output pixel for a particular input pixel, given the selected special pixel options (parameters HIGHSATURATION for HRS, HIS; LOWSATURATION for LRS, LIS; and NULL) in each table row.

The input list has two two-band cubes. Each band has had special pixels introduced to clarify what happens during the mosaic process.

The output mosaic shows the result of the second input image being mosaicked with the first input image. You can see in band one that none of the special pixels were retained because none of the special pixel flags were set. In other words, regardless of whether there was a valid comparison at that pixel of the priority band, all other bands will try to retain valid data.

In band two, you can still see where the special pixels were in the second input image. The second image would have been "on top" because in band two, the pixels are less than those of the mosaic. However, the valid data in the mosaic was disregarded because the special pixel flags were not set. You cannot see the special pixels from the first image because the valid pixels from the second image were kept instead.