Review notes in Remote Sensing

INTRODUCTION TO REMOTE SENSING

Remote Sensing
-Measurement/acquisition of information of
some property of an object or phenomenon,
by a recording device that is not in physical
or intimate contact with the object or
phenomenon under study.1
-Practice of deriving information about the
Earths land and water surfaces using images
acquired from an overhead perspective,
using electromagnetic (EM) radiation in one
or more regions of the EM spectrum,
reflected or emitted from the Earths surface 2
Diverse Need for Geospatial Data
-A land administrator should have an
updated property boundary record. Property
boundaries coincide w/ observable terrain
features needs to be surveyed.
-A civil engineer has to design a highway.
Balancing out cut and fill volumes in road
construction is needed for optimum
alignment of new road. Thus needing
information about shape of ground surface.
Calculation of actual transportation costs of
material can be based on re-surveying the
terrain relief after construction.
-An urban planner wanted to identify areas
of informal settlement. Determining different
types of houses and their configuration. The
municipality may furnish infrastructural
improvements based on a development plan
for the identified areas. The urban planner
will have to monitor impact of the provisions
before proceeding to further planning.
-An agronomist is forecasting overall
agricultural production of a large area. The
size of fields per crop and data on biomass
production is needed to estimate the yield.
Observing soil properties and monitoring
degradation will improve forecasts.
-An environment analyst is worried about
pollutants of waste disposal sites. To detect
dump composition and determine volumes is
needed.

-A climatologist needs to understand El Nio

phenomenon. The data on special patterns
of sea surface temperature at different
times, data of sea levels and sea currents,
etc. is needed for this.

Important Key Notes in the History of

Remote Sensing
1800 Discovery of infrared by Sir William
Hershel
1873 Theory of electromagnetic energy
developed by
James Clerk
Maxwell
1960-1970 First use of term remote
sensing
1972 Launch of Landsat 1
1990s Global Remote Sensing Systems,
LiDARs
PRINCIPLES OF ELECTROMAGNETIC (EM)
RADIATION
Radiation comes from
Sun (key radiation source)
Universe
(big bang)
Atoms, Molecules on earth
Cosmic
Rays
Earths Atmosphere
Secondary
Radiations

Electromagnetic Radiation
Wave model how it propagates
through space
Particle model how it interacts with
matter
EM Wave
Composed of both electric & magnetic
vectors orthogonal (at 90o angles) to
one another
Travels at light speed (c = 3 x 108 m/s)

c
= = o
v
n
Where: wavelength
v frequency
n refractive
index

Inverse relationship b/w Wavelength

and Frequency
Wavelength - distance b/w consecutive
maxima/minima
Frequency number
of
wavelengths
passing a point per
unit time

Electromagnetic Spectrum

Particle Model: Radiation from Atomic

Sources

EM Radiation is composed of many

individual units called photons
o Photons have energy &
momentum
o Quanta are discrete packets of
energy
Quantum theory of EM radiation
o Energy is transferred in discrete
packets
Photoelectric Effect

E=hv
E=

hc

Plancks Law
-The energy emitted by an
object is a function of its
temperature
Blackbody Radiation
-All objects above absolute zero
(-273 oC or 0 K) emit EM Energy
-Blackbody absorbs & radiates energy at
maximum possible rate per unit area at each
wavelength for a given temperature
Stefan-Boltzmann Law

M = T
M

total emitted

radiation (Watts/m2)

Stefan-Boltzmann

cons. (5.6697 x 10-8 Wm2 -4

K )

absolute

temperature (K)
Atmospheric Energy-Matter Interaction
Refraction
Absorption
Scattering
Reflectance
Reduce information content of remotely
sensed data
- imagery loses contrast
- dark pixels

Requires atmospheric
correction/calibration
Radiance

Terrain Energy-Matter Interaction

Radiant flux ()
-Time rate of energy flow onto, off
to/through surface
-Measured in Watts (W)
-Its characteristics & interaction w/ Earths
surface is critical to remote sensing
Radiation Budget
Equation

incident = reflected + absorbed + transmitted

Conservation of Radiant Energy

Hemispherical Reflectance

reflected
incident

Hemispherical Absorptance

absorbed
incident

Hemispherical Transmittance

transmitted
incident

=1( + )
The net effect of absorption of radiation by most
substance in that the energy is converted to heat,
causing a subsequent rise in the substances
temperature

Radiant Flux Density

Amount of radiant flux intercepted divided
by area of plane surface (measured in Wm-2)

Radiance
Radiant intensity per unit of projected
source area in a specified direction
(measured in Wm-2sr-1)

Soils
Soil moisture decreases reflectance
Coarse soil (dry) has relatively high
reflectance
Surface roughness, organic matter,
iron oxide affect reflectance
Soil Moisture Content

Vegetation
Chlorophyll in healthy vegetation
absorbs blue & red, reflects green
If chlorophyll production is disrupted,
plant absorbs less blue and red, and
red reflectance increases
Vegetation has a very high reflection
rate at NIR wavelength range.
Reflection or absorption at MIR range,
the water absorption bands

Water
Water transmits at visible bands and
absorbs at NIR bands w/c detects
them most easily
Water surface, suspended material,
and bottom of water body can affect
spectral response

J.B. Campbell and R.H. Wynne, Introduction

to Remote Sensing
2

American Society for Photogrammetry and

Remote Sensing, ASPRS

IMAGE PROCESSING
Goal: to turn remotely sensed data into
information

Image Processing Steps

1) Data Acquisition
4) Classification
2) Data Exploration
5) Postprocessing
3) Pre-processing 6) Accuracy Assessment
Data Acquisition
Need to identify:
Spatial Resolution
Spectral Resolution
Radiometric Resolution
Temporal Resolution
Extent
What objective and therefore budget
Pre/Post-processing
This is to establish the link between
Land Cover Variation & Spectral Response
Variation

Things to consider
Pre-processing and Post-processing
occurs before the classification map
These are covered as one topic for one
persons pre-processing is anothers
post-processing
Many of the techniques are
interchangeable and simply differ in
their purpose/goal
Band Combinations: Optical Imagery
Natural Color

Black-and-White Infrared

Panchromatic 1

Panchromatic 2

Color Infrared Model

Band Combinations: Multispectral

Imagery

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT
Process of improving visual appearance of
digital images
Conducted w/o regard of integrity of the
original data
-Enhanced images should not be used as
input for additional analytical techniques
-Further analysis should use original value
as input
Single-Image Manipulation
Contrast Manipulation
o Linear Stretch
o Histogram Equalization
o Density Slicing
Spatial feature manipulation
o Spatial Convolution Filtering
o Fourier Transform
Contrast Manipulation
Contrast brightness values present on an
image
Contrast enhancement alters each pixel
value in the old image to produce a new set
of values that exploits full range brightness
values.
Linear Stretch
Converts original digital values to a new
distribution, using new minimum &
maximum values specified (plus/minus 2
standard deviations from mean)
Algorithm then matches old min/max to
the new min/max (all old intermediate

values are scaled proportionally b/w new

min/max values)
Piecewise linear stretch original
brightness range divided into segments
before each segment was stretched
individually

Histogram Equalization
Reassigns digital values in the original
image brightness in the output image
are equally distributed among range of
output values
Applies a nonlinear function to reassign
brightness in the input image output

image approximates a uniform

distribution of intensities
Spreads range of brightness values but
preserves the peaks and valleys in the
histogram

Density Slicing
Done by arbitrarily dividing range of
brightness values in single band to
intervals w/ color assigned
Emphasize certain features that may be
represented in vivid colors