Environmental Remote Sensing

Forestry 753

Lecture meetings (Jordan Hall 5103): Wednesdays 12:25 to 1:15

Lab meetings (Jordan Hall 5103): Wednesdays 1:30 to 3:20

READING ASSIGNMENTS:
Jensen: Ch. 1-3

Instructors: Dr. Siamak Khorram; phone: 515-3430; email khorram@ncsu.edu; office location: 5112 Jordan Hall; office hours: By appointment

Dr. Joe Knight; phone: 541-4918; email: knight.joe@epa.gov; office location: n/a; office hours: By appointment

       Dr. Halil Cakir
       phone: 515-1981
       email: halil_cakir@ncsu.edu
       office location: CEO, Jordan Hall
       office hours: By appointment

Course Description

This course covers principles and applications of remote sensing technology to earth resources and environmental studies. Topics include: electromagnetic energy, data acquisition platforms, sensors and scanners, processing of digital remotely sensed data, error analysis and accuracy assessments, and integration of remotely sensed data with other data types used in natural resource management.

Course Objectives

This course will provide students with a basic understanding of the fundamentals and applications of remote sensing and digital image processing. An awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of remote sensing and digital image analysis will help prepare students to utilize current technology in devising solutions to environmental problems. Students will gain a better understanding of the complexities of image analysis and will be more prepared to integrate information from remote sensing into their area of expertise.

Textbook

There are no required books for the course but "Introductory Digital Image Processing 3rd ed." by John Jensen (Prentice Hall, 2004) is highly recommended. Reading assignments will be drawn from this text, which will be on reservere in the Natural Resources Library in Jordan Hall. You are encouraged to purchase a copy of the book.

Some Additional Information...

The lecture content is general to image processing while the labs will use specific software and a limited set of satellite data. Much of the work in this class will be done with the image processing software IMAGINE v8.7. The class meeting will be roughly one hour of lecture and two hours of lab. The computer work will be done in the lab session. All labs are linked below. You are encouraged to preview the lab's web page prior to the actual lab. Some sites for your general information:

NASA Remote Sensing Tutorial (excellent resource)
List of Remote Sensing Journals at NC State

Student Resonsibilities

Each student will be expected to actively participate in the labs, read the assigned material, complete homework, and a mid-term exam. In addition, each student will be responsible for a project which will incorporate what we have covered in class with the student's individual interest. Projects will be comprised of a written report due at the end of the semester and a class presentation of your findings. Notes on the project

Computer Lab Exercises

Lab One: Introduction to Imagine software and image data
Lab Two: Image enhancement, information extraction, transformation
Lab Three: Geometric registration
Lab Four: Unsupervised classification
Lab Five: Supervised classification
Lab Six: Change detection
Lab Seven: Accuracy assessment
Lab Eight: Image management

Note: All data for these labs are housed on the server gettysburg.nrrc.ncsu.edu in the "for753" folder.

Grading Policy

The grading scale will be described in class.