| ||||||||||
3/26/95 QUESTION28
28-1 I assume that you have gotten the data from the Eros data center, and have downloaded on of the .IMG image segments. This file is what photoshop would call in the "raw" format. So, open photoshop, pull down the file menu, select "open as", change the file format to "raw", enter the name of the file. The next window will ask about the dimensions of the file : enter the height and width of the image (this is given at the page that you retrieved the .IMG file. It will be 2000 in width, as all of the segments are 2000 in width.) There is no header in this file. photoshop should then be able to open the file and display it. write back if this does not work... 2/ 9/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 28-2 In Photoshop, after Open, click show all files. Locate .img file and double click. There is no need to enter width and height -- Photoshop knows these already. This is a grayscale so there are no issues with band interleaving.
For NIH-Image 1.57 freeware , select Import rather than Open. Choose Custom and edit to width and height (e.g., 2000 x 1266) and the file will open. tom@emerald 2/19/95
QUESTION3232-1 1 - we currently have the SIR-C/X-SAR science team members listed, with their research interests and addresses, but we have not had time to add more than that yet...
2 - Because the Sample data sets are so large, it is not very feasible at this time to put the data on-line.
3 - We have put a SAR reference list on-line, though it is admittedly not complete, it is the best that we have right now.
2/15/95
bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 32-2 Nice job on expanding the SAR reference list -- last time I looked it only had one entry! I wonder if some of the papers could be put online, or at least the abstracts, or links if the journals are ftp sites -- one hopes that some of the papers are still around, electronically speaking, and wouldn't have to be OCRd in. I'm at a large research university and frankly, no one has ever heard of some of these journals. 3/19/95 QUESTION3434-1 You might want to look at the response to question 8. There, Diane Evans replies to this question. The SIR-C Survey data is already on CD-ROM, for information, click here. In a few months, we should be distributing the SIR-C post flight education CD-ROM. This cd-rom will have some images from sirc. There is currently no plans to distribute other images or data by cd-rom, though some commercial companies have expressed an interest in some. I will let everyone know here at the imaging radar home page. 2/16/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 34-2 Since Diane's response, there has been a lot of activity involved in definition of what a third flight of SIR-C/X-SAR could do. One of the options being explored is to add a boom about 30 m long with a C-band and maybe an X-band antenna on it. This would allow single-pass interferometry to be accomplished which could be used to produce a digital topographic map of the entire earth (between 60 deg N and S latitudes) at about 80 m horizontal resolution. As Diane said, decisions will be made in the next month or two whether this will be pursued. 2/17/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov 34-3 In one month I will publish a CD-ROM called "Earth Exploratorium". It contains 12000 visual images for SRL-1 and over 40 SIR-C/X-SAR images in a very unique navigational interface with lots of search capabilities. For more info, send e-mail to rmdp@csn.org. Newt Perdue, Rocky Mountain Digital Peeks 303-258-3779, only $39. 3/27/95 QUESTION35
35-1 the .IMG survey image files are just raw byte image files. In this case, the .IMG does not refer to ERDAS' Imagine image format, which also has a .IMG extension. Most any image processing program can read the survey images as raw bytes, using the dimension information associated with the survey product. 2/21/95Tom Farr, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov 35-2 If you are working with ERDAS-IMAGINE software you can import this king of format in the import-expot option using the "generic bynary data" option. You only need to know the number of lines, samples and header bytes, and you can know all this information from the header of your images. 3/25/95Alvaro Marquez, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain, anguita@eucmvx.sim.ucm.es QUESTION39
39-1 Good idea! We've been thinking about doing that and will get such a list posted sometime this week. The list will contain the DT number, site name, scene center GMT and scene center latitude and longitude, along with some other information. This list can be used in conjunction with the posted survey data to get a "preview" of the precision processed scene. Keep your eyes out for this posting! 2/27/95ellen o'leary, jpl, ellen.oleary@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION40
40-1
I got the following information from the EROS Data center SIR-C survey image home page at this location:
IMDISP: This software is a general-purpose image display program. It supports EGA, VGA and numerous super-VGA display boards. This program is available and free to have a copy. For further information, contact Mike Martin at (818)306- 6038 (JPLDPS::MMA.RTIN on SPAN)
I think his email address is mmartin@jplpds.jpl.nasa.gov
Maybe someone else knows where to get this software on-line?
3/ 2/95Bruce Chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 40-2 I just recently discovered that this program for PC type computers is on the pre-flight SIR-C education CD-ROM 3/14/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION4444-1 i'd like these too! In the interim, what might we expect from these if they were all done, in terms of ground resolution (=file size) and current coverage? 3/ 9/95tom@emerald 44-2 I have put a couple of data sets from our airborne TOPSAR instrument online. This is a 2-antenna system that produces 10 m or 20 m pixels with about 1 m height error. In addition, a C-band VV polarization image is produced and the new processor also outputs an incidence angle map and an image representing correlation, related to error. The data come in strips about 15 km wide by a few 10s of km long. Newer data have ascii headers giving all sorts of information about the file. Older data have a terse header file associated with the data files. To get the data, anonymous ftp to fringe.jpl.nasa.gov and look in the topsar area. I hope to have more data sets and more documentation by this summer. 3/10/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov 44-3 Thanks, Tom, this worked fine. I was able to log on easily as described and open both the impressive grayscale Death Valley allulvial fan CVV image (the file called dv_fans164cvv) and the digital elevation model (called dv_fans_164demi2), on the Mac using Adobe Photoshop, setting raw format at 640 x 2842 pixel width x height for both. On the DEM, since it is 16 bits per pixel, raw format should be set for two channels, with interleaved checked. This gives a Photoshop multichannel document, with channel 1 needing a double tweak with 'Levels' and channel 2 having finer detail. 3/15/95tom pringle, emerald imagery, tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu 44-4 The DEM format raises some unfamiliar issues for the folks out there, namely how to display all of it. The precision of the topographic data necessitated more that the usual 8 bits (0 to 255 after rescaling): 11 bits were needed in the Death Valley scene. Computer hardware is such that two bytes (16 bits) were needed to contain the 11 bits of data dynamic range (0 to 2048). JPL, at the anonymous ftp fringe.jpl.nasa.gov site, essentially put the leading 3 digits in one byte and the trailing 8 digits in the second byte. This downloads as a Word text document with the two bytes together as one number, but opens in imaging programs as a two separate channels, the leading digits being in channel 1.
