1. Overview
This guide explains the IDCubeCloud workspace screen by screen: what each tab, button and panel does and how they fit together. For the science behind each analysis (PCA, indices, clustering, library matching, ML), see the dedicated guides in this folder. This guide covers where things are and how to operate them.
Core idea: load one data cube (a file or a satellite scene), then switch between analysis tabs in the top toolbar. Every tab works on the same loaded cube. The left sidebar controls how the cube is displayed, and the right panel shows what the cube contains (metadata, spectra, values).
Plan gating: tabs your plan doesn't include show a 🔒 lock icon. Clicking one takes you to the Plans page. Most tabs also stay locked (greyed, 🔒) until a file is open.
Free
Explore (band/RGB view, live spectra), Satellite Data
Starter
+ Measure, Multi Spectra, Filters, 3D View, Export
Professional / Team / Enterprise
+ PCA, Spectral Library, Indices, Clustering, Machine Learning
2. Screen Map
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ TOP TOOLBAR Explore │ Measure │ PCA │ Filters │ Spectral Library │ Indices │ │
│ Clustering │ Machine Learning │ Compare │ 3D View │ Satellite Data│
│ Team │ Plans │ Help │ 🎨 │ Account │ ⏻ │
├──────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ LEFT SIDEBAR │ FEATURE PARAMETER BAR (per tab: scale, PCA, filter, …) [?] │
│ ├───────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┤
│ ↺ Reset │ (Annotation toolbar — Explore) │ DATA INFO │
│ │ │ Rows · Cols · Bands · λ │
│ DATA │ THE VISUALIZER │ [Export] [Metadata] │
│ Cloud Files │ (Image Viewer) ├────────────────────────────┤
│ Upload box │ │ SPECTRA PLOT │
│ My Files │ ✂ ⧉ ↶ ⟲ ⟳ ↶ + − ⤢ │ (hover / ROI spectra) │
│──────────────│ ├────────────────────────────┤
│ VISUALIZATION│ │ SPECTRAL VALUES TABLE │
│ Band | RGB │ x: 120 y: 88 · lat/lon · 2.4× │ (per-ROI values, CSV) │
│ sliders │ │ │
│ SPECTRUM │ │ │
│ TOOLS │ │ │
│ SPECTRA MATH │ │ │
└──────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
All three columns are resizable: drag the thin vertical handles between them. Inside the sidebar, the handle between Data and the controls below it can also be dragged. The layout of the centre area changes per tab (see Section 8).
Analysis tabs (left side)
Button
Colour
What it opens
Needs a file
Plan
Explore
Brand
The default viewer: band/RGB image, live pixel spectra, ROI spectra, annotations
No
Free
Measure
Teal
Distance and area measurement with real-world scale
Yes
Starter
PCA
Violet
Principal Component Analysis and PC images
Yes
Professional
Filters
Sky
Mean Spatial, Mean Spectral and 3D Gaussian smoothing
Yes
Starter
Spectral Library
Amber
Match pixel/ROI spectra to reference materials; whole-image classification; ECOSTRESS browser
Yes
Professional
Indices
Green
Vegetation and other spectral indices (NDVI, EVI, SAVI, NDWI, …)
Yes
Professional
Clustering
Rose
Unsupervised K-Means / DBSCAN with 3D scatter
Yes
Professional
Machine Learning
Indigo
Labeling → Train → Predict supervised classification
Yes
Professional
Compare
Orange
Toggles a second image next to (or swiped over) the first
Yes
—
3D View
Cyan
Interactive 3D cube with orthogonal slices or a spectral stack
Yes
Starter
Satellite Data
Emerald
Opens the Satellite Data Browser page
No
Free
Hover a locked button to see why it is locked (Open a file first or Requires … plan).
Account buttons (right side)
Team
Opens the Team page (members, roles, shared files)
Plans
Opens the Subscription page
Help
Opens the in-app documentation (one tab per tool)
🎨 (palette)
Cycles the colour theme. Hover to see the current theme.
