GIS 4035 - Remote Sensing and Photo Interpretation Student Spotlight

GIS4035/L Remote Sensing and Photo Interpretation, Instructor, Mr. Brian Fulfrost

Module 6 - Image Preprocessing and Spatial Enhancement

Lab Description:
Image enhancements modify remote sensing data to help users to interpret those data beyond what is initially apparent. There are a variety of methods and purposes for enhancements, from extracting or highlighting hidden features, to correcting for sensor errors.

In this lab, students learned how to complete similar tasks in ArcMap and ERDAS Imagine. ArcMap and ERDAS cannot replace each other, but can be used in conjunction to complete the most difficult tasks.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Download and import satellite imagery
• Perform spatial enhancements in ArcMap and ERDAS
• Utilize the Fourier Transformation function

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARD

The BLOG postings this week illustrated that a number of students, including Alicia Lindbom and Brittany Burdelsky, and Sarah Love-Martin had a high level of  understanding of how spatial image enhancement techniques can be be utilized for various functions, including the "destriping" of Landsat imagery. However, we thought Sara's BLOG posting was especially good.

Sarah Love-Martin

Sarah is currently in her last semester with the GIS Online Program. She is a former Aerial Photographer (which sounds like the coolest job ever!) and has consistently shown herself to be a dedicated student. Congratulations and Welcome to the Spotlight!
 

 Sarah's map and BLOG posting are easy to understand, provide an excellent overview of the spatial enhancement techniques learned in this week's Module, and demonstrate a high level of understanding of the material. Sarah provides a brief review of what spatial enhancement techniques are and then succinctly describes the differences and uses for each technique. In addition, she compare the similar tools for performing spatial enhancements in ArcGIS and Erdas Imagine. Her map clearly illustrates her success in applying the Fourier (and other) transformation methods to remove the "striping" on the Landsat image. The map also includes a "zoomed in" example of the original image so the reader can compare her results to the same area in the original, which allows the reader to easily understand the outcome of the methods that were applied.

GIS Online Fall 2015 Events

It is shaping up to be a really busy semester for GIS Online! Here is a rundown of the 2015 GIS meetings that we will be attending/participating in:

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South Florida GIS Expo (Palm Beach County Convention Center) - http://maps.co.palm-beach.fl.us/sfgisexpo/Default.aspx

Thursday & Friday, October 8th and 9th, 2015

GIS Online has a booth space and will be marketing our program to a new market. We also hope to find more regional internships.

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Northwest FL GIS User Group Fall Meeting (Destin Community Center) -

101 Stahlman Avenue Destin, FL 32541

Wednesday, October 14th, 2015, 8:30 – 2:30 CDT

GIS Online has a booth space and is hoping to find more local internships as a result of this event. Salina Randall will be presenting on all the GIS happenings @ UWF (both online and on-campus).  

We are also hosting a digital map media competition. Visit the website to learn more! http://uwf.edu/continuinged/departments/gis-online/resources/gis-community/

Submissions are due to gisonline@uwf.edu by 11:59 PM CST on Sunday, October 4, 2015. Judging will close on Monday, October 12, 2015 and winners will be announced at the User Group meeting.

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SHRUG (FSU Convention Center, Tallahassee, FL) -  
http://www.shrug-gis.info/workshop2015/ 

Wednesday & Thursday, November 18th and 19th, 2015 

GIS Online has booth space here as well. We have attended this event before with great success in marketing our programs and finding internship opportunities for our students. We expect this year to be the same on that front.

A few new developments in our participation with SHRUG:

• We will host several open lab sessions during the event, featuring content from our recent MOOC - Introduction to GIS.
• On November 20th, Salina Randall and Deidra Krolikowski will be conducting 2 training courses titled:  
• From Data to Maps - Communicating GIS Effectively and 
• Line up Florida with Projections.  

Here is a link to find out more: http://www.shrug-gis.info/workshop2015/training.aspx

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SEDAAG (Crown Plaza Grand Hotel, Pensacola, FL) - 
 http://sedaag.org/2015-annual-meeting/

Sunday - Tuesday, November 22-24, 2015

 

This year's GIS Day celebration will be on the Sunday before the SEDAAG Convention. It will be an exciting opportunity to share GIS with a wide variety of people in a very different venue. This year's celebration will be sponsored by GIS Online @ UWF, the Earth and Environmental Sciences department and ESRI.

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We are looking forward to a fast-paced couple of months that will help us highlight our program to a wide and varied audience. We invite you to check your calendars and see if you can join us, or find an event or user group closer to home and become a part of your local GIS community! We will of course keep the Blog updated with details from each of the events. 

Cheers!