There is some potential for real confusion here for people used to 24-bit color monitors. It seems like 24 bits is more than enough to hold 11 bits. However, that 24 = 3 x 8, and no single 8 is large enough to display 11, i.e., the separate RGB screen phosphors are only set to display 256 levels each.
Of course, rounding off to the leading 8 digits and displaying as a grayscale 'byte image' is one possiblility. This is a waste of good data -- why send the instrumentation up there and not make use of it? Another option few people will exercise is staring at the array of 640 x 2842 numbers in Word. For other purposes, such as computing slopes or aspects from the DEM, one could do the calculations on the 11-bit numbers in a spreadsheet, then round off to 8 bits after finishing, obtaining some value in enhanced accuracy from the extra bits.
Let's not despair. Here's a easy way (but not necessarily the ultimate way) to display all 11 bits at once using color to supplement the limitations of 8 bit channels. Procede as in 44-3. Then, in the Channels palette, duplicate the trailing bit channel, split, and merge as L.a.b., with leading bits in channel a. This gives a knock-your-socks-off color image explicitly displaying the full resolution of the data, with color trends indicating the broader contour intervals of the leading bits.
I will try to put a small piece of the resulting image into the Lost and Found folder at the ftp site; otherwise, email it to Bruce for inclusion on the home page at his discretion.
tom pringle emerald imagery email:tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu 3/15/95
44-5 Another neat way to view the data in color is to place the CVV ground image in L of L.a.b. or B of HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness) color modes and the DEM data in the other two channels. This gives the radar image of the ground over-tinted with colored contour bands. The fine-structure DEM is very dramatic when viewed in a palette of ten steps of green. Since the channels are all 640 x 2842, there are no co-registration issues. To reduce file size for rapid color experimentation, co-crop the full 3-channel image and split the channels.Of course, what Tom Farr really wants us to do with these files is use the digital elevation map to draw a 2-D surface in perspective, then drape the CVV radar image over it. If the DEM has delicately colored contour bands (so as not interfere with the image), an overall 'airplane window' effect is achieved, with a subtle guide to actual elevation to facilitate interpretation of the alluvial fans. Photoshop and the like can only prep the DEM as a DXF file for export to high-end programs such as Strata 3-D. A more affordable solution that has many other imaging uses is macGIS ($30 in the educational version). I am not aware of any freeware up to the task. Again, I'm willing to donate the final file but there is no way to post it to the TOPSAR folder at this time.
tom @ emerald imagery 3/15/95
44-6 I'm impressed with what Tom Pringle has accomplished with Photoshop and the DEMs! I was never able to get Photoshop to ingest the 16-bit topo data, but with his hints, I'll try again. A program I've used on the Mac that accepts 16-bit data is the free program NIH Image. It of course scales the image to 8 bits for display, but retains the transformation, so you can find out what the height of that mountain, etc., is. It allows color tables to be manipulated, etc., but is far less powerful than Photoshop in terms of overlays and color images. I indeed like to overlay images onto topography for perspective views, but there are many other ways to use the DEMs for earth science applications. One that I'm involved in now is the fitting of 3-dimensional equations to landforms, such as alluvial fans (the shallow cones of gravel coming off the mountains in the death valley image). See the Transactions of the Amer. Geophys. Union (Eos), v. 73, p. 553-558 for some details. Other applications are mentioned in an article on TOPSAT (a spaceborne interferometer on the drawing boards) that should be coming out soon in the same newsletter. 3/20/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov 44-7Tom, that's a new one to me, about
What year is your TAGU (Eos) article and did you mean by newletter that it is an electronic journal or list server? Your point is a valid one: for accurate equation-fitting of alluvial fans (and other landforms), the data need not be visualized, so 16 bit data is no problem. However, my first impulse would be just display the hypsometric layered tint (24 = 8 x 3) and stop with that because the ground scale of the data pixels falls short of topographic variation significant to physical processes, at least in the case of the Death Valley alluvial fans. I'm not sure I understand the advantage of analytic equations: the data is rasterized from day one, so why not just calculate from it directly as a GIS layer? OK, Ok, I'll look at the paper....tom @ emerald 3/26/95
QUESTION42
3/15/95
The radar home page documentation seems to rely on an easy-to-read JPL analysis published in Radio Science, vol. 22, page 529. 1987, to whose notation and diagrams I refer below.
As I understand it, the Shuttle instrument basically collects as primary data the matrix parameters, which relate transmitted and received polarization vectors by a 2x2 complex matrix. This matrix needs to be invertible from considerations of time-reversal invariance of the electromagnetic interaction, so its determinant is not zero. Sequential scattering is carried by matrix multiplication. In short, the set of all possible scattering matrices forms the non-compact Lie group Gl(2,C), an 8-dimensional real manifold.
