HIRES Remote Sensing

Dr. Brian Vant-Hull       bvanthull@ccny.cuny.edu

Remote Sensing

The basics of remote sensing will be covered in this section of the course.   Visible and thermal infrared radiation are both part of the electromagnetic spectrum so follow the same rules of transmission, scattering and absorption.  Mathematically manipulating the observed intensities from each scene lets us estimate vegetation, temperature, and other quantities beyond what we would just see with our eyes.   You will learn how to take data from satellites to make such images and estimations.

Scoring:         3 classworks x 20 pts each

                        1 final project x 40 pts          100 pts total

Wednesday July 7

  • Satellite Orbits
  • Collimation
  • The Electromagnetic Spectrum
  • Units of Intensity
  • Transmission, Absorption, Scattering

Thursday July 8

  • Color images with Octave
  • Reading a text file
  • Making an image from satellite data
  • Changing Contrast
  • The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

Monday July 12

  • Thermal Radiation
  • Calculating temperature from infrared

Tuesday July 13

  • Histograms and scatter plots
  • Selecting points by criteria
  • Mapping colors

Final Project:  write a main program + functions that does the following:

  1. Reads the landsat visible and thermal data into variables
  2. Calculates and displays NDVI from the visible and Brightness temperature from thermal infrared
  3. Makes a histogram of brightness temperature
  4. Selects out cloud points based on histogram of temperature
  5. Makes a map showing clouds in white and vegetation in green
  6. Makes a scatter plot of cloud brightness versus temperature
  7. Makes scatter plot of NDVI versus temperature for no clouds.

Included with the project, write an explanation of the following:

  1. Why does the histogram in step 3 take the shape that it does?
  2. Explain why the scatter plot of cloud brightness versus temperature slopes the way it does – this must have a physical explanation.
  3. Explain why the scatter plot of NDVI versus temperature slopes the way it does – this must have a physical explanation.

Click below for PowerPoint Presentations used during this course:

HIRES 2021 Remote Sensing Syllabus
Introduction to Remote Sensing
Satellite Imagery
Thermal Radiation

Archives

The Course Curriculum for Summer 2016 is available – “HIRES_syllabus“

The Course Curriculum for Summer 2015 is available “HIRES_syllabus“

The Course Curriculum for Summer 2014 is available “HIRES_syllabus“