Account
Opens My Account (plan, invoices, profile)
⏻ (sign out)
Logs out immediately
4.1 Header
↺ Reset workspace (appears once a file is open)
Returns the loaded image to its just-loaded state: clears filters, PCA, clustering, indices, ROI spectra, measurements and annotations. The file itself stays loaded.
4.2 Data section
Cloud Files
Opens the full cloud file manager: folders, list/grid view, sort, upload files or whole folders, new folder, cut/paste, delete, and Load into viewer.
Drop zone
Drag files here or click to browse. Select all companion files together (e.g. ENVI .hdr + .dat, or every slice of a TIFF stack).
File type picker
Leave on Auto-detect, or force a type: MATLAB, ENVI, GeoTIFF, TIFF Image Stack, HDF5/HDF-EOS, NIfTI, NetCDF, NumPy (.npy/.npz), Video (.avi), RGB Image. Needed for ambiguous .hdr files and multi-file TIFF stacks.
Upload & View
Sends the file to the server and opens it in the viewer straight away.
Save to Cloud
Stores the file in your cloud storage (My Files) for later use.
My Files list
Your recent cloud files. Click one to load it into the viewer.
4.3 Visualization section
Shown once a file is open. On the PCA tab, after PCA is computed, this section becomes Visualization (PCA) with PC sliders instead of wavelength sliders.
Band / RGB tabs
Band: one band shown with a colormap. RGB: three bands mapped to red, green and blue.
Fast (✨, indigo)
Upscales the currently displayed image with the fast FSRCNN super-resolution model.
AI Enhanced (✨, amber)
Upscales with the custom-trained deep-learning model (slower, higher quality).
Wavelength Ranges switch
Turns each slider into a double slider. All bands inside the chosen range are averaged, which reduces noise. Applies to both Band and RGB.
Wavelength slider (Band)
Picks the band to display. Labelled Band with no unit when the file carries no wavelength metadata.
Intensity range slider
Clamps the display between a min and max value (the bounds are the current band's data range). Reset to auto restores full range. It changes the display only, not the data.
Colormap
jet, gray, hot, cool, autumn, bone, copper, pink, spring, summer, winter, hsv, colorcube, parula, turbo.
R / G / B sliders (RGB)
Pick the wavelength (or range) for each channel.
PC Band / Red/Green/Blue (PC) (PCA)
Pick which principal component(s) to display.
4.4 Spectrum Tools
Interactive ON/OFF
ON: hovering the image shows that pixel's spectrum live in the Spectra plot, and clicking pins it. OFF: hovering does nothing (useful for large files or when drawing).
Multi Spectra ON/OFF (Starter+)
ON: drag rectangles on the image. Each becomes a coloured ROI whose mean ± standard deviation spectrum is added to the plot and table. Only draws at 1× zoom.
Clear All (n)
Removes all ROI spectra.
4.5 Spectra Mathematics
Tool selector
Currently: Spectral Correlation Map
Shift (bands)
Offset (−20…+20 bands) applied when correlating spectra
Select ROI / Re-draw ROI
Then drag a rectangle on the image to set the seed region. ✕ clears it.
Generate
Computes how strongly every pixel's spectrum correlates with the seed region's mean spectrum, and opens the result in a pop-up.
5. Feature Parameter Bar
On Measure, PCA, Filters, Spectral Library, Indices and Clustering, a horizontal parameter bar sits above the image. It holds that tab's settings and main action button. The ? icon in its top-right corner opens the matching Help page tab.