The JPL article states that an overall phase can be neglected, leaving 7 parameters. This is tantamount to quotienting by the set of all unitary diagonal matrices, a normal subgroup, i.e., GL(2,C)/U(1). The article goes on to cite a principle of reciprocity developed in an unpublished1965 Dutch doctoral dissertation which sets off-diagonal elements equal, leaving 5 parameters. Now symmetric complex matrices (cv. self-adjoint) lack group closure: the product of two symmetric matrices is not in general symmetric (because transpose reverses order and multiplication is not commutative). Yet sequential scattering is a fact of life, so the 1965 proposal may be invalid. This reciprocity principle is a source of confusion in # 20 and #25.
Removing all scalar matrices from the scattering matrix yields GL(2,C)/GL(1,C) = SL(2,C)/Z(2) = SO(3,1) of dimension 6, or passing to maximal compact simple subgroups, SU(2)/Z(2)=SO(3). We now see the double cover explains the origin of the double angles in the Poincare sphere representation of the ellipticity diagram used in your polarization signatures. Many physicists would assume this group from the get-go, invoking general unitarity principles for scattering matrices, the need for the inverse matrix to be the adjoint, conservation of the energy-momentum 4-vector, etc.
Now a circularly polarized electromagnetic field carries angular momentum. Pictorally, the electric field vector rotates about a cylinder whose axis is the direction of translation. In modern terms, the photon is a massless spin 1 gauge boson transforming under integral representations of the proper Lorentz group SO(3,1). Plane polararized light is at the other extreme (zero spin), while ellipitcally polarized light is intermediate. In the Poincare sphere, the angular momentum must in effect be the projection of the elliptical polarization vector on the z axis. Note equatorial polarizations (plane-polarized) have no z-component, as expected.
It os instructive to consider orbits of symmetries that conserve angular momentum, namely the subgoup SO(2) = U(1) of the rotation group SO(3). The action rotates the Poincare sphere on its axis, fixing left and right circular polarizations, taking elliptical polarizations onto their latitude lines, and stabilizing (inter-converting) plane polarizations. This suggests parameterizing polarization signatures by a longitude.
If only magnitude (not sign) is of interest, inversions (reflections that reverse spatial orientation) identify north and south poles, corresponding latitude lines and antipodal equitorial points, reducing the Poincare sphere to RP(2), the real projective plane. Involutions provide a useful eignespace decomposition. The overall symmetry is expanded to the O(2) subgroup of O(3). More generally, Maxwell's equations are invariant under the full Lorentx group O(3,1)=[Z(2) x Z(2)] x' SO(3,1).
So the data seems subject to very substantial symmetry reduction. Is it not far better for JPL to crunch the data once and for all than to send out huge unreduced CD-ROMs and explain group theory to a thousand end users? The polarization signatures (currently imaged as a quasi-Mercator surface or as level curves on the Poincare sphere) positively glow with redundant symmetry. Where are our friends, the spherical harmonics? Is there not an even and odd decompostion of isotropy and anisotropy? Eigenbases of roughness vectors? Higher order terms that drop? I guess I am asking for a planned features list of your forthcoming software, macSigma 0.
Notice that both AIRSAR and SIR-C/XSAR provide us initially with undisplayable images, that is, virtual images whose pixels are Stokes matrices. While I don't have a personal issue with formal manipulations of mulit-dimensional arrays of matrices, image enhancement and scientific interpretation would be greatly facilitated by having monitor-displayable byte images. The real question is, how many real byte image channels will be needed to display all the information, assuming symmetry effects, under-utilized dynamic range, and intra- and inter- band statistical correlation can be removed? And how can these channels be chosen so that they retain physical interpretability?
Sorry to be so long-winded! 3/19/95
To say, for example, LVV isn't correlated [linearly predictable] from LHH is not to say there isn't some other simple relation between them. This might be adduced from theoretical grounds or empirically from the scatter diagram. I must respectfully disagree with decoupling the analysis of phase and amplitude correlations. [This procedure already wreaks havoc with real variables, where the sign serves as 'phase.' All the arithmetic operations needed to calculate correlation, such as subtraction, norms, and division, hold for complex numbers. If we would look in a sufficiently obscure statistics journal, we would find statistics was long ago extended to the case of correlation of complex [or quaternionic, 'phase' a point on 3-sphere] variables. Correlation is inherently a geometric concept.
I am not sure how much we are going to learn about the physics producing the scattering event. This is because If the radar pixels are, say, 25 meters square, there are only 9 per acre. A lot of different things can go on across this ground scale. Aren't we learning instead about the superpositioning of a large number of possibly unrelated radar reflection events that produced the final composite signal?
I couldn't find very many images to test on the bulletin board. However, the Weddel Sea used LHV and LHH as R and G. These images may have gone through many stages of non-linear tweaking. As posted, the correlation coefficient is indeed low. The scatter plot shows even better that the case is hopeless.
