LARS Newsletter

January/February 1997

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SOME SATELLITE NEWS OF INTEREST:

1. SPOT 3 STARTS TO TUMBLE: Word has reached us from CNES French Space Agency that SPOT 3 failed to maintain proper orbit on Nov 14, 1996. The satellite launched in September 1993 recently reached the end of its planned three-year lifespan. SPOT 2, launched in early 1990 is still performing but without a tape recorder. SPOT 1 was reactivated in January, 1997 with its original 2 sensors fully operational. SPOT 5 is planned for a launch in 2002 and is expected to have an expanded capability with 5 meter resolution sensor.
   
2. INDIA SATELLITE: India's Earth remote sensing program launched the IRS-1C further demonstrating its commitment to remote sensing for managing its natural resources. The IRS-1C has four multispectral bands in the visible, near infrared, and shortwave infrared bands (0.52-0.59, 0.62-0.68, 0.77-0.86 and 1.55-1.70 microns). The resolutions are 23.5 m with the first three bands and 70.5 m at the MIR. Additionally there is a panchromatic band (0.5-0.75 microns) with 5.8 m resolution. Data from the IRS-1C are now available from Space Imaging/EOSAT.
   
3. Space Imaging EOSAT is the world's largest commercial supplier of high-resolution, high-accuracy Earth information and derived geographic products and services. Today, Space Imaging EOSAT sells five-meter resolution space imagery, derived from the Indian Remote Sensing satellite, and one-meter resolution digital imagery, derived using aerial mapping methods. The company will launch its first one-meter resolution satellite in December 1997. The Space Imaging EOSAT CARTERRA(tm) archive, a globally distributed digital archive of Earth information, is available to commercial, government and consumer organizations users worldwide.
   
4. EarthWatch Incorporated was formed in March 1995 by the merger of the commercial remote sensing efforts of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and WorldView Imaging Corp. EarthWatch's partners include Hitachi Ltd., Datron Systems Inc., Nuova Telespazio s.p.a., CTA Inc., and MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. EarthWatch has proposed a launch of the first three-meter resolution commercial imaging satellite during 1997; a submeter resolution satellite is due to be launched in 1998.
   
5. ORBIMAGE's OrbView-3 spacecraft will provide one- and two-meter resolution panchromatic and four meter resolution multispectral imagery on a real-time basis worldwide. The swath width is 8 kilometers. The satellite will be controlled by ORBIMAGE's existing Spacecraft Control Center located in Dulles, Virginia. Development of the OrbView-3 spacecraft has begun by Orbital's Space Systems Group, which has been awarded the contract to develop, construct, and launch the satellite.

LARSians UPDATE

• JIM AANSTOOS (PHD, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Dr. Ernest Agee advisor). Jim has been chipping away at his PhD since the Fall of 1987. He graduated this December having completed his dissertation entitled "Spectral Estimation of Type I Cloud-Topped Boundary Layers". He did it the hard way while working fulltime at Research Triangle Institute, NC. Jim has been working at RTI since 1979, currently with the Virtual Environments group of the Center for Digital Systems Engineering. He specializes in terrain analysis and modeling. He has also been involved in such projects as computer visualizations of data sets from NASA wind shear models, an EPA project to utilize satellite imagery to classify land cover for use in estimates of biogenic hydrocarbon emissions, studies of techniques for on-board satellite signal processing for imaging sensors, development of computer graphics tools for the creation of aircraft cockpit displays among other things. He can be reached at jva@rti.org
  
• PAM SCHREINER (MSE, 12/96, Civil/Surveying Engineering). Pam just finished her degree, non-thesis option, with Dr. Steven Johnson as her advisor. Her new job at the Maine Maritime Academy, a small college of 650 currently participating in a NOAA-funded grant studying the Penobscot Bay region, is to develop a set of spatial and remote sensing data to support research on the dying cod fisheries, clam beds, and the potential kelp-farming industry. Her job is to develop an in-house GIS and Remote Sensing capability (Arc/INFO, ArcView, and ERDAS on both UNIX and NT platforms), to teach the use of the systems once they are out of development mode, and to collaborate on the NOAA project with other participating institutions in Maine. When the new UNIX workstation and 2 NT PCs arrive, she will be solely responsible for the systems and will serve as system administrator as well as GIS coordinator. For a landlubber she is getting some major exposure to a whole new realm of knowledge; her office is right on the waterfront where MMA has a sizable fleet of vessels including a huge 800' ship, a barge, tugboats, and schooner. It's a very rural area, 40 miles to a sizable grocery store and affordable gas station but only a few hundred yards from the shore and from a forested area with a labyrinth of XC ski, snowmobile, and hiking trails. She has plans to learn to sail and sea kayak this summer. She can be reached at: pschrein@bell.mma.edu
  
