EEAS 87.506 Introduction to Remote Sensing
From Wiki
(Source: ASPRS)
Contents |
Syllabus
Instructor: Alex Brown
- (978) 934-3199 desk, (617) 308-9456 mobile
- Web: http://gis.uml.edu/abrown2
- Email: alexander_brown@uml.edu
Office: OH521 rear
- 5-6 PM before class, or
- By appointment
- (978) 934-4352 -- no voicemail (sorry); please use numbers above
Web page for this course:
INTRODUCTION TO COURSE
(Source: ASPRS)
Remote sensing refers to any technique whereby information about objects and the environment is obtained from a distance. A bat's navigation system is one form of remote sensing. In this case, acoustic waves are used to "see" objects and determine their position. Remote sensing is one of the most important ways of collecting location information for natural and human-made features and phenomena on the surface of the earth -- geospatial information.
Geospatial information has become essential for decision making in tasks as varied as:
| planning urban growth | managing a forest |
| assessing insurance claims | siting an automatic teller machine |
| routing 911 vehicles | drilling a well |
| assessing groundwater contamination | designing a cellular phone network |
| guiding "intelligent" vehicles | assessing the market for manufactured goods |
| managing a city | operating a utility |
| improving wildlife habitat | monitoring air quality |
| assessing environmental impact | designing a road |
| studying human health statistics | minimizing water pollution |
| undertaking real estate transactions | preserving wetlands |
| mapping natural hazards and disasters | providing famine relief, and |
| studying the causes and consequences of global climate change. |
Remote sensing for collection of geospatial information is based on measuring variations in how electromagnetic waves interact with objects. The wavelengths typically involved include not only visible light, but also near-infrared, mid-infrared, thermal and microwave energy. Hence, remote sensing systems often permit us to greatly expand our spectral view of the earth and "see" the world much more clearly than we can with the unaided eye or any other sensor restricted to visible wavelengths. Today, an extremely broad range of remote sensing systems are used to collect data from both aerial and spaceborne platforms. These systems include everything from aerial cameras to earth orbiting multispectral sensors, and imaging radar systems.
Remote sensing is a rapidly changing and broadly based field. Professionals with backgrounds in such diverse areas as agriculture, archaeology, business, ecology, engineering, forestry, geography, geology, range management, urban and regional planning, water resources, wetland ecology, wildlife management, manufacturing and machine vision, meteorology, and oceanography use the information processed from remotely sensing data.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
(Source: ASPRS)
This is an introductory course for generalists and students working in fields where spatial information is an important element of decision making, with strong interest in the foundations of remote sensing. No science background is required other than strong skills and experience as a technical user of personal computer systems; but basic physical science and mathematics are extremely valuable.
Data and tools
Remote sensing is a mature field in the sense that image data has been collected systematically for over a century from the air, and for a generation from space. This long archive of image data in an increasing variety of imaging modes has been the basis of many important scientific discoveries and technical advances, many of which required the most advanced computer systems of their time. This moment in history provides an extraordinary wealth of data from this archive -- in particular, the Landsat archive, which is being opened to free public access in 2009 -- at the same time as extraordinary computing power and storage size is available in personal computers. With software tools adapted to users in fields such as natural resource management, agriculture, forestry, environmental engineering and planning, this wealth of data can now be used to support planning for this century's challenges -- and can be used by students to explore this field.
Remote sensing systems, like Geographic Information Systems (GIS), depend on software tools that can combine many sources of spatial location information into graphic images, for visualization, exploration, analysis, decision support, and presentation. These software tools, such as ERDAS Imagine, ENVI, and IDRISI, use mathematics to extract information from remote sensing images and other data, and to model phenomena not only in physical terms, but also biological, social, economic, political -- and many others. This foundation of mathematical image processing methods is an important part of the subject of remote sensing, but this introduction will emphasize applications rather than these mathematical methods, and treat them as a toolbox.