Measure
Scale mode (Pixels / Auto / Custom), pixel size, display unit
PCA
Number of components, Compute PCA
Filters
Filter type (Mean Spatial / Mean Spectral / 3D Gaussian), kernel size or sigma (0.5–5.0), Apply, Reset to original data, and an Active: label
Spectral Library
Method (SAM / SID / ED), Top N, library selection dropdowns (built-in, custom, favourites), capture-spectrum ROI, Match, classification, ECOSTRESS browser
Indices
Index selector (hover it for the formula), colour map, display range (threshold), overlay opacity, Compute
Clustering
Algorithm (K-Means / DBSCAN), clusters K or epsilon + min samples, scatter sample size, projection (PCA / UMAP), Run Clustering
6. The Visualizer (Image Viewer)
The Visualizer is the central image pane on the Explore, PCA, Filters and Spectral Library tabs. Measure and Machine Learning use their own variants with the same zoom and pan behaviour.
6.1 What it shows
Band mode
The selected band (or averaged range) through the chosen colormap and intensity range
RGB mode
False- or true-colour composite of the three chosen bands
PCA tab (after compute)
A principal component, or three PCs as RGB
Filters tab (after apply)
The filtered cube
Index / classification result
Shown as an overlay with a purple label and a ✕ Back to Original button
6.2 Mouse interaction
Scroll wheel
Zoom toward the cursor, 1× to 20×
Drag (when zoomed in)
Pan the image
Hover (Interactive ON)
Live spectrum of the pixel under the cursor
Click (Interactive ON)
Pin that pixel's spectrum
Drag (Multi Spectra ON, at 1×)
Draw an ROI rectangle; its mean ± std spectrum is added
Right-click
Context menu: Copy image, Download as PNG / PDF / SVG (annotations included)
Rectangle drawing (Multi Spectra, correlation seed, spectrum capture) only works at 1× zoom. At higher zoom, dragging pans instead. Press Reset zoom first.
6.3 Overlay buttons (on the image)
✂ Crop image
Top-left
Enters Crop Mode. Drag a rectangle (min 4 × 4 px) to crop the cube spatially. Click again to cancel.
⧉ Spectral crop
Top-left
Opens a dialog to trim the wavelength range (drop noisy edge bands)
↶ Undo crop (amber)
Top-left
Reverts the last spatial or spectral crop. Several levels are kept.
⟲ / ⟳ Rotate
Top-left
Rotates the cube 90° counter-clockwise / clockwise
↶ Undo rotation (amber)
Top-left
Reverts the last rotation
+ / −
Top-right
Zoom in / out
⤢ Reset zoom
Top-right
Back to 1× (shown only when zoomed)
Cropping and rotating change the pixel grid, so measurements, annotations and derived results are cleared afterwards.
6.4 Status strip (bottom-left)
x: … y: …
Pixel under the cursor (1-based)
lat°, lon°
Geographic position under the cursor (satellite scenes only)
ROI Draw (amber)
Multi Spectra is on
Crop Mode (green)
Next drag crops the image
Annotating (blue)
An annotation tool is active
6.5 Annotation toolbar (Explore tab)
A toolbar above the image lets you mark up the view for figures and reports. Annotations are drawn on top of the image and included in PNG/PDF/SVG downloads.
Pan
Annotation paused. The image behaves normally (hover, ROI, pan).
Move
Drag an annotation to reposition it
Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Ellipse, Freeform
Drag to draw
Polygon
Click vertices; double-click or Enter to close; Backspace removes a point
Text
Click to place; Enter commits, Shift+Enter adds a line; double-click to edit
Erase
Click an annotation to delete it
Colour, line thickness, font, font size
Style for new annotations
Undo (Ctrl+Z) / Clear
Remove last / all annotations
7. Right Panel — Data Info, Spectra & Table
7.1 Data Info
Always visible at the top of the right panel (collapsible).
Rows · Cols · Bands
Cube dimensions
λ Min · λ Max
Wavelength range
Source
File name, or satellite collection with resolution, scene ID and bounding box
Export
Opens the Export dialog, pre-loaded with the current tab's results
Metadata
Opens the full metadata viewer for the file
7.2 Spectra plot
Shows the live/pinned pixel spectrum and every Multi Spectra ROI (mean line with a ± std shaded band, in the ROI's colour).