Next, I looked at the AIRSAR Death Valley Images for the L, C, and P radar bands. I did the principal components in Dimple, finding little inter-band linear correlation as these things go:
Never heard of a Frost filter -- what is it supposed to do; does it have another name? tom @ emerald
!local Lee filter as Dimple IOL script
images
x "whatever" input ;
localmean "so" temp ;
lmsqd "po" temp ;
lsdinitial "io" temp ;
mlsdsqd "YP" temp ;
lsd "uu" temp ;
final "Lee filtered" output ;
operations
localmean = filter x (1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1 ) / 25 ;
lmsqd = localmean * localmean;
lsdinitial = x * x;
mlsdsqd = filter lsdinitial (1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1 ) / 25 ;
lsd = sqrt( mlsdsqd - lmsqd );
final = If (x > 1.5 * lsd) then localmean;
Else x ;
endif ;
!local Lee gaussian blur as Dimple IOl script
images
x "whatever" input ;
localmean "so" temp ;
lmsqd "po" temp ;
lsdinitial "io" temp ;
mlsdsqd "YP" temp ;
lsd "uu" temp ;
gauss "pp" temp ;
final "Lee filtered" output ;
operations
localmean = filter x (1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1 ) / 25 ;
gauss = filter x (1,1,2,1,1,1,2,4,2,1,2,4,8,4,2,1,2,4,2,1,1,1,2,1,1) / 52 ;
lmsqd = localmean * localmean;
lsdinitial = x * x;
mlsdsqd = filter lsdinitial (1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1 ) / 25 ;
lsd = sqrt( mlsdsqd - lmsqd );
final = If (x > 1.5 * lsd) then gauss ;
Else x ;
endif ;
3/25/95
42-1 Pam Logan, of the China Exploration and Research Society, is one person looking at the data. You can contact her at pamlogan@alumni.caltech.edu. The World Monument Fund has some people working on this, too. 3/ 7/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov
42-2 I'm a student that is new at the net. I would like some help on how to surf the net. Thanks
3/15/95
QUESTION29
29-1
Remote Sensing Sites
Imaging Radar
Canada
USGS, USFWS, BLM, USFS
Other Planets
Imaging Software
24-1 There is often very little correlation between the like-polarized (HH and VV)
channels and the cross-polarized (HV or VH) channels in polarimetric radar
measurments. The correlation between HH and VV can be anywhere between 0 and 1
and often carries a great deal of information about the physics of the
scattering which produced the measurements. An additional complication is that
the phase difference between HH and VV (whicha re actually complex values)
also carries a lot of information.I can send you some materials on this if you
send me your street address via e-mail.
Tony Freeman, tony.freeman@jpl.nasa.gov 3/16/95Tony Freeman, JPL
24-2 Thank you, Tony. I still have a long-winded question for the bulletin board about the raw SIR-C data set and its subsequent digestion. I have been puzzling over questions and responses of #20 and #25, and now #24.
L,C,P Inter-Band Correlation
Component Variance
PCA 1 79.0%
PCA 2 17.6%
PCA 3 2.7%
The table needs a modern browser to display its excesses. tom @ emerald
3/26/95
QUESTION48
48-1 When I just tried it, (Friday 3pm california time), it ranged from 10 seconds to
download a browse image, to a couple of minutes to download the same file. When it
takes a long time, I recommend trying again later, the EROS data center server is
probably overloaded with requests. 3/17/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov
48-2 I suspect that the CD-ROM is being automatically loaded and this takes time.
There are over 50 CD-ROMS, so they are not all on line I suspect. 3/27/95
QUESTION30
30-1 check http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/html/earth.htm for listings of hand-held photography from the second flight, by lat, lon, or frame number. Unfortunately, they don't list the pix by MET, so it'll be hard to cross-reference to the radar images... 3/23/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov
QUESTION50
50-1 I unfortunately do not have a reference for you about Lee and Frost filtering, but
the slant to ground range conversion may be done by simple geometry. In the azimuth
direction, no correction is necessary unless you want to resample the pixel spacing in that direction.
In the range direction, the ground range pixel spacing is the slant range pixel spacing
divided by the sine of the incidence angle. The tricky part is the resampling to the
ground range projection, I am not sure about which interpolation to use, you might want to experiment with several... 3/24/95Bruce Chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov
50-2 Here is a freeware Lee filter, actually something better, a script for local Lee sigma filtering (an adaptive filter that replaces a bad pixel with the local mean if it is a user-specified number of local standard deviations from the local mean). An enclosed even better variation replaces the bad pixel under the same circumstances with the local gaussian blur instead of the local mean.
52-1 Yes, indeed. Are you doing custom fly-overs and for what price per mile of swath? Is the data's dynamic range 8-bit? What's your ground resolution at 800 meter height? I would find it more useful to have the radar image registered with a color infra-red photo, even if it's older, than a cartographic map, if I can't have both. Why x-band and are you limited to this? Post some sample radar imagery for us -- forget email, where is your home page anyway? tom@tingalsb.oregon.urogen.edu 3/29/95 52-2 I am interested in the use of thermal imaging (or infrred technology) to look into a home to detect heat revealing suspected marijuana growing. Can you discuss this issue? detect heat indicative of growing marijuana in a home. Can you speak to this issue? hingson@teleport.com 6/15/95hingson@teleport.com 52-3 Sounds very interesting. Need same info as resp.52-1. I am interested in imaging coastal barrier islands along the pacific coast of Colombia with extensive mangrove cover. Is your radar fully polarometric? Are you limited to x-band? Can topography be generated from your data? Thanks much - colek@gvsu.edu 6/16/95k.cole, Geology Dept., GVSU, MI, colek@gvsu.edu QUESTION55
55-1 The image you refer to, P-44758, is a detail of the interferogram derived from 2 passes of X-SAR data (April and October, 1994). The fringe patterns that you see have three likely sources: 1) Topography 2) Small-scale (cm) changes in the position of surface features along the radar line of sight in the six-month interval (i.e. the deformation you asked about) and 3) Differential rotations of the phase of the radar echoes in the two data sets due to differences in atmospheric water vapor abundance along the radar signals' path. To isolate effect number 2 from the others, one must first remove the topographic effect using a DEM (not trivial, but not too dificult, either), and second, gain an understanding of effect number 3 (very difficult). The atmospheric effect was not recognized originally on the analogous SIR-C "displacement" map (P-44753), but detailed comparisons with GPS data show that this can be a real problem. Bottom line is, the fringes in the X-SAR image are not merely a simple function of surface displacements, and should not be interpreted as such. 4/ 3/95Jeff Plaut, SIR-C Experiment Scientist, JPL, plaut@jpl.nasa.gov 55-2 This is an experiment to answer the question above. 4/ 6/95Tib QUESTION56
56-1 You can find survey images from STS-68, and indeed other shuttle missions, from the NASA-JSC Imagery Services Branch Digital Image Collection. The survey images contain quick-looks of the hand-held camera images, and are of moderate quality. You need to know the location of the area you are looking for fairly well, and it pays to have some geographical knowledge of the area, especially if the images were taken with on an ascending pass. Some of the images in the collection are annotated, but none that I was interested in were. On the web, head towards http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/html/home.htm 4/16/95Stephen McNeill, Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd, mcneills@landcare.cri.nz 56-2 A cd-rom is now available from Rocky Mountain Digital Peeks CD-ROM Publishing. They have produced the Earth Exploratorium CD-ROM: Mission to Planet Earth STS-59. This CD-ROM explores NASA's program "Mission to Planet Earth" through the use of the complete photographic results of Earth from Space Shuttle flight 59 (almost 12,000 24- bit color photos). 4/17/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION58
58-1 The images chosen for the contest bears an uncanny resemblance to the confluence of the east and west branches of the Susquehannah River at Sunbury, Pa. The contest speaks of Sudbury, Pa which seems to be a vaporville, cartographically speaking. I think the first person to point this ou should get a JPL pencil as a prize.
