Real-world classification Lab

Hey guys, as you saw last week classifying features in satellite images is hard in some cases and easy in others.  Some things were easy to distinguish--say water and land--while others were more difficult, say urban areas versus wetlands.

This is where the science of remote sensing kicks in.  Different features absorb and reflect in different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from microwaves all the way down to UV.  Today we are going to continue with landsat satellite images and do three things:

1. Download landsat images from the USGS or Brazilian Space Agency links:

http://edcsns17.cr.usgs.gov/EarthExplorer/

http://www.dgi.inpe.br/CDSR/

2. Look at different combinations of bands and what they tell us about features. 

3. Download time series of landsat data and classify them to answer real-world conservation/science questions.

Line-Drawing Made Easy

Here's a useful tool for connecting points to make a line. In Hawth's Tools (see the entry below), under 'Animal Movement' use 'Convert locations to Paths'. It's much quicker than playing connect-the-dots with the sketch tool!

Landscape ecology article

Here is  a link to a GIS project where they go through the steps of their model for landscape connectivity.  

Add-ons for ArcGIS

Hey guys, 

Here is a link to Hawth's Tools--add-on tools to ArcGIS that do things that we do a lot and that is difficult or not straightforward in Arc.  It might be worth adding them.