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Results for “Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing”

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At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
USGS2002

A strategy for estimating the rates of recent United States land-cover changes

Information on the rates of land-use and land-cover change is important in addressing issues ranging from the health of aquatic resources to climate change. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of information on land-use and land-cover change except at very local levels. We describe a strategy for estimating land-cover change across the conterminous United States over the past 30 years. Change rates are estimated for 84 ecoregions using a sampling procedure and five dates of Landsat imagery. We have applied this methodology to six eastern U.S. ecoregions. Results show very high rates of change in the Plains ecoregions, high to moderate rates in the Piedmont ecoregions, and moderate to low rates in the Appalachian ecoregions. This indicates that ecoregions are appropriate strata for capturing unique patterns of land-cover change. The results of the study are being applied as we undertake the mapping of the rest of the conterminous United States.

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS2013

Towards integration of GLAS data into a national fuels mapping program

Comprehensive canopy structure and fuel data are critical for understanding and modeling wildland fire. The LANDFIRE project produces such data nationwide based on a collection of field observations, Landsat imagery, and other geospatial data. Where field data are not available, alternate strategies are being investigated. In this study, vegetation structure data available from GLAS were used to fill this data gap for the Yukon Flats Ecoregion of interior Alaska. The GLAS-derived structure and fuel layers and the original LANDFIRE layers were subsequently used as inputs into a fire behavior model to determine what effect the revised inputs would have on the model outputs. The outputs showed that inclusion of the GLAS data enabled better landscape-level characterization of vegetation structure and therefore enabled a broader wildland fire modeling capability. The results of this work underscore how GLAS data can be incorporated into LANDFIRE canopy structure and fuel mapping.

Alaska↗
USGS2013

Metrically preserving the USGS aerial film archive

Since 1972, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has provided fi lm-based products to the public. EROS is home to an archive of 12 million frames of analog photography ranging from 1937 to the present. The archive contains collections from both aerial and satellite platforms including programs such as the National High Altitude Program (NHAP), National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP), U.S. Antarctic Resource Center (USARC), Declass 1(CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD), Declass 2 (KH-7 and KH-9), and Landsat (1972 – 1992, Landsat 1–5).

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS2010

Making lidar more photogenic: creating band combinations from lidar information

Over the past five to ten years the use and applicability of light detection and ranging (lidar) technology has increased dramatically. As a result, an almost exponential amount of lidar data is being collected across the country for a wide range of applications, and it is currently the technology of choice for high resolution terrain model creation, 3-dimensional city and infrastructure modeling, forestry and a wide range of scientific applications (Lin and Mills, 2010). The amount of data that is being delivered across the country is impressive. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Center for Lidar Information Coordination and Knowledge (CLICK), which is a National repository of USGS and partner lidar point cloud datasets (Stoker et al., 2006), currently has 3.5 percent of the United States covered by lidar, and has approximately another 5 percent in the processing queue. The majority of data being collected by the commercial sector are from discrete-return systems, which collect billions of lidar points in an average project. There are also a lot of discussions involving a potential National-scale Lidar effort (Stoker et al., 2008).

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS1977

Planimetric Martian triangulations

Narrow-angle photographs, which have severe drawbacks for stereophotogrammetry, have advantages for simple plane triangulations. Rectified narrow-angle pictures corrected for map projection effects can be combined in the map plane in relatively accurate planimetric triangulations. Provided the strict precepts of least squares are not followed, these triangulations can incorporate considerable overdetermination without increase in the labor of solving the equations. These plane triangulations have been used successfully in the cartography of Mars and are illustrated here by a triangulation of the environs of the prime Martian landing site.

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS2014

ASPRS research on quantifying the geometric quality of lidar data

The ASPRS Lidar Cal/Val (calibration/validation) Working Group led by the US Geological Survey (USGS) to establish “Guidelines on Geometric Accuracy and Quality of Lidar Data” has made excellent progress via regular teleconferences and meetings. The group is focused on identifying data quality metrics and establishing a set of guidelines for quantifying the quality of lidar data. The working group has defined and agreed on lidar Data Quality Measures (DQMs) to be used for this purpose. The DQMs are envisaged as the first ever consistent way of checking lidar data. It is expected that these metrics will be used as standard methods for quantifying the geometric quality of lidar data. The goal of this article is to communicate these developments to the readers and the larger geospatial community and invite them to participate in the process.