tom@emerald 4/19/95
58-2 I would like to know the dates on which the variour radar images for the contest were taken (e.g., spring or fall), the slant angle for each channel, and also a list of processing steps taken to get everything registered, resized, and byte-imaged. For example, if some channels have experienced interpolation, was this done with bicubic? Might it be possible to add an eighth 'image' of more primary unedited data?tom @ emerald 4/19/95
58-3 Ahhh, I spelled it wrong, I apologize! I will also add more information as you suggest. 4/21/95Bruce Chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 58-4 Do contest rules allow submissions in the form of Web html pages? Because explanatory notes on methodology are required, this might be a good way to integrate text and image(s). The one meg size limit could still be enforced.tom @ emerald
4/22/95
58-5 I stumbled two other Sunbury, Pa files on your server that didn't make it into the contest or the radar home page, namely PennContest_Ctot and LTot, evidently total backscatter intensity from the C and L bands. Did you derive Cvv from Chh, Chv, and Ctot for purposes of the seven channels of the contest?tom @ emerald
4/22/95
58-6 Now I see that Ctot and Ltot are displaced to the north from the other images and do not afford the same coverage. They do have some value in understanding the geological context, though. 4/22/95 58-7 The contest have evolved slightly since conception. Originally, the seven gifs available did not include the vv channel, but instead had the total power. Since the total power is just a function of the other channels, however, I decided to change the channels available to hh, hv, and vv. They were of a slightly different area. I also did not have the raw files available, and I was concerned that the pixel spacing was not exactly 50 meters.In fact, the images of Sunbury are a subset of a much larger, higher resolution image. However, in the interest of keeping the files small, we averaged the images by a factor of 4, and we took just a subset of the image.
I think it is a great Idea to make an html page that describes the image that you create. If anyone wants to make a clickable image map, I will do what I have to do on my end to make it work... 4/24/95
bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 58-8 I hadn't though of a clickable map -- great idea and most appropriate. I think this is preferable to degrading the image with overlain text and boundaries -- now the viewers can click over to something they want to see interpreted more cleanly. Suppose we get the clickable map going on our our drive -- will it be portable?It would be cool to see the wider area, higher resolution file, say an RGB as Ctot, Ltot, X. This would provide contestants with more context as well as ability to test their interpretations. It's tough now with less than two pixels per acre. I agree with the need to keep files small with seven channels. My usual mode of operation is to track what I am doing on small files in Daystar's Photomatic scripting addition to Photoshop, then run it overnight, mistakes and all, on the higher resolution files. So that could be another contest variant: best Photomatic script. It would make for a better final educational display.
Also, I am a little concerned over just a cubic spline conversion of slant range to ground range. It seems to me that this does not take into account ground topography. A terrain model could be constructed from a DEM for the particular perspective that the radar saw and the ground pixels adjusted according to their relative aspect. Has JPL considered this? Or are we awaiting better DEMs?....tom @ emerald 4/24/95
58-91)It is a little complicated with clickable image maps, as you have to set things up in the cgi directory, but if a user can supply me all the required files (ie. the coordinate file), I already have the imagemap program at the cgi directory - check out the on-line documentation at image mapping at ncsa
2) We are planning on a press release for the full size Sunbury image, it will be released soon.
3)Most SIR-C images have not been terrain corrected. However, the processing team has recently added that capability, and if a DEM exists, it is now possible to do the terrain corrections.
4/25/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 58-10 Just curious, after spending all weekend playing with this, why Sunbury PA? 5/22/95Mark Lucas, Harris Corporation, mlucas@alcatraz.ess.harris.com 58-11 We chose Sunbury PA, for a couple of reasons, none of them very significant. It is an interesting area geologically, but it also has forests and urban areas. It is in a relatively well populated area, so that potentially some people that live nearby could add their impressions. or, people could drive by some day just to see what it looks like. The data had just been processed, and was conveniently available. Tony Freeman was the keynote speaker last week at a GIS conference in PA, and he showed this image. That is about it. 5/23/95Bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION5959-1 Interesting project -- let us know more about radar-specific angles of speckle filtering. Note that the filter source codes in Question 50, Response 2 are speckle filters, but not adapted in any way to JPL Stokes matrices.