⚙ Chart settings
Title, X/Y axis labels and units, reverse X or Y axis, fonts, and colours for title, labels, numbers, grid and background. The panel can be maximized.
Right-click
Copy as image, Download as PNG / PDF / SVG, Download spectrum as CSV
On the PCA tab this area is replaced by the PCA ROI plot, the Loadings plot and the Explained-variance plot.
7.3 Spectral values table
One row per wavelength and one column per ROI (or PC scores on the PCA tab).
Decimal places
Precision shown in the table
Export as CSV
Download the table
8. Tab-by-Tab Workflows
8.1 Explore
Load a file (sidebar Upload & View, My Files, Cloud Files, or the Satellite page).
Choose Band or RGB, move the sliders, and pick a colormap and intensity range.
Hover the image with Interactive ON to read spectra; click to pin one.
Turn Multi Spectra ON and drag rectangles to compare regions' mean spectra.
Optionally annotate, crop, rotate, or enhance (Fast / AI Enhanced).
Export the image (right-click) or spectra (chart right-click or table CSV).
8.2 Measure
Set the scale (Pixels / Auto / Custom), pick a distance or area tool, draw on the image, and read or export the results. See Measurement_Guide.md for full detail.
8.3 PCA
Set Components in the parameter bar and click Compute PCA.
The sidebar switches to Visualization (PCA): view one PC (Band) or three PCs as RGB.
The right panel shows the PCA ROI plot, loadings and explained variance.
Export offers the PCA datacube (and the source cube).
Leaving the PCA tab returns the viewer to normal band view. See PCA_Guide.md.
8.4 Filters
Pick Mean Spatial, Mean Spectral or 3D Gaussian, and set the kernel size or sigma.
Apply. The viewer and all later analyses use the filtered cube, shown by the Active: label.
Reset to original data removes the filter. Export offers the filtered datacube.
8.5 Spectral Library
Choose a method (SAM recommended) and Top N.
Select which libraries to match against (built-in, your custom spectra, favourites).
Click a pixel or draw a capture ROI, then Match. Results and the spectral overlay appear under Data Info.
Optionally classify the whole image. A legend appears, and hovering the map shows each pixel's class.
Open the ECOSTRESS browser (floating window: drag to move, drag its edges to resize, double-click its title bar to maximize) to find and load reference spectra.
See SpectralLibrary_Guide.md.
8.6 Indices
Pick an index (hover for its formula) and a colour map. Click Compute.
The index map replaces the viewer, with a Statistics card (min, max, mean, std, median) and the exact bands used.
Adjust the display range to threshold, and opacity to blend with the base image.
Export offers the index map as .mat or .csv. See VegetationIndices_Guide.md.
8.7 Clustering
Choose K-Means (set K) or DBSCAN (set epsilon and min samples), plus the scatter sample size and projection (PCA or UMAP).
Run Clustering. The cluster map appears on the left and a 3D scatter on the right.
Click a legend item or a 3D point to highlight that cluster; Show All resets.
Export offers the cluster map as .mat or .csv. See Clustering_Guide.md.
8.8 Machine Learning
Three sub-tabs, whose state persists while you switch main tabs
- Labeling: draw class ROIs (or use a band threshold for a binary mask), manage classes and colours, and save labels as .mat.
- Train: pick images or folders, choose a classifier and hyper-parameters, train, and review accuracy, macro F1 and per-class precision/recall. Download or save the weights as .onnx.
- Predict: choose weights (from this session, cloud or your computer) and images, run prediction, and blend the result over the image with an opacity slider.
See MachineLearning_Guide.md.
8.9 Compare
Click Compare (turns orange). A second panel appears, marked B, next to image A.
Load image B by dropping a file, choosing from cloud storage, or searching a satellite scene.
Choose B's view mode (band / RGB / index) or click Sync to copy A's settings.
Switch between side-by-side and swipe (overlay with a draggable divider). In swipe view, you can change the divider direction and swap the images.
