The eCognition suite offers three components which can be used stand-alone or in combination to solve image analysis tasks. eCognition Developer is a development environment for object-based image analysis. It is used in earth sciences to develop rule sets (or applications) for the analysis of remote sensing data. eCognition Architect enables non-technical users to configure, calibrate and execute image analysis workflows created in eCognition Developer. eCognition Server software provides a processing environment for batch execution of image analysis jobs.

eCognition software is utilized in numerous remote sensing and geospatial application scenarios and environments, using a variety of data types:

• Generic: Rapid Mapping, Change Detection, Object Recognition
• By environment: Diverse Landcover Mapping, Urban Analysis (i.e. impervious surface area analysis for taxation, property assessment for insurance, inventory of green infrastructure), Forestry (i.e. biomass measurement, species identification, firescar measurement), Agriculture (i.e. regional planning, precision farming, crisis response), Marine and Riparian (i.e. ecosystem evaluation, disaster management, harbor monitoring).
• Other: Defense, security, atmosphere and climate

eCognition’s base technology is based on Cognition Network Technology (CNT), also known as Definiens Cognition Network Technology. It serves for extracting information from images using a hierarchy of image objects (groups of pixels), as opposed to traditional pixel processing methods.

It emulates the human mind’s cognitive powers, and the patented image segmentation and classification processes, encapsulate a method to render knowledge in a semantic network. CNT examines pixels not in isolation, but in context. It builds up a picture iteratively, recognizing groups of pixels as objects. It uses the color, shape, texture and size of objects as well as their context and relationships to draw conclusions and inferences, similar to human analysis.