Ground truthing is the process of sending technicians to gather data in the field that either complements or disputes airborne

remote sensing data collected by aerial photography, satellite sidescan radar, or infrared images. The team of ground truthing scientists will be collecting detailed calibrations, measurements, observations, and samples of predetermined sites. From this data, scientists are able to identify land use or cover of the location and compare it to what is shown on the image. They then verify and update existing data and maps.

Groundtruth is simply observations or measurements made at or near the surface of the earth in support of an air or space-based remote sensing survey. It may also be referred to as ancillary data or reference data. Groundtruth may consist of several types of data acquired before, during, and after an image acquisition. Such measurements and observations may include, but are not limited to: field-based spectroscopic measurements (right) of representative materials of interest such as trees, shrubs, rock outcrops, soils, water, and manmade objects such as roads and buildings meterological conditions at time of overflight (including temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, etc.) spectroscopic measurements in support of future image calibration efforts (involves spectral measurements of large homogeneous, spectrally "flat" materials at the time of acquisition) chemical and biochemical measurements (left)such as chlorophyll content of tree canopies or chemical constituent identification within waterways rock and mineral analysis and collection including such things as thin section analysis, XRD analysis, permeability tests, grain size estimates, and simple hand sample identification field mapping of both biological and geological materials and their distributions, including gross species and lithological identification collection of previous work such as maps (near left), other chemical analyses, GIS information (far left), and any other remotely sensed data there might be photography of zones of sampling and measurement, both on foot and from the air locations of all zones of analysis, measurement, or photographs in accurate GPS coordinates, preferably in projection and datum of the image acquisition certain groundtruth elements may later be imported into a GIS atmosphere for further study and ease of manipulation

Mosaicing is one of the techniques of image processing which is useful for tiling digital images. Mosaicing is blending together of several arbitrarily shaped images to form one large radiometrically balanced image so that the boundaries between the original images are not seen. Any number of geocoded images can be blended together along userspecified cut lines (polygons). Mosaicing is a special case of geometric correction where registration takes place in the existing image. If ground control points (GCP) are collected the input image is transformed according to the derived polynomial into the output image. If

no GCPs are provided, but both images already have compatible georeferencing, then an appropriate translation and scaling will be applied instead of polynomial transformation. This technique is generally used on several images like remote sensed images, bio-medical images or other digital images. This paper attempts to develop a package for mosaicing multiple images. The work has been divided into three modules. Each module is run independently. These modules are (1) Images are displayed in overview, full resolution/zoomed modes, (2) Registration and layout file generation, (3) Polygon filling, blending and displaying of mosaiced images. These modules can be integrated to form a full-fledged system

GIS Digitization
The process of representing an analogue signal or an image by a discrete set of its points is known as Digitizing. This data after conversion is in the binary format, which is directly readable by computer. The data to be converted can be a text, an image, audio or a video. The analogue signals are variable whereas the digital format is the discrete one. These discrete units are called as bits. These bits (8) organized in groups are known as byte. The digital signals are mainly represented in the form of sequence of integers. These integers can be converted back to analogue signal that are approximately similar to the original analogue signals. Digitizing is done by reading an analogue signal A, and at regular time intervals, representing the value of A at that point by an integer. Types of Digitizing:

Manual Digitizing: It is done using digitizing tablet. The operator manually traces all the lines from his hardcopy map and creates identical digital map on the computer. It is very time consuming and level of accuracy is also not very good. Heads-up Digitizing: It is similar to manual digitizing in the way that lines have to be drawn manually but directly on the computer screen. So in this level of accuracy increases and time taken decreases. Interactive tracing method: It is improvement over Heads-up digitizing in terms of speed and accuracy. Automatic Digitizing: It is automated raster to vector conversion using image processing and pattern recognition techniques In this technique computer traces all the lines, which results in high speed and accuracy along with improved quality of images
Digitizing is the process by which coordinates from a map, image, or other sources of data are converted [1] into a digital format in a GIS. This process becomes necessary when available data is gathered in formats that cannot be immediately integrated with other GIS data. [edit]The

Digitizing Process

A puck used in Manual Digitizing.

Manual Digitizing In this method, the digitizer uses a digitizing tablet (also known as a digitizer, graphics tablet, or touch tablet) to trace the points, lines and polygons of a hard-copy map. This is done using a special magnetic pen, or stylus, that feeds information into a computer to create an identical, digital map. Some tablets use a mouse-like tool, called a puck, instead of a stylus. The puck has a small window with cross-hairs which allows for greater precision and pinpointing map features.
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Manual Digitizing is still a useful technique because of its ability to accurately copy maps in poor condition. Computers have a higher risk of error when interpreting information contained on a faded, stained, or poor quality map or image. Manual Digitization is limited by the visual acuity and accuracy of the digitizer. The process ,also, is more time consuming than Heads-up digitizing.
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Heads-up digitizing of building outlines performed in ArcMap10

Heads-up Digitizing This method involves scanning a map or image into a computer. The digitizer then traces the points, lines and polygons using digitizing software. This method of digitizing has been named "heads-up" digitizing because the focus of the user is up on the screen, rather than down on a digitizing tablet.

It has largely replaced Manual digitizing because of its speed and accuracy. It is, however, limited to using scans of high quality maps and images. Since the tracing is done on a computer, lines can be set to snap together and polygons can be programmed to share an edge thus removing accidental sliver polygons. Heads-up digitizing also reduces or removes the need for digitizing tables. Digitizing tips Search for the digitized data first. Digitizing is very time consuming and often the data is already digitized.

Use multiple geographic sources when digitizing. Referencing such sources as scanned topographical maps, orthophotos, remotely sensed data, and in situ data will increase the accuracy of the digitized data.

Triangulation refers to the process of receiving satellite signals from multiple sources to pinpointprecise locations using the global positioning system (GPS).