Midterm 1 (T1-T7) Flashcards
Define geography
Geography seeks to discover the spatial relationships of phenomena (both physical and human) on the surface Earth
Define science
Refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena.
Define cartography.
The art, science, and technology of making maps, together with their study as scientific documents and works of art.
Define GIS
An information system that is designed to work with data referenced by spatial or geographic coordinates. In other words, a GIS is both a database system with specific capabilities for spatially-referenced data, as well as a set of operations for working with the data.
Define remote sensing.
Obtaining info about something without being in direct contact with that thing.
Which of the 5 senses are considered remote sensing and why or why not?
Touch- no bc direct contact with object
Smell- No bc particles enter nose
Taste- No bc direct contact with tongue
Hearing - Yes because soundwaves went through environment to reach us indirectly
Sight - Yes bc nothing we see physically touches our eyes
Difference between remote and in situ sensing
remote- indirect
in situ - direct “in the situation”
Neither is better than the other but both are needed.
Advantages and limitations of remote sensing (5 of each)
Advantages: increased perspective, generally unobtrusive, broad electromagnetic sensitivity, systematic, unbiased observation, digital extensions
Limitations: external noise/interference, often relies on surrogate measures, technical/calibration issues, can be obtrusive, can be expensive
What is a remote sensing platform and give examples
It is a platform that holds a camera. Examples include a satellite, a person, a plane, or any animal with a camera strapped to it like a shark lol
Define geotechnology**
the application of the methods of engineering and science for the exploitation of natural resources.
Define geomatics**
the discipline of gathering, storing, processing and delivering of geographic info or spatially referenced info. Commonly defined as “hunter and gatherer”.
GIScience definition and examples**
It represents a transdisciplinary integration of theory, methods, technology, and science that allow us to better visualize, monitor, model and manage our interaction on this planet at various scales. Examples of this are GIS and EO (Earth observation) platforms.
Define GEOBIA*
It is a sub-discipline of GIScience devoted to developing automated methods to PARTITION remote sensing imagery into meaningful image-objects and assessing their characteristics through scale. It aims to put geographic ingo into GIS ready format so new geo-intelligence can be obtained
Define geo-intelligence
“spatial content, in context” or gathering the right information at the right time or place
What does GEOBIA require and how does it achieve this? What makes GEOBIA distinct?
It requires image segmentation, attribution, classification, and the ability to query and link individual objects in space and time.
It achieves this by incorporating knowledge from a vast array of disciplines involved in generating and using GI (geographic info). It is uniquely focused on RS and GI.
Does panchromatic or multispectral have a higher resolution? Explain why.
Panchromatic (black and white) resolution is much higher than multispectral resolution (colour) because satellites are able to cover smaller areas in detail if it is in black and white rather than colour. This is why coloured satellite images usually cover larger areas.
Who is GeoEye’s largest customer and what do they do for Google?
largest customer = National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
* provides images to Google Earth and Google Maps
*Tied w Google’s plans for Android
*future location based services
What are key benefits from Google getting a 700 trillion pixel upgrade?
*new map (mosaic) has fewer clouds (second time Google revealed a cloudless map)
*low and medium resolution maps havent been updated in 3 years
*uses the most recent data from Landsat 8 which launched in 2013 and can capture a greater array of light (deep blue and infrared)
What can we use high resolution (h-res) data for? (4)
- integrate real time traffic info
-easily track GPS-equipped vehicles
-analyze multiple or time series images (ex. disasters)
-change detection could be a new market
What is the problem with new satellites?
They have similar abilities to those of military spy satellites except they can sell to anyone who can pay (ex. insurance companies, Telus buys agriculture images)
Solution for preventing distortion from map projecting
*An orderly system of parallels of latitude (N and S of equator) and meridians (E and W of prime meridian) to draw a sphere on a flat surface
What is the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection and how many zones are in the planet and in Canada?
It is the most modern topographic map. 60 in the world, 16 in Canada.
Describe the 4 types of resolution.**
- Spatial - relates to pixel size
- Spectral- the number and dimension of wavelength intervals the remote sensor is sensitive to (how many and how wide are the bands for that wavelength)
- temporal- how long it takes to revisit the same place (observation frequency)
- radiometric- the number of unique values (256 in 8-bit)
What is a raster data model
*Based on pixels
*easy to process
*each pixel holds one attribute
Basic colour theory
Also called additive colour theory, combines the primary colours of blue, red, and yellow
Colour composites and multiband images
There are different colours or bands at different wavelengths
Lookup tables (LUT) and pseudocolour tables
LUT = data structures that map DN values to RGB colours for display purposes
pseudocolour- colourizes monochrome images
Histograms and scatterplots**
Histograms show the frequency of DNs at a specific Band while scatterplots show the relationship between two different bands in terms of their frequency of DNs
3 types of contrast manipulation**
- gray-level thresholding
- density slicing
3.contrast stretching
What are bits and how many bits are in a byte? What range of digital numbers are assigned to an 8 bit integer?
