pyModis: from satellite to GIS maps

One year after the first public presentation of pyModis at FOSS4G 2013 a lot of improvements have been implemented in the pyModis library. The most important news are that each command line tool now offers a graphical user interface to assist inexperienced users. Furthermore, the MODIS Reprojection Tool (MRT) is not longer mandatory in order to mosaic and reproject the original MODIS data as GDAL is now supported. Hence the most important improvement was the reimplementation of existing MRT component to use the Python binding of GDAL. This was basically driven by the fact that MRT does not properly perform geodetic datum transforms as discovered in the daily work with MODIS data within the PGIS-FEM group leading to shifted reprojection output. With the new GDAL support not only this problem has been solved but also the installation greatly simplified. pyModis is used all over the world in academic, governmental and private companies due to its powerful capabilities while keeping MODIS processing workflows as simple as possible. The presentation will start with a small introduction about pyModis and its components, the library and the tools. This part is followed by news about the latest pyModis release and indications about future developments.