Click Compare again to close the panel.
8.10 3D View
Choose Orthogonal Slices or Spectral Stack.
Slices: move the XY (Band), XZ (Row) and YZ (Col) sliders and toggle each plane.
Stack: set the number of layers, layer opacity and stack height.
Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, right-drag to pan. Right-click to download PNG/PDF/SVG. See 3DCube_Guide.md.
8.11 Satellite Data
Opens a separate page: draw or upload an ROI on the map, tick satellite sources, set the date range and cloud limit, Search Scenes, then Load into Workspace. The Help button in its header opens the Satellite help tab. See Satellite_Data_Workflow.md.
9. Export Dialog
Opened from Data Info → Export. The dialog title names the tab (Export — PCA, Export — Indices, …) and lists only what that tab produced, so an export never silently returns the untouched source cube.
Include
The tab's datacube or result: datacube, filtered datacube, PCA datacube, index map (.mat/.csv), cluster map (.mat/.csv) or classification map (.mat/.csv). Tick one or several.
Graphs & images
Plots and images the tab is currently showing
Tables
Tables the tab produced, e.g. the measurements table (CSV)
Metadata report
Adds a report of the file's metadata
Save to
This computer (choose the file name and location) or Cloud (My Files) (pick a folder and type a name)
Download / Save to Cloud
Runs the export. Several selected items are bundled together.
10. Other Pages
Satellite Data Browser
Toolbar → Satellite Data
Map, ROI tools, source tree, saved regions, scene search, index time series
Help
Toolbar → Help, or ? in any parameter bar
One tab per tool: overview, workflow, parameters, outputs, tips, limitations
Team
Toolbar → Team
Create a team, invite and remove members (Admin / Member), team storage, shared files (Open in viewer)
Plans
Toolbar → Plans, or any locked tab
Plan comparison and upgrade
My Account
Toolbar → Account
Current plan and included features, payment history with invoice view and PDF download
Idle timeout: after a period of inactivity an amber banner warns that you will be logged out in 2 minutes. Click Stay Logged In to continue.
11. Keyboard & Mouse Reference
Any image
Scroll wheel
Zoom (1×–20×) toward the cursor
Visualizer
Drag (zoomed)
Pan
Visualizer
Click (Interactive ON)
Pin pixel spectrum
Visualizer
Drag (Multi Spectra ON, 1×)
Draw ROI
Visualizer / charts
Right-click
Copy / download menu
Measure / Labeling
Right-drag or middle-drag
Pan while zoomed (left button keeps drawing)
Polygon / Path tools
Double-click or Enter
Finish shape
Polygon / Path tools
Backspace
Remove last vertex
Polygon / Path tools
Escape
Abandon shape
Measure / annotations
Ctrl+Z
Undo last item
Measure
Delete
Delete selected measurement
Text annotation
Enter / Shift+Enter
Commit / new line
3D View
Drag / scroll / right-drag
Rotate / zoom / pan
12. Interface Troubleshooting
Tabs greyed out with a lock
No file loaded yet, or your plan doesn't include the tab. Hover the tab to see which.
Dragging pans instead of drawing an ROI
You are zoomed in. Click ⤢ Reset zoom. ROI rectangles draw only at 1×.
No spectrum when hovering
Interactive is OFF, or Multi Spectra / a drawing mode is active.
Image looks black or washed out
Click Reset to auto on the intensity slider, or try another colormap or band.
Measurements or annotations disappeared
A new file was loaded, or the image was cropped or rotated. These change the pixel grid.
Sliders say Band instead of nm
The file has no wavelength metadata, so band indices are used.
Index or class overlay is stuck on the image
Click ✕ Back to Original on the purple label.
Want a fresh start without reloading
Use ↺ Reset workspace in the sidebar header.
A new feature is missing
Hard-refresh the browser (Ctrl+Shift+R) to load the latest version.
IDCubeCloud documentation — Workspace & Interface Guide. September 2026.
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