Application areas
Application areas to be discussed will be selected based on students' fields and interests, and may include:
- Applications in environmental, earth and atmospheric sciences, including:
- Environmental assessment
- Water resource applications
- Geologic resource applications
- Land use and land cover mapping
- Agricultural and soil mapping
- Wetland mapping
- Forestry applications
- Wildlife ecology applications
- Urban and regional planning applications, including:
- Using spatial information in decision support
- Satellites, Settlements, and Human Health
- Remote Sensing of Natural and Man-made Hazards and Disasters
- Archeological Remote Sensing of Early Human Settlements
- Estimating Population and Census Data
- Documenting Dynamics of Human Settlements
- Global climate change, including:
- basic science
- impacts and risks
- adaptation and mitigation
- human development alternatives
- resource use alternatives, esp. energy
Land cover and land use change
(Source: Woods Hole Research Center)
The model application introduced in this course, is analysis of imagery for classification of land use and land cover, and land use change over time, using the Landsat archives and image processing software tools. Examples are chosen from the Woods Hole Research Center studies of rapid land use change in New England which may be well known to students, which can be confirmed directly in ground truth, and which may be reproducible using Landsat data and remote sensing software tools:
Student objectives
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Understand and identify concepts and foundations of remote sensing
- Radiation principles
- Energy interactions in atmosphere
- Energy interactions with surface features
- Spatial location information and geographic information systems
- Understand and identify remote sensing imaging technologies
- Airborne and space-based analog and digital photography
- Photogrammetry
- Thermal passive imaging: infrared, microwave
- Active imaging: radar, LIDAR
- Airborne and space-based analog and digital photography
- Understand and identify sources of remote sensing data
- USGS, MassGIS aerial orthophoto archives
- Landsat MSS, TM, ETM+ archives
- AVHRR SST, NDVI archive
- Ikonos, SPOT, IRS, MODIS as available
- Understand image data quality, preparation, and processing
- Multispectral image characteristics
- Spectral properties of surface features
- Spectral signatures of natural and built features
- Understand and use basic tools for modeling and analysis
- Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), interpolation, terrain and hydrologic analysis
- Built feature analysis including cadastral and GIS overlays
- Natural and manmade spatial process modeling
- Map algebra, database queries, statistical operations (including spreadsheets)
- Spatial analysis for decision support
- Understand applications of remote sensing to problems in human development
- Using spatial information in decision support
- Satellites, Settlements, and Human Health
- Remote Sensing of Natural and Man-made Hazards and Disasters
- Archeological Remote Sensing of Early Human Settlements
- Estimating Population and Census Data
- Documenting Dynamics of Human Settlements
- Understand principles of cartography, graphic design, and modes of presentation and use
- Spatial information presentation and publication as visual communication
- Visual requirements and standard symbology in student's field
- Labels, legends and metadata
- End use objectives, fitness criteria, and quality measurement
- Visual requirements and standard symbology in student's field
- Map, chart, poster, other printed forms
- Electronic presentation, exploration, interaction, and publication of spatial information (including Google Earth)
- Spatial information presentation and publication as visual communication
(Perspective view of a DEM provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Source: ASPRS)
Final project
Students are expected to bring or find areas of specific application interest. The final requirement for this course is a presentation in visual form, of a problem in the student's field, using similar tools and methods.
COURSE MEETINGS
Fifteen weekly meetings in the OH521 GIS lab. Each session will consist of lectures and demonstrations, a break, and a lab session. The lab provides 16 PCs with appropriate software installed; it is accessible to registered students during normal school hours using the cardlock on the door, when the room is not in use by another class.
RECOMMENDED TEXTS
Of these two texts, the first is preferred as an introduction for nonspecialists in urban studies, architecture, planning, civil engineering, public health, and other human-infrastructure related fields. It provides a readable basic introduction to the science and technology of remote sensing, and an excellent survey of remote sensing applications in these fields:
- Estimating Population and Census Data
- Satellites, Settlements, and Human Health
- Remote Sensing of Natural and Man-made Hazards and Disasters
- Archeological Remote Sensing of Early Human Settlements
- Documenting Dynamics of Human Settlements
This book is published and sold by American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, a professional society, and is available to students at a significant discount; a valid student ID must be provided to the ASPRS Bookstore.
The second text is a well-known, respected textbook and technical reference on remote sensing, which has been through many editions in recent years to keep up with changes in technology. This book is recommended for a broader and more technical background in remote sensing, and as a reference. Any recent edition (after 2000) is useful; older editions are available used at significant savings.
(ISBN links below link to online book vendors using a Wikimedia feature. No recommendations are implied.)
Remote Sensing of Human Settlements (Ridd & Hipple, eds.)
Remote Sensing of Human Settlements
(Volume 5, The Manual of Remote Sensing, 3rd Ed.)
Andrew B. Rencz, Editor-in-Chief; Volume Editors: Merrill K. Ridd & James D. Hipple
- Table of Contents and review
- Publisher: American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ASPRS)
- 800+ pp. 380+ figures.
- Hardcover. 2006.
