Moreton Bay Research Station Computer Room trying to unlock the mysteries of physics-based inversion algorithms
I am still involved with various spectral mapping efforts from aircraft and space. I spent the past week at the Moreton Bay Research Station on North Stradbroke Island in Queensland, Australia with a bunch of people trying to determine sea grass distributions from imagery. Most of the time we were locked into this room –
But I was able to get out one day to look at the environment we were trying to map, with guys who actually know the environment and can tell one form of sea grass from another.
One of the sea grass species (Cymodocea serrulata) we were trying to identify from aircraft imagery.
Below we were engaged in putting the “map on the pixel” instead of the traditional other way around (I am the geek in the hat).
I rarely write about such endeavors, mostly because of time, but a thought crystallized in my mind during this trip that is relevant for what we are trying to do here. The mapping industry has created some expensive tools (consider that the LandSat follow-on is likely to be over $700 million). Yet the “last mile” of knowledge is always created by someone in the field, applying their skills and knowledge to the data coming from the survey instruments.
Our mission is to make the human part of this process more efficient and more rewarding. When we succeed in this mission, we will be creating a healthier place to live, with better funding for the experts to pursue their studies and acquisition of knowledge.
On the left, Chris Roelfsema is showing where we are on the map. On the right, we are "putting the map on the pixel".
My thanks to the down under crew of Stuart Phinn, Arnold Dekker, Chris Roelfsema, Mitchell Lyons, and the Moreton Bay Research Station for an excellent workshop and their wonderful hospitality.
Tags: FERI, Hyperspectral, mapping, Remote Sensing