You may wish to consider Question 24, Responses 2 and 3. These propose corrections to raw radar data that possibly should be applied before despeckling. JPL has not yet mustered a response to these suggestions so their merits are unknown.
tom / Emerald Imagery: tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu 4/19/95
59-2 The images you want are called Single Look Complex (SLC) Images. They are usually available from the same places as the filtered (multi-looked) images. Personally I use ERS-1 data. To order ERS-1 data contact: Radarsat International ERS Order Desk 3851 Shell Road Richmond, B.C. V6S 2W2 Canada (604) 244-0400 (604) 244-0404 (fax) 4/21/95Ian McLeod, UBC, ianmc@ee.ubc.ca 59-3 Ian, what software are you recommending for analyzing Single Look Complex data from ERS-1? What are the advantages of ERS-1 data? I am not going to order data over the telephone -- does this place [Radarsat International ERS Order Desk] in B.C. not have a home page? I see where there is a home page for ERS-2 ..... tom @ emerald email: tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu (tom pringle) 4/24/95 59-4 SIR-C data is available in the SLC format, and may be obtained through the outreach program. 4/25/95Bruce Chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 59-5 What type of filter are you testing? We have tested an adaptive filter (FGAMMA filter, Lopes et al. 1993) on SIR-C SLC data of an gricultural area. The filter did a wonderful job. It preserved the edges, strong scatterers, and linear features. We are interested to test the performance of other adaptive filter - if somebody have suggestion... 4/26/95Yves Crevier, Canada Centre for Remote sensing, crevier@ccrs.emr.ca 59-6 I am just browsing past - but cannot resist the temptation to make a plug. Why don't you process your own data from e.g. ERS-1 raw data on Exabyte? We market a comprehensive space based SAR processing package, at very reasonable licensing rates, running on Sun and Silicon Graphics platforms - does a great job for strip mode interferograms; precision calibration; precison focusing; georereferencing etc. I have forgotten my email address, but fax/phone me for further details if you are interested. Incidentally, the best (i mean stunning) speckle reduction algorithm that I have seen used some form of simulated annealing technique. 4/26/95Andy Smith, Phoenix Systems UK tel/fax (181)-549-8878, Forgotten it! QUESTION5757-1 Why not ask the folks at NASA's Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI)?
tom / Emerald Imagery: tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu 4/19/95
QUESTION5454-1 Tom's email is tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu and his home page is at Emerald Imagery 4/19/95 54-2 test 4/21/95 54-3 4/21/95 QUESTION62
62-1 Dear Andrew. I work at the Defense Research Agency in England, we are expert in the automatic classification and segmentation textures. Our work concentrates on radar imagery but the algorithms would also be well suited to sonar, which I have had some experience of. I would advise against both fractals and neural networks certainly in the initial stages of the work. Predominantly the best discriminants for textures are relatively simple statistics of the "noise field", neural networks are a 'black box' and the effort involved in getting an optimal solution is normally far less through more mundane techniques given that one has some handle on the processes involved in image formation. You seem to have set yourself an enormous task and one that involves a one-man repetition of work that has occupied large teams here and else where for many years. Have you considered paying somebody else to write a good package for you? 5/ 2/95Mark Williams, DRA- Malvern, MLWILLIAMS%TAZ.dnet@hermes.dra.hmg.gb QUESTION63
63-1 I recommend that you join our outreach program. If you send us a brief justification of your proposed work, we will put your request into our processing queue.It is also possible that we have already processed it. If so , we will send you a copy. You will need to get a copy of software that we provide for reading the data. This software runs on most unix workstations. The data is only currently available on 8mm tape, so you will have to have access to an 5 Gbyte 8mm tape drive, also. 5/ 2/95Bruce Chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION64
64-1 The only site about SST I know of is the avhrr pathfinder home page. They can probably tell you what is available. 5/ 4/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 64-2 Bruce, Thanks for your response. It appears that the pathfinder data is old. The data/charts I am seeking would need to be current. The Rosenstial School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/home.html) offers current charts, but they cover to much area (such as the entire US east coast). What I am looking for is charts or data/program where I can put in lat/long and get the SST charts for something like a 70mile radius from that point. 5/ 4/95Chris Malinowski, Curious onlooker, chris.malinowski@ssa.gov 64-3 Eventually, they will catch up to the present, but currently they are only up to 1991. I don't know of any other location to get this information. sorry. 5/ 4/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 64-4 I came across by accident this totally cool map server that provides mean sea elevation in client selected map projection, geoid, gravity anomalies, and contours or shading. This isn't quite what you asked for, which was sea surfaces temperatures, but it does have a maritime flavor and is a nice example of how your data should be supplied. tom @ emerald 5/16/95 64-5 Have you tried the < a href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/el-nino-story.html">El Nino home page? The data is from moored buoys and is very recent. Note there are two wonderful sea surface temperature Molleweide color graphics at the Bruce mentioned, from the year 1988 unfortunately. tom @ emerald 5/17/95 64-6 For a update of sea surface temperatures, plus wind, heat, and dynamics, with an amazing on-line custom map making tool, look at the TAO buoy home page. tom @ emerald 5/17/95 64-7
5/18/95
64-8 The Eric Turner, SIR-C Calibration Team, Eric_Turner@radar-email.jpl.nasa.gov
QUESTION65
65-1
This came up before but the response got moved over to the archive. What exactly is the radar-on-a-chip good for ? Does it have to do with remote sensing or making your own highway speed trap ?
tom@emerald 5/ 8/95
65-2 Soon, the archive of old messages will be on-line.I don't think there is any on-line documentation of this product - does anyone out there know differently?
I would try calling Lawrence Livermore information for Tom McEwans phone number, and asking him directly. 5/ 8/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 65-3 I dug around and found an email message that you can contact LLNL about the "radar on a chip". contact Shari Turner at mir@llnl.gov for general information or technical question referrals. 5/ 8/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION66
66-1 I put the document on-line, even though I do want to make a searchable sort of this information. I just have not had time to do this, but I wanted to get SOMETHING on-line.