- ISBN 1-57083-077-0
Purchase at ASPRS Online Bookstore. List Price: $145. ASPRS Member Price: $100. Student Price: $70. (Students must fax valid student ID to ASPRS to obtain student pricing)
Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation (Lillesand, Kiefer & Chipman)
Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation
by Thomas M. Lillesand, Ralph W. Kiefer, Jonathan W. Chipman
4th, 5th, or 6th edition (2000-2007)
- Table of Contents
- 6th ed November 2007
- ISBN 978-0-470-05245-7
- Hardcover, 768 pages
- List $123.95
- Older editions are available used
- 5th N.America: ISBN 978-0-471-15227-9 2003
- 5th Intl: ISBN 978-0-471-45152-5 Jan 2004
- 4th ed: ISBN 978-0-471-25515-4 Oct 1999
- 3rd ed: ISBN 978-0-471-57783-6 Feb 1994 (not recommended)
- 2nd ed: ISBN 978-0-471-84517-1 Jan 1987 (not recommended)
- 1st ed: ISBN 978-0-471-02609-9 Jan 1979 (not recommended)
OTHER COURSE MATERIALS
Because mastery of this software depends on thorough exploration, a student copy of remote sensing software for personal computer use is very strongly recommended. A one-year student license for Idrisi, a well-respected academic remote sensing and GIS software system for Windows PCs, is available for $95 with proof of student status.
Several free software packages will also be available in the lab for classroom and personal use. Some exercises will introduce Quantum GIS and GRASS, an older legacy raster GIS system from an engineering heritage, which can be an effective tool for remote sensing analysis.
(Source: ASPRS)
GRADING PROCEDURES
Your performance in this course will be graded primarily on the basis of successful use of these tools and methods in your own field of interest, not on textbook exercises. During the course, you must complete a total of seven assignments. These will often be a combination of exercises, and applications to your own field. You are expected to submit each of the assignments by the posted due dates; I will hand them back with comments and a grade. You may wish to revise assignments based on the feedback you were given. Revised assignments will be regraded and the second grade will replace the first for that assignment.
The objective of most work in GIS and remote sensing is effective visual communication. The final deliverable for this course is a project in which these methods and data are applied to a topic in your field, and results are prepared for presentation; an opportunity to present this work to each other, or to publish an interactive web map, will be provided at the end of the term. Successful exploration and visual communication of spatial information is the goal. Collaboration is encouraged, if you share interests with other students, and your project is ambitious enough for two or more participants. In such cases, separate contributions must be clearly identified, and may be graded separately to some extent, although success of the group effort will far outweigh individual contributions in grading.
Grade allocation is as follows. I may give additional unannounced quizzes and brief exercises, scored or unscored, during the course, and may change this grade allocation as appropriate (and noted below).
- Seven assignments: 10% each, total 70%
- Final project: 30%
- For more information on the final project please follow this link.
Although some assignments are necessarily graded based on judgements you and I together will make of your work, your final grade will be on a straight scale with number grades; there is no curve here. Numerical scoring of the final project and other assignments involving creative or nonuniform content will be done using this rubric, in discussion with you. Your final course grade will be determined as follows: 90-100%=A; 80-89.9=B; 70-79.9=C; 60-69.9=D; below 60% is an F. I reserve the right to alter these grade cutoffs.
ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY
You are encouraged, and possibly even required, to complete many assignments collaboratively. Thus, many of the traditional concerns about academic honesty are not relevant here. However, the collaborative nature of much of the work in this course does require that clear guidelines about collaboration be set. When an assignment is done individually, you may consult any people you wish during the thinking and planning phases of the assignment. At the point at which you begin to write, your work is expected to be your own. When an assignment is done collaboratively, I must be notified by email of your intentions, and all group members are expected to contribute approximately equally to the planning, execution, and reporting of the work. The inclusion of your name on a piece of submitted work is interpreted as your certification that you did your fair share of the group work.
When making use of external sources such as books, published papers, web resources, etc., you are expected to cite sources of data, software, ideas and information that are not your own, and to enclose in quotation marks and properly attribute any material that you take verbatim from other sources. Such quotations should generally be brief, a few sentences at most.
Consult UML's academic policies for additional details.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you have medical information to share with the instructor, please make an appointment as soon as possible. I will make every effort to provide for individual needs. Please note that this course is inherently unsuitable for persons with severe visual disability.
(This image was generated from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), and illustrates the October mean total ozone from 1979-1994 and 1996. Provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Source: ASPRS.)