• TRACEY HENDERSON (MS, 1990, Agronomy). Tracey Henderson is back in the U.S. from Mozambique and her stint with Food for the Hungry. Besides too many bouts with malaria and conducting her own research, she was able to secure funding for the continued research, extension and community health/nutrition for another five years for her successor before heading back to the States last November. Her work got a very positive review from USAID visitors to the research station and she was able to start some formal collaboration with CIMMYT in the re-activation of the QPM maize program in Mozambique. She was pleased to leave on a "high note" and will most likely be requested to return as a consultant next summer. She and her husband Jim are currently in Waukegon, IL where he has a teaching position in a local college.

MULTISPEC IN THE NEWS AGAIN

The Lafayette Leader (Jan 17) caught up with David Landgrebe and Larry Biehl, who began developing a personal computer application program called MultiSpec about eight years ago. The program makes possible the analysis of multispectral image data such as that from Landsat and AVIRIS. Now that MultiSpec is on the Web, more than 1500 copies were downloaded in 1996 as compared to 529 in 1995. Developed initially to make new data analysis algorithms from their research available to users of multispectral image data, MultiSpec has now become an exciting educational tool for many high school and even elementary level students who were introduced to it through the international program Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) funded by NSF, NOAA, and NASA. With an outreach of about 3,000 schools in 47 countries, GLOBE is taking their environmental observations seriously and in the process introducing MultiSpec to thousands of potential young scientists worldwide. MultiSpec is available to anyone at no cost at http://dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu/~biehl/MultiSpec/. Information on the GLOBE program is available at http://www.globe.gov

CONFERENCES/WORKSHOP DATES

(* = New listing)

Please note that we are not repeating conferences/workshops mentioned in previous newsletters except those of Professional Societies/organizations that appear to be of special interest to our faculty/students.

 

1997:

+Mar 17-19. Fourth International Conference on Remote Sensing for Marine & Coastal Environments: Technology and Applications. ERIM, Orlando, FL. Contact: raeder@erim.org, Web: http://www.erim.org/CONF/conf.html

 

+Mar 21-27. AM/FM International Annual Conference, AM/FM International, San Antonio, Texas. Contact: Paula Delie 303-337-0513

 

+Apr 1-5. Association of American Geographers Annual Mtg., AAG, Fort Worth, TX. Contact 202-234-1450, Fax: 234-2744, gaia@aag.org. Web: http://www.aag.org

 

+Apr 4-6. ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention. ASPRS, ACSM, Seattle, Washington. Contact: 301-493-0200

 

+Apr 7-10. Geospatial Information Age--1997 ACSM/ASPRS Annual Convention and Exhibition, Resource Technology Institute Annual Conference, Auto Carto 13, Seattle, WA. 301-493-0200; lhachero@aol.com; or autoc13@u.washington.edu; http://weber.u.washington.edu/~autoc13/

 

*+Apr 16-18 Joint European Conference & Exhibition on Geographical Information, AM/FM, EGIS, UDMS, JEC, Vienna, Austria. Contact: 41-61-691-51-11; Fax 41-61-691-81-89

 

*+Apr 21-23, Integrating Photgrammetric Techiniques With Scene Analysis andMachine Vision III, Part of SPIE Aerospace `97, Orlando, FL. Contact: (412) 268-2626 or dmm@cs.cmu.edu

 

+Apr 29-1 May, ASPRS 16th Biennial Workshop on Color Photography and Videography in Resource Assessment, Weslaco, TX. Gerald Anderson, 210-969-4834, gl-anderson@tamu.edu; http://rsru2.tamu.edu/rsru/workshop/workshop.htm

 

*+May 13-16, GPS/GIS `97, Geo-Research Inc, Annapolis, MD. Contact: (310) 320-0911, Fax: 0922.