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS1966

Water resources in the Everglades

Aerial photography is playing an important role in the evaluation of the water resources of the almost-inaccessible 1,400 square miles of Everglades in southern Florida. Color, infrared, and panchromatic photographs show salient features that permit evaluation of the overall water resources picture. The fresh water-salt water interface, drainage patterns, ecologic changes resulting from flood and drought, quantities of flow, and other hydrologic features are easily observed or measured from the photographs. Such data permit areal extension of very limited point observations of water resources data, and will assist in providing the necessary guidelines for decisions in water management in the Everglades.

Florida↗
USGS1976

Thermographic mosaic of Yellowstone National Park

An uncontrolled thermographic mosaic, which covers most of the area of Yellowstone National Park, has been compiled. The recording of aerial thermographic data on videotape is established as one of the prerequisites for the preparation of more accurate mosaics. Post-mission processing of the videotape record can rectify the nadir line to a topographic map base, correct for v/h variations in adjacent flight lines, correct for yaw distortions, rectify distortions caused by pitch, and rectify distortions produced by non-linearity of the side-wise scan. Installation of a thermal infrared scanning radiometer in a gyrostabilized mount and post-mission processing of the videotape record (principally rectification of side-wise scan distortion) would yield a controlled, photogrammetrically accurate thermographic mosaic. However, the techniques used in the preparation of the uncontrolled thermographic mosaic of Yellowstone National Park can be immediately applied to the preparation of regional thermographic mosaics, important to geologists and other scientists and engineers in studies of geothermal and volcanic areas, and to other types of environmental investigations such as pollution studies of large water bodies (e.g., harbors, estuaries, lakes, etc.), where a precise planimetric image is not critical.

Idaho;Montana;Wyoming↗
USGS1977

A radiometric interpretive legend for Landsat digital thematic maps

A legend is suggested for use with computer-generated thematic maps made from Landsat digital data that designates some of the radiometric characteristics of each thematic map unit as well as the described terrain attributes of each map unit. The relationship between spectral band and radiance for each map unit is shown by a two-dimensional polygon with the four Landsat multispectral scanner bands plotted on the ordinate and radiance levels on the abscissa. The resulting shape is colored to correspond with the map unit color, thus facilitating the recognition and understanding of the computer-generated map units.

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS2000

Airborne laser mapping of Assateague National Seashore Beach

Results are presented from topographic surveys of the Assateague Island National Seashore using an airborne scanning laser altimeter and kinematic Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. The instrument used was the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), developed by the NASA Arctic Ice Mapping (AIM) group from the Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility. In November, 1995, and again in May, 1996, these topographic surveys were flown as a functionality check prior to conducting missions to measure the elevation of extensive sections of the Greenland Ice Sheet as part of NASA's Global Climate Change program. Differences between overlapping portions of both surveys are compared for quality control. An independent assessment of the accuracy of the ATM survey is provided by comparison to surface surveys which were conducted using standard techniques. The goal of these projects is to make these measurements to an accuracy of ± 10 cm. Differences between the fall 1995 and 1996 surveys provides an assessment of net changes in the beach morphology over an annual cycle.

Maryl↗
USGS1988

An integrated approach for automated cover-type mapping of large inaccessible areas in Alaska

The lack of any detailed cover type maps in the state necessitated that a rapid and accurate approach to be employed to develop maps for 329 million acres of Alaska within a seven-year period. This goal has been addressed by using an integrated approach to computer-aided analysis which combines efficient use of field data with the only consistent statewide spatial data sets available: Landsat multispectral scanner data, digital elevation data derived from 1:250 000-scale maps, and 1:60 000-scale color-infrared aerial photographs.

Alaska↗
USGS1988

Differences in visible and near-IR responses, and derived vegetation indices, for the NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 AVHRRs: a case study

This study evaluates the differences in the visible and near-IR responses of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-9 and -10 satellites for coincident sample locations. The study also evaluates the differences in vegetation indices computed from those data. Data were acquired of the southeast portion of the United States for the 6 December 1986 daylight orbits of NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 satellites. The results suggest that, with appropriate gain and offset, the vegetation indices of the two sensor systems may be interchangeable for assessment of land surfaces.

Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing↗
USGS1988

NOAA-10 AVHRR thermal-infrared image of the Colorado Rocky Mountains

This month we demonstrate an example of the use of thermal infrared imagery to produce a relatively sharp surrogate shaded-relief image. The image shows one aspect of the drama and usefulness of calibrated thermal imagery that (because of compatible projection and pixel size) can be easily combined with other spectral bands of a satellite image. Such data can be enhanced in yet another way by stereoscopically combining two similar images with different orbital paths, such as was shown in the AVHRR column for January 1988.

Colorado↗