GIS Online Student Spotlight - 9/18/15

Congratulations to Jim Galliart on being named GIS Online Student Spotlight for his outstanding work in Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930)

Welcome to the spotlight, Jim! Jim lives in Story City, Iowa with his wife of 18 years, Nicole. They have two cats, Gandalf and Loki. Jim works in the Iowa Department of Transportation as a Design Technician Specialist, and is studying GIS to bridge the gap between his CAD knowledge and his department's GIS source data.

To follow Jim's work within the program, visit his blog at Adventures in GIS.
 

Project 1 - Network Analyst (Week 1 and 2)

In this project, students work with Network Analyst for a Hurricane Evacuation Scenario in Tampa, FL USA. What makes this project interesting (especially this year) is that UWF GIS Online student, Nicole Gusack, is currently interning with the Tampa Bay National Weather Service Office where she actively helped prepare for recent hurricane/tropical storm events using the same methods we employed in this project - specifically, by applying the "Project Pheonix - The Tampa Bay Catastrophic Plan" to prepare.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Organize and prepare project data in a geodatabase and feature dataset for use in Network Analyst.
• Utilize a customized tool to clip and reproject multiple features, provide justification for its use, and review how it is scripted with Python.
• Classify a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) dataset based on researched methods and convert it from a raster to polygon feature in order to identify low lying areas in Tampa, FL.
• Summarize key processes completed for Prepare week, including any issues encountered along the way.
• Identify shelters by travel time.
• Analyze routes for evacuation and delivery of emergency supplies.

What we like: Congrats to Jim for submitting one of the only 100% A+ map packages. What we like most is his professionalism and attention to detail. Check out his blog and read about the project and his experience for yourself - it's a good read!  

In the prepare section, we like the way he symbolized flood zones and elevation.  Look at all of those emergency service labels! All accounted for and easy to read.    

Basemap of the Tampa, Florida area showing classified DEM, flood zone, and emergency services.

In the analyze section we like the map layout, fonts, and organization of information. There was a lot of information required on the analysis map this week, but he did a great job of making sure everything was present and easy to view.

A map of the Tampa, Florida area showing downtown evacuation routes, patient evacuation routes, emergency supply routes, and nearest shelter locations based on travel time.

Keep up the excellent work Jim, and good luck with the project's conclusion!

GIS Online Student Spotlight - 9/11/15

Congratulations to Brittany Burdelsky on being named GIS Online Student Spotlight for her outstanding work in Remote Sensing (GIS 4035)

 

Welcome to the spotlight, Brittany! Brittany lives in Aurora, CO with her husband Greg and cat, Howl. She is a graduate of FSU and FAU, with degrees in biology and anthropology, respectively. Her other areas of interest are dental anthropology, bioarchaeology, and paleopathology. When she saw that GIS knowledge was increasing in demand, Brittany decided GIS certification was the career move for her.

To follow Brittany's work within the program, visit her blog at There and Back with GIS.
 

Module 2 - Interpreting Aerial Photography

Instructor Brian Fulfrost

This module introduces aerial imagery interpretation. There are several elements of interpretation that help in determining what features are in aerial imagery. Tone, texture, size, and shape are among the basic elements while pattern, shadow, and association are more complex methods of interpretation. Independently and in concert these elements help in the analysis of an image.

 

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Interpret the tone and texture of aerial photographs
• Identify land features in an aerial photograph based on several visual attributes
• Compare similar land features in true color and false color infrared (IR) photographs project name

What we like: A number of students in Remote Sensing demonstrated a high level of comprehension of how to use recognition elements (also called image elements) to interpret different types of geographic features from aerial photos. However, we thought Brittany's blog posting was especially good. Brittany's maps and blog postings demonstrate a high level of comprehension of how recognition elements are utilized to interpret aerial photography. Her maps are well organized and also demonstrate a good design sense. For each exercise, Brittany provided easy to understand and concise description and overview of each recognition type. In addition, her explanations of how she utilized these recognition elements to identify features are clear and well illustrated in her maps. The features on her first map are well labeled, and combined with her descriptions, provide good examples of how various types of features can have different tone and texture. Her map also contain a small amount of additional of text that makes it easy for the reader to understand the map.

Her second map also provides distinct descriptions of each of the 4 additional recognition elements (shape/size, pattern, association, and shadow) and how each recognition element was used to derive different types of geographic features (peg pier, beach, residential area, sign, etc.). Brittany also provides a good introduction to image interpretation (with links) as well as an excellent discussion of the differences between true vs false color imagery (an exercise that didn't require a map output).

This map shows various regions highlighted and classified by tone and texture

This map displays features identified by shape/size, shadow, pattern, and association

 Thanks again for your excellent submissions Brittany!