 

*+May 24-30. Geomatics in the Era of RADARSAT, CSA, Geomatics Canada, Ottawa, CA. (613) 996-2817, ger97@ccrs.nrcab.gc.ca; www.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/ger97/

 

+May 26-29. GIS AM/FM '97 and Geo-informations '97, Chinese Geographic Information Society, Taipei, Taiwan. Contact: Web: http://www.jglay@ccms.ntu.edu.tw

 

*+May 28-29. TSUGIS `97, Towson State University, Towson, MD. Contact: (410) 830-2964, Fax: 3888, e7g4mor@toe.towson.edu

 

*+June 4-7. Surveying Without Bourders-6th Austrian Geodetic Day, Austrian Society for Surveying and Geoinformation. Contact: 04242-37466-63; Fax: 04242-37466-73.

 

+June 23-27. 18th ICA/ACI intn'l Cartographic Conference, Stockholm, Sweden. Fax: 46 26 65 31 60 bengtr@lmv.lm.se Web: http://www.lm.se/icc97.html

 

+July 7-10. Third International Airborne Remote Sensing Conference and Exhibition, ERIM, Copenhagen, Denmark. Contact: 313-994-1200, ext. 3234, Fax: 994-51123. wallman@erim.org. Deadline for Call for Papers: December 13, 1996.

 

+July 7-11. Seventeenth Annual ESRI User Conference. San Diego, CA. Contact: www.esri.com; uc97@esri.com; 909-793-2853 ext. 1-1363

 

*+July 8-10. The Role of Earth Observation Data in Forecasting, Managing & Recovering from Natural Disasters, EARSEL, Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London. Contact: 1483-740014; Fax: 1483-740231

 

+Aug 3-8. IGARSS `97, Singapore. contact: (713) 291-9222; Fax: 9224., tstein@phoenix.net

 

*+Sep 3-9. IAG-97-Scientific Assembly & XVIII Brazilian congress of Cartography, Intl. Assoc. of Geodesy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Contact: 55-11-818-5501; Fax: 5716; iag97@org.usp.br

 

+Sep 8-10. First European Conference on Precision Agriculture, Coventry, United Kingdom. Contact: SCI Conference Department, 14/15 Belgrave Square, London SW1 8PS, United Kingdom, 144 171 235 3681, fax 144 171 235 7743, e-mail conferences@chemind.demon.co.uk, Internet http://www.sri.bbsrc.ac.uk/.

 

+Sept 22-26, 46th Photogrammetric Week, Zeiss, Stuttgart, Germany. Contact: 49-711-121-3201; fax 49-711-121-3297.

 

*+Oct 15-17 "Exploiting New Image Sources and Sensors", AIPR-97-APPLIED IMAGERY PATTERN RECOGNITION WORKSHOP, SPIE & AIPR, Cosmos Club, Washington, DC. Contact: J. Michael Selander, (703)883-7294 jms@mnsinc.com . Abstracts for papers due: May 1, 1997

 

*+Oct 24-31. GIS/LIS `97, AAG, ACSM, AAM/FM International, ASPRS, URISA, Cincinnati, OH, Contact: (301) 493-0200; Fax: 8245.

 

*+Nov 4-8. 17th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, Asian Assoc. of Remote Sensing, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Contact: 81-33402-6231; Fax: 81-3-3479-2762; chiwa@shunji.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

 

*+Nov 17-19. Applied Geologic Remote Sensing: Practical Solutions for Real-World Problems, ERIM, Denver, CO. Contact: 313-994-1200, ext. 3234, Fax: 994-5123; wallman@erim.org Call for papers due: 21 Mar 97

--Bernard Engel, Acting Director & Chris J. Johannsen*, Director
  Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing (LARS)
  1158 ENTM 220, Purdue University,
  W. Lafayette, IN 47907-1158, USA
  (317) 494-6305, Fax: (317) 494-7753
  engelb@ecn.purdue.edu    johannsn@ecn.purdue.edu
 
Homepage: http://dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu/~biehl/LARS/
*Currently Visiting Chief Scientist, Space Imaging Inc., Thornton, CO