Monday, November 8, 2010

Remote Sensing and Image Processing thoughts

Hi all,

One of the challenges facing this project on every level is the amount we have to learn and the time we have available for courses. Last weeks image processing intro was no exception. We needed an opportunity to introduce the process so you would have a chance to become familiar with what is involved. Don't fret if you didn't finish in class or had some difficulty, this will take a little time and we will be working together as we go.

We will be using this forum to discuss how remote sensing and image processing can actually be used in your projects, how to work with different scales of imagery (including AEROKATS, Landsat, MODIS and others), and what types of products are available to help you and your students in their climate investigations. Many of these products will be in a preprocessed format, and will not require all the steps we use with the AEROKATS imagery. That being said, there is value in understanding the process required to collect, preprocess, process and analyze raw data in order to convert it into real information.

Dr. Xie has provided revised versions of last weeks files with some modifications. We will hand those out tonight. We will also be talking about how we will be providing additional PD.

I am looking forward to collaborating with all of you on how we turn this process into something that can be assimilated into a classroom environment. We have lots of different areas of expertise in this group and we will be drawing on everyone to make this happen.

See you tonight!


6 comments:

  1. Just a quick question? Will we be able to take many aerial photos and overlap them to generate an "interwoven map" of an area with the software we have available? Will we be importing files into ArcGIS/ArcView for this purpose? Okay, a few questions...My mind is slipping as I age, but are we getting a probe for our kites that measures carbon dioxide concentrations? Gracias! Hasta luego!

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you collect good Ground Control Points with a GPS (or iPad) within the observation areas, you should be able to do a reasonable job registering these images. We can talk about options for doing this.

    As far far as measuring CO2, we have a couple of probes now that can do this on the ground level. I am not sure that we will have anything that can fly, but there may be other indirect ways to do this. Tom Green is going to develop some lessons for us using the CO2 units we have.

    We will be handing out Kestral Personal Weather Stations tonight. One of our Aeropods, (the Air Column Profiler) uses this as its payload.

    There has been a bit of discussion as to development of other payloads for the Aeropods (including CO2), and the folks at NASA are interested to hear what we come up with. Lets keep that topic open. I think we could do a lot here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, you are right that a good image registration can be done with good Ground Control Points. It will help if a brief intro of GIS could be provided. I will be happy to bring a copy of ONE year ArcGIS (ArcEdit version) 10.0 License for all our teachers, if you think the software is useful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Is it possible to send the Kestral units up on the kites, and if so what is the best way to attach the unit to the kites. Is there a way to record data at different altitudes?

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is possible to fly the Kestral without the kites. We have an Aeropod designed just for that purpose. I would be happy to make arrangements for you to try it. The pod is designed to keep it relatively stable and pointed into the wind.

    You can set the sample rate on the kestral through the menu. I believe the default is once per hour. For flying I recommend setting it to every two seconds, and turn off the auto shutdown feature. It will then log data for the entire flight. The data collected includes altitude. The data can be downloaded to your computer and viewed without the software that comes with the kestral. You can practice this with the kestral and the weather vane at ground level first.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good point Yichun. We will need to cover som GIS material soon. I'll see if I make any process on getting the license for the districts this week.

    ReplyDelete