VerySpatial » Remote Sensing

Data Fusion Contest

Jesse — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:39:49 +0000

The 2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest is up and running and something that you should think about participating in. While with ever increasing spatial and spectral resolutions in the variety of imagery and elevation data available now-a-days has reduced the need for certain data fusion products, it is also creating new opportunities to fuse the new data options. This year’s contest is based on data made available by Astrium, Digital Globe, and the USGS CLICK.

The Data Fusion Contest is designed to investigate the potential of multi-modal/multi-temporal fusion of very high spatial resolution imagery. This year, participants will download three different sets of images (optical, SAR, and LIDAR) over the downtown of San Francisco and each participant will get to choose their own research topic to work with.

The contest is open to everyone and the deadline for submission (of the paper) is May 1, 2012. The entry details and prize list are available on the contest website.

Good Luck!

Conserving the Night Sky

Jeff — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:26:29 +0000

Is your portion of the night sky polluted by artificial light? Check out this really slick Google Map interface I found on the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) web site . For over 22 years, the IDA has been advocating to keep our night sky clean of light pollution. Their reasons go beyond astronomy purposes and have provided resources for legislation that would both reduce night sky lighting and provide very large amounts of energy savings to the global economy.

Click on the image to go directly to map viewer

Data for the map comes from the NGDC, where you can find some links to more interactive maps and other imagery services.

NASA Updates Topographic Maps

Frank — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:04:12 +0000

NASA has teamed with Japan’s Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center to create a new topographic map covering 99% of the Earth’s landmass. The maps are created using two sets of data from Japan’s ASTER sensor which are slightly offset from one another. Merging the data creates a 3D look like Google Earth’s topographic display. The elevation measurements are 30 meters apart. The real benefit here is that it’s the first global elevation model and it’s freely available for anyone in the world to use. Furthermore, since it’s using the existing ASTER sensor, new models can be built often, which allows for significant change detection from year to year. That’s especially important in areas like West Virginia, where mining techniques can have a significant impact on the topography. Watch the video at the link for more information and some great visuals!

Via Gizmodo

NRO desclassifies 2 satellite series

Jesse — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 02:56:18 +0000

Wind up the hoopla as, on September 17th, the NRO declassified the GAMBIT and HEXAGON series satellites. Gizmodo has an interesting photo collection while over on the NRO website there are various documents including fact sheets, histories and videos about the satellites.

The Birth and Death of Irene as Seen From Space

Frank — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:19:27 +0000

NOAA just released a fascinating video showing the birth and death of hurricane Irene as seen from space. The video was created from imagery captured by the GOES-13 weather satellite. This lovely new satellite captures a view every 30 minutes and has been running for a little over a year (more to be found about this satellite at the link).

Via Wired

National Parks From Space

Frank — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:38:21 +0000

Wired has a beautiful article highlighting the views of US National Parks as seen from space. The views are simply breathtaking. I think a lot of people in the US forget our National Park system features some truly majestic and amazing places on the Earth. Looking at them from space gives a whole new appreciation of their wonder, if you ask me. Furthermore, it highlights how critical remote sensing is to our modern existence. Having this type of data available isn’t just beautiful, it’s important for understanding how our land changes over time.

Each entry features a little background on the park and a couple of views from various sources. The vast majority of the data comes from NASA’s Earth Observatory site. There are a number of GeoEye images and one from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Cover Facility as well.

Storm Tracks Move Toward The Poles

Frank — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:19:37 +0000

Climate models have predicted this for years, but it’s never been observed… until now. Ars Technica discusses the issue in brief. For the non-physical geographers out there (of which I count myself), storm tracks are the mid-latitude storm patterns that bring most of the precipitation to the heavy population centers in the world. As the climate changes, these storm tracks should gravitate to the poles. Scientists have been using data from The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project to attempt to track the movement of storm tracks. They note lots of issues with the data, but repeated sampling and analysis methods have shown a clear trend – the tracks are moving as predicted. On top of that, apparently we’ve lost 2-3% of our total cloud cover worldwide!

So what’s the takeaway from all of this? It seems to me that the issues with the data combined with the need to track this stuff in a more comprehensive and accessible way point to one major conclusion – we need more satellites to get more accurate and timelier data. It really doesn’t matter where you fall on the climate change issue. Better information can only lead to a more informed scientific community and public, which is always a good thing.

ESRI UC 2011 – Jeff’s First Exposition Hall Tour

Jeff — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 04:34:10 +0000

On Tuesday at the ESRI UC I spent the majority of my day wandering through the many tables and displays set up in the exposition hall. At first I was overwhelmed by the size of the exhibition hall and the number of exhibitors but as I walked through the displays I became impressed with the number of ingenious ways that society makes use of GIS.

ESRI had a fantastic set up this year with their showcase featuring workstations set up to help with specific skill sets or applications regarding ArcGIS. Each station was staffed with knowledgeable assistants to help with your questions or comments. I stopped by the Training and Certification to inquire about ESRI’s new technical certification program. If you haven’t checked it out lately you should as large changes from their past instructor certification program have taken place.

Finally, I got the urge to enter drawings that many of the vendors were offering. One such company was offering a large remote controlled helicopter and I couldn’t resist. That entry led to a conversation with Bill Emison of Merrick & Company. Bill informed me that Merrick & Company were demonstrating Lidar processing software and gave me the tour of their product Merrick Advanced Remote Sensing Software (MARS).

All I can say is wow! The software processes millions of points super fast! After my whiplash settled down, Bill showed me some of the software’s capabilities in generating different GIS friendly formats, generating TIN surfaces, classification tools, and filtering abilities. Merrick & Company provides a free viewer and a 30 day evaluation of the full viewer. Definitely worth checking out if you make heavy use of Lidar data especially since it exports to so many usable formats.

BBC talks about CryoSat

Jesse — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 02:51:26 +0000

With the roll out of Cryosat’s first sea-ice map the BBC has posted (reposted?) an interview between Jonathan Amos, Science writer with BBC (does a lot of the space topics) and Dr Katherine Giles about how Cryosat works…which most of you already know, but it is a great description for a broad audience. Take a listen:

New Pyramids Found Through Remote Sensing

Frank — Sun, 29 May 2011 20:04:16 +0000

Finding new pyramids in Egypt! Apparently a team out of NASA used IR cameras to find underground rooms of 17 new pyramids. It also found 1,000 tombs and 3,000 new settlements. Archeology through remote sensing. What’s cooler than THAT? Indiana Jones would be jealous