Archaeological Geomatics
Anthropology 3283:30-5:45 PM Thursdays
Spring Semester 2002
Dr. Scott Madry Research Associate Professor of Anthropology, UNC-CH Madrys@email.unc.edu http://www.informatics.org/anthromadry.html
http://www.informatics.org/anth328~ Main page ~ Schedule ~ Web Resources ~ Bibliography ~
Introduction:
This lab is a very cursory introduction to the world of remote sensing and image processing. Remote sensing is a powerful tool and can provide important information for us; but it requires another set of skills, data, software, etc. These are very useful for archaeology. This lab will be in two parts:
Lab Part 1
This first part will use ArcView to look at several SPOT satellite images from around the world. This is a 'canned' dataset from ESRI.Go to Start, then GIS software, then ArvView GIS 3.3 (Not ArcGIS) . Pause while it starts. Then go to Open an existing project (OK). Then go to Drive J:
isis/html.courses.2003spring/anth/328/065/remotesensing/data
Then click on arcscene.apr at left and click 'OK'. You will see a new pop up window behind that window. Just click on 'Cancel' when it asks you to 'find setup wizard'. You will then see the .html based exercise. This has SPOT satellite images from around the world with explanatory text.
Click on one of the world scenes (Paris!) and click on 'Scene' at the top of the page. Also look at 'scene technical info' to learn about this image.
Then go to your ArcView window and enlarge the window, and then enlarge the image. Go back to the text and click on the various red text. This will bring up portions of the images explained in the text. Bounce back and forth.
Use the scale window at upper right. Change the scale of the image to 1:100,000 and use the 'hand' icon to wander around the image. Then try a scale of 1:50,000. Zoom WAY down to see the individual pixels.
Lab Part 2ERDAS 'Imagine' is the premier image processing/remote sensing software (along with PCI, ER Mapper, and Idrisi). UNC has a site license for 60 seats of this software, and it is availabe through AFS for use. You must use an AFS-connected computer on campus, you cannot get a CD or use it remotely from off campus.
Remote sensing requires additional tools that are complimentary to GIS, and remote sensing data feed into the GIS analysis process. We will take a very quick look at ERDAS and look at some data and some capabilities of the software.
Go to Start, then GIS software, then ERDAS Imagine. Wait while to software loads. You will see a toolbar across the top. Click on Viewer at the the upper right. This will open a window where you view the images. Go to file at the top left, and pull down to open and then raster layer (look at all the data types!). You will see a variety of images available for view, including Landsat TM (30 meters), SPOT (10m B&W and 20m color), radar images, scanned air photos, etc. Browse around and look at various images, zoom in, etc. Fun!
Open the file named 'supervised.img'. This is a thematic land use/land cover classification. Now click on 'Utility' on the top menu bar, and click on 'inquire cursor' option. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor around. Look at the right hand table of the database and you will see the various land use/land cover categories that were derived from the remote sensing image.
Look at the other options on the toolbar at top. These are the various image processing functions available. Notice that there is a set of tools for analysis of radar data. The area at the far right is for creating 3-D fly-throughs of data.
See the AFS help page for UNC Imagine information. The UNC Geography dept. teaches classes in remote sensing using ERDAS Imagine:Geography 70 -- Introduction to Geographic Information
Geography 177 Introduction to Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing
Geography 178 Advanced Remote Sensing
Here is the ERDAS website. To learn more about image processing, see the NASA remote sensing tutorial.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. See you next week.
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