*bits = Binary digITS, are assigned either a 0 or 1
*1 byte = 8 bits
*0-255 because 2^8 = 255
What range is used by an unsigned 16 bit integer versus a signed 16 bit integer? When is the signed integer used?
Unsigned = (0-65535)
Signed = (-32767 to +32767) which is common for digital elevation models (above and below sea level)
What is important about Landsat 7 (The Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus = ETM+) and ETM+ scenes?
*first time using a panchromatic dataset which has a higher spatial resolution. Landsat 7 collects data in accordance with World Wide Reference System 2 which has catalogued the world into 57,784 scenes.
*ETM+ has a fixed, “whisk-broom” 8-band, multispectral scanning radiometer in 183km wide swaths (not very wide).
Scenes: 3.3 GB of data for each scene. Has an IFOV (instantaneous field of view) of 30m in bands 1-5 and 7 and 15m for band 8 (panchromatic).
Rods versus Cones
Rods- many more rods (120 million) because when there is less light at night, more rods are needed to pick up that light, related to monochromatic vision (night vision)
Cones- only 6-7 million, RBG sensitive (3 types)
What is another name for the RGB Colour model? Define it.
Additive colour theory
It is the mixture of colours between red, green and blue (magenta, yellow, cyan)
Define subtractive colour theory**
*based on the colour-absorbing quality of ink
*The portion of white light that is NOT absorbed is reflected back to our eyes
“we see the colour that something is not”
Define CMYK Printing Process
Printers that lay down overlapping layers of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink
*four colour printers add a final black (K) layer for sharpness
Lookup Tables (LUTs) versus Pseudocolour Tables. How is colour quantizing (compression) related to LUTs
LUTs- data structures that map DN values (0-255) to actual RGB colours for display purposes, compression assigns colours to a reduced palette in the form of a LUT, each DN value is assigned a colour
pseudocolour tables- used to colourize monochrome images, similar to a LUT but assigns RGB loadings to a RANGE of colours, not the “true colour” (ex. colour tables on ENVI that change a black and white image to rainbow), the DN values are all assigned a RANGE of colours
Define a histogram*
a graph that shows the number/frequency of DNs plotted against the range of DNs for a single channel of imagery (ex. 0-255 for greyscale images)
*an important data exploration/summary tool that tells us the distribution of DNs in a single band of imagery
Define a scatterplot**
a graph displaying BIVARIATE distribution of 2 channels of imagery (needs 2 images), each point in the graph represents the bivariate DNs of a single pixel
*allows us to explore the distribution of DNs in 2 bands of imagery at a time
Define grey-level image thresholding**
a type of contrast manipulation used to segment an input image into 2 classes:
1. a class for values BELOW a specified DN
2. a class for values ABOVE a specified DN
*Used to prepare a BINARY image to separate spectrally distinct features for further analysis. This only applies to 1 band
Define density-level slicing**
a type of contrast manipulation where DNs along the x-axis of a histogram are segmented into analyst-defined intervals (slices)
*similar to thresholding except it involves numerous classes. This only applies to 1 band
Define contrast enhancement (stretching)
Original DN values rarely extend over the entire output range of a display device (0-255) so enhancement stretches the original data to accentuate contrast and improve visual interpretability (the closer the # is to 255, the brighter)
Name the 2 contrast enhancement techniques** how do they change the original image?
- Linear contrast stretch makes the new image proportionally the same as the original so the histogram will be shaped the same as well.
- Histogram equalization - applies the greatest contrast enhancement to the MOST POPULATED range of DNs in the image (not proportional). The histogram is shaped differently and is called a cumulative frequency histogram. The area with the greatest frequency will have the most proportional stretch.
(T4) Define Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) and the 2 ways it can be observed
It is the energy released when an electrically charged electron moves from an excited state to a de-excited state. It can be observed as both a wave in motion (wave theory of light) or as a single discrete packet (photon)
What are the 3 states of EMR according to the Particle Theory of Light?
- Ground state
- Excitation - when the photon is absorbed
- De-excitation (quantum leap)- the state that causes a photon of light to be emitted
What direction does EMR travel in and at what speed? What temperature of objects is it emitted from?
-Travels orthogonally (perpendicular) at 3x10^8 m/s (speed of light) and is emitted by objects above -273 degrees C (0 Kelvin).
Wavelength versus Frequency**
wavelength- the distance between crests of a wave (measured in um or nm)
frequency - the number of crests that pass the same point per unit of time (ex. every second), measured in MHz or GHz
The formula that relates wavelength and frequency
c = λv, λ = c/v
c= speed of light (3x10^8)
λ = wavelength
v = frequency