One problem with your suggestions is that the datatake name or even the scene does not always indicate the country,or state. Also, this list has to be updated frequently, so I am want to make it easily modified. 5/ 8/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.jpl.nasa.gov 66-2 I see now that HTML download as tab-delimited text. These aren't too bad too update: just update the single integer for the number of rows. Filemaker Pro 3.0 will come with TCP/IP Internet support [MacWeek 05.08.95, page 66]. Note that Eudora, that e-mail freeware, is sorting its tables of senders, dates, subjects and recipients. Isn't the source code available? tom @ emerald 5/11/95 66-3 The word on the Web is to forget Filemaker Pro and use Butler/Link Web software as it is much faster and simpler to set up. There is a free demo package but it looks like it will cost $249 to get the SQL server part for real. Tom @ Emerald 5/20/95 QUESTION67
67-1 Only some of the data that have been collected have been processed. As for the data that have been processed, we do hope to post many of them, but we would like these examples to be of the best quality, which requires some post-processing. I hope to have a number of new scenes processed and posted in a few months. Sorry for the delay. For scenes that have not been processed, we may want to consider a different procedure. The data were originally acquired and processed for NASA-funded investigators. If the investigator never requested a particular scene from a flight line, then it was never processed. It may be possible to process some scenes for other requestors. I'll check into our Outreach program, to see if that might be an avenue to satisfy outside requests for processing. 5/ 9/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov 67-2 Thank you, Tom, for a very encouraging response. I am going to try to make a case for processing this particular piece of TOPSAR data:
Cascade Head is a coastal headland in Oregon, comprising part of the World Biosphere Reserve program. It is owned on the south by the Nature Conservancy. The conservation issues are a federally threatened fritillary [which feeds exclusively on a violet growing only under certain soil depth and moisture conditions], a rare endemic plant [the Cascade Head silene], and an endangered grassland community type menaced by succession. There is a need to know slope-acres of habitat accurately, as opposed to sea level projected-acres.
The northern half is remnant old-growth Sitka spruce forest, managed by the US Forest Service largely as a Research Natural Area and marine mammal sanctuary. There has not been funds to do more than an initial establishment report. GIS work has been held back by lack of a good digital elevation model of the rugged and slippery terrain.
The adjacent Salmon River estuary has been the focus of a major salt marsh restoration project to benefit fall chinook salmon. Here subtle elevation differences are crucial in the berm-breaching endeavor, to determine the extent of tidal influences on the future plant community.
Radar imaging could offer some unique benefits to the managment of all three areas because heavy coastal fog and clouds prevents dependable aerial photo imaging. The acreage is too small for useful Landsat or Spot pixels.
As an experiment, Emerald Imagery has volunteered to construct and initially maintain a multi-agency Web GIS page for this site, serving up custom maps in response to project-specific GIS queries. [This is essentially a micro-version of Canada's National Atlas.] This approach is needed because it is not cost-effective to train or equip remote field staffs in high-end techno-rubble. Hopefully, the three agencies will also cooperate more effectively, using the Web page as the common repository for submitted mapping data.
I can't promise any short-term glory in this for JPL/NASA but I can say it is darned good project for potentially displaying the capabilities offered by the radar imaging program. tom @ emerald email: tingalsb@oregon.uoregon.edu 5/10/95
67-3 I see now where I should have directed my project plug directly to the outreach channel JPL has kindly provided. They are in need of a slick Web form page to make requests easier. There are a couple of sites I need too, including the Gila River/ Black Canyon riparian areas [beaver in the past???] in notorious Catron County, New Mexico [unsafe to visit except by remote sensing!] and the Soda Mt. Wilderness proposal, a pain as far as USGS maps are concerned because it straddles the Oregon/California border. I suppose when each mission has a clickable map of coverage showing processed and unprocessed data it would make the process easier on the outreach program. tom @ emerald 5/12/95 QUESTION6868-1 Are you wanting to do Fourier analysis [FFT] on the SAR imagery with the idea mainly of filtering in transform space? The complexity of this would depend on what stage of data processing the analysis was to kick in at, varying from totally routine at the level of final RGB images to more of a challenge for SLC (Single Look Complex: stack of three 2x2 complex matrices) and multi-look data. tom @ emerald: email: tingalsb@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU 5/14/95 QUESTION69
69-1 if you want to view the .img files at the EROS data center with NIH image, you need to select file import, and select custom - set the dimesions, select 8 bit, and calibration and that should do it... 5/16/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION70
70-1 The concept is a good one -- to provide a consistent 'signature'. I would prefer a colors, also for your red, black, and yellow pages. Note Netscape users can override your choice using Options> Preferences..> Fonts& Colors > Colors. If users have set their monitors to 24 bit, the green can come over as an unattractive dark gray.
