We have the pleasure of launching version 1.0 of Nansat. This is possible after a three week long and intensive Scrum sprint performed by Anton Korosov, Aleksander Vines, Jeong-Won Park, Artem Moiseev, and Morten Wergeland Hansen. A scrum sprint is an agile software development method that was now for the first time employed at NERSC. It has shown to be very useful and efficient, and will certainly be repeated for the next versions of Nansat.

Developing Nansat: From left: Morten Wergeland Hansen, Artem Moiseev, Anton Korosov, Aleksander Vines and Jeong-Won Park 

Nansat is a Python toolbox for analysing and processing 2-dimensional geospatial data, such as satellite imagery, output from numerical models, and gridded in-situ data. It is created with strong focus on facilitating research, and development of algorithms and autonomous processing systems. Nansat supports commonly needed functionality, such as seamless access to local or remote geospatial data in various file formats, collocation of datasets from different sources and geometries, and easy visualization. Nansat is used in many projects supported by the European Space Agency, the Norwegian Space Centre, and the Norwegian Research Council. 

After three intense weeks of Scrum sprint the group was willing to share their experiences.

- A concentrated amount of time dedicated to the project without «stealing» time from other work duties enabled us to focus on this subject alone which probably has given better results, says Artem Moiseev.

- The Sprint is an intense and efficient way of working and gives progress compared to spreading the work hours and disabling continuity. Getting into the details of the problems takes time, adds Jeong-Won Park. 

Aleksander Vines continues: - One of the important aspects of SCRUM is that every day we have a 15-minute meeting where tasks are delegated and challenges are brought to the table. This way we can figure out if anyone can help and solve an issue.

Do you see any use for this in your research?

- The Scrum sprint enabled me to learn a lot, both as a developer and a user. I understood more about the structure of Nansat and how to solve specific problems using the different functions. Using this kind of work method you could actually implement ideas you had regarding your problems, says Jeong-Won Park.

Artem Moiseev says: - I´m not sure about the short term benefits but as for long term benefits it is an advantage that the infrastructure of Nansat now has been created. This allows me to individualise the tool to my needs without creating the whole infrastructure. It makes reading, understanding and writing the code much more understandable, for me and hopefully for everyone else as well. 

Morten Wergeland Hansen says he hopes that NERSC´s new Nansat version will make it even easier and more efficient to do Earth System science, and to develop new ocean services both for researchers at NERSC, and others.

Documentation:  http://nansat.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Code: https://github.com/nansencenter/nansat

 Nansat