Processing Workflows (Procflows) in GeoIPS#

A processing workflow (procflow) is a class-based GeoIPS plugin that determines the “steps” that are used for a particular type of processing. Essentially, the procflow is the driver of GeoIPS processing that determines the order in which to call other plugins, such as algorithms and output formatters. Although it is possible to create one’s own processing workflow, the built-in procflows are designed to cover nearly any use-case, and upcoming development will increase the number of cases that are covered. It is extremely unlikely that a user will need to develop their own procflow.

Examples of procflow plugins can be found in the list of GeoIPS built-in procflows. Most cases involving the production of basic imagery will use the single_source procflow. More complex cases may not be able to use single_source, but can often be handled by the config_based or data_fusion procflows.

Procflows can be executed in two ways:

1. Specification at the Command Line: Procflows are specified as the primary argument at the command line when running GeoIPS. The recommended procflow in GeoIPS 2.0 is the Order-Based Procflow, called as follows:

geoips run order_based <workflow> <files>

The legacy single_source, config_based, and data_fusion procflows are still available (geoips run single_source …) but are deprecated; OBP can produce everything they can. See Running workflows to run a workflow.

Direct Invocation: Procflows can be called within another program:

from geoips.interfaces import procflows
procflow_name = "single_source"
procflow = procflows.get_plugin(procflow_name)

Note, however, that since procflows are the “drivers” of GeoIPS processing, it is advised to use the GeoIPS command line interface to run them in most situations.