Why not use a more tasteful and visually interesting fabric or texture supplied free by Netscape Comm. Corp., supplemented by a subdued JPL watermark on each page, the way Delft does? Finally, are you aware that green and all its variants are copyrighted by Emerald Imagery for exclusive use? tom @ emerald 5/22/95
70-2 I, too, agree that the green is a little bright. The Coast Guard does a nice watermark, too: http://www.webcom.com/~d13www/welcome.html. 6/ 1/95Tom Farr, JPL 70-3 test 6/ 2/95 70-4 I would like some soothing background music too, like the jazz they play through RealAudio freeware at Emerald Consulting's new site. You can continue to surf, or even quit Netscape, without disrupting the music stream or slowing down that much. Anon. 6/ 5/95 70-5 New embossed 'JPL' background is classy. It would look good on all the pages. tom @ emerald 6/11/95 70-6 As the above message indicates, I have changed the background to an embossed JPL logo. I hope everyone likes it - I would like to see more identity to the imaging radar program, not just jpl, and maybe change text color so that text doesn't get confused by the background. 6/13/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov 70-7 ok, I'm happy now with the jpl radar background 6/13/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION7272-1 what do you mean "subterranean"? Some radar wavelengths have been shown to have penetration beneath the surface in dry deserts and ice. L-band is the most promising of the sirc wavelengths. Take a look at the eros data center , and see what data we have. 5/31/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION71
71-1 The employment numbers announced by Mr. Goldin on May 19, 1995 are consistent with the downsizing plan JPL has been following for the past couple years. Active microwave research remains a high-priority area for the Laboratory, and we don't anticipate any major changes in the near future. 5/31/95Diane Evans, JPL, evans@berlin.jpl.nasa.gov 71-2 test 6/ 1/95 QUESTION73
73-1
I am very interested in this as well. In many US counties the Soil Conservation has already published soil polygons over b/w orthophotos. The soil data is ground-truthed to some extent but the polygons were drawn for the most part over the photos. An error of 15-20% by area [due to unmappable inclusions] was considered acceptable. Often someone has digitized these as well. Thus there are ample"training" regions for teaching radar to recognize soil types.
However, in my opinion, automated radar soil classification won't correlate very well with SCS polygons. This is because soil taxonomy doesn't define categories or distinctions that are necessarily consistent physically. I question whether if you walked into an SCS office with a 6' core with what probability it would be correctly identified as to polygon type.
Now radar should be able to do something on soils and at far better resolution. And robably something more real than SCS soil types. But radar polygons will probably have to be field-interpreted from scratch. tom @ emerald 6/ 5/95
QUESTION7474-1 Let's assume the water is not puddling at the surface and that the pipeline is not buried to deep. I think you would be better off in late spring or summer with color infrared, especially in drier regions.like Greece. The water leak, even if it never quite reached the surface, would manifest itself as bright pink spot late in the growing season. Vegetation like tamarisk can probe to 20 meters depth. Since you know where the pipeline is buried, anomalies along it would be the leaks. L-band radar might work in sandy situations. Multi-band radar might also work along the same lines as the color infra-red in detecting secondary vegetation anomalies. tom @ emerald 6/ 5/95 QUESTION75
75-1 We are still working on a multi-platform version of macsigma0 - at the same time, we will be updating the software to include the sirc format. I am sorry that we can not yet give a date for the release of this software. 6/ 9/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION76
76-1 Thanks for your interest in TOPSAT; unfortunately, there is no additional information on the web for this potential mission. The Radar Home Page is probably the best place to look for updates, though. TOPSAT is currently a "pre-project", meaning that significant studies have been done on its feasibility, performance, etc., but no committment has been made to actually fly it. As you know, budgets are extremely tight, so it is difficult to start a new project without a lot of support. There is also another option that has recently been put forward: a third flight of SRL, modified for interferometry (see way back to question 34). This could provide digital topographic data almost as good as TOPSAT, though missing areas poleward of the shuttle's orbit (about 50-55 deg latitude). The launch vehicle for TOPSAT is currently planned to be a Delta (both satellites would fit on one launch vehicle). 6/12/95Tom Farr, JPL, tom.farr@jpl.nasa.gov 76-2 You may want to take a look at the report to the National Research Council on "Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar : Current Status and Future Directions". This report describes ideas for future missions. 6/12/95bruce chapman, jpl, bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov QUESTION77
77-1 I meant to ask, where are your reflectors? tom@em 6/14/95 77-2 I found the NASA reflectors but not anything from JPL per se: Live video feeds from NASA TV via CU-SeeMe into the Internet from NASA Lewis Research Center In the US, video reflectors are: 139.88.27.43 at the NASA Lewis Research Center 139.169.165.25 at the NASA Johnson Space Center 128.158.1.154 at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center 131.123.5.1 at Kent State University 128.2.230.10 at Carnegie-Mellon University 129.186.112.242 at Iowa State University In Europe, the video reflector are: 158.36.33.5 at Østfold Regional College in Norway 130.235.128.100 at Lund University in Sweden tom @ emerald 6/18/95 77-3 I found the NASA reflectors but not anything from JPL per se: Live video feeds from NASA TV via CU-SeeMe into the Internet from NASA Lewis Research Center In the US, video reflectors are: 139.88.27.43 at the NASA Lewis Research Center 139.169.165.25 at the NASA Johnson Space Center 128.158.1.154 at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center 131.123.5.1 at Kent State University 128.2.230.10 at Carnegie-Mellon University 129.186.112.242 at Iowa State University In Europe, the video reflector are: 158.36.33.5 at Østfold Regional College in Norway 130.235.128.100 at Lund University in Sweden tom @ emerald 6/18/95 QUESTION78
78-1 Upon request of Tom Pringle I herewith respond to my own question with some elaborations on the use of P-band SAR for forest monitoring. Preliminary results of current on-going research indicate the usefulness of P- band SAR data for forestry applications. These results have been obtained with airborne P-band SAR data from JPL's AIRSAR system. P-band seems to be most suitable for species and tree age discrimination. The backscatter in P-band appears to be related to the amunt of branch biomass. P- band data are highly correlated to forest structure parameters, especially in P- band HH the trunk-ground scatter mechanism contributes to the backscatter.P- band data seems to be correlated to bole volume. Differences in soil moisture conditions can be shown in P-band data. P-band data seesm to be correlated with biomass, and as such a good indicator for selective logging. 6/18/95Wim Looyen, National Aerospace Laboratory, looyen@nlr.nl