Day 13-List Answers

1) UTM is fine all of the Landsat5 data that I've downloaded is projected into that.
2) I can't really evaluate this yet, one paper I started reading compared NDVI of MODIS only to MODIS data and not to another satellite's (such as Landsat 5). They did use Landsat 5 to look at an older fire, one that had occurred before the terra satellite was launched. I also cannot evaluate this yet since one of the other benefits besides the temporal is the fact that the NDVI product is accessible without calculation
3) Still can't find any Landsat 5 imagery for after 2003 around Corsica (ex the norther fourth)
4) Will be able to do this once I can use the MODIS reprojection tool or at least it will be easier
Skipping ahead to 9)
I need a new Java plug-in to run the MODIS online reprojection tool

Day-13 Looking at data

For Landsat 5 I am able to get a lot of data for the PNW but trying to do the same thing around Corsica are proving difficult. I've tried a couple of different data searchers (GloVis, Reverb and WIST) and they all find scenes from the closest coast of Italy or the northern fourth of Corsica but nothing closer. I am not sure why. I first noticed this problem when using GloVis and trying to pick scenes for the area that went past 2003 and the drop down menu would not let me do this. I'm not sure if this represents my inability to search or the actual lack of images. I should try a different year and see what I get. Check back in a few.

Day 12-Meeting Notes

Met with my adviser today to hammer out what we're doing.

1) Decide on a projection and stick with it (suggested: UTM)
2) Look MODIS to see how two different sensors will worktogether
3) Look into the Landsat 5 problems (ie what happend to the south of Corsica past September 2003)
4) Find areas with low vegetation or burnt areas
5) E-mail Miles about spectral unmixing
6) Generate workflow and explore it
7) what are the problems/limits to this method
8) What is the availability of data like
9) Getting the right tools (programs) to do the workflow

This feels like a lot of stuff but it'll get done sometime, I promise. Most of it just requires a little bit more looking into things and e-mailing.

Day Something-MODIS

I requested some MODIS NDVI data and that worked out well enough after making my account. The confusing part was the projection. While I knew that MODIS had a unique sinusoidal projection I didn't think too much about it. Anyways, when opened in ArcGIS it projects funny and it doesn't really work to just reproject it. However, MODIS is fairly commonly used and there is a large Forum post at http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=93&f=984&t=282340 that discusses how to do it. Now I just need to see if that will work for me.

In other news, I need to read up on something that compares Landsat 5 data to MODIS data in a meaningful way.

Day 10-Unsupervised Tools

There is already a tool for unsupervised classification in ArcGIS 10, Iso Cluster Unsupervised Classification (Spatial Analyst). I think to get a handle of what exactly it does I will download data that I can verify (ie the pacific northwest) to see how it works before extrapolating that to an area that I have never been. Easiest place to do that? Gasworks!

Day 9-Catch up

Had meeting with the Remote Sensing expert from Oceanography and my advisor. We talked over what I had learned so far in the quarter and got some interesting new ideas about how to proceed.

The most interesting, and possibly viable, one was the use of Spectral Unmixing. This means taking the value of a pixel and then divide it up by its components since no pixel is really homogeneous, especially at a 30m resolution. I think this will work, if I can learn to do it.

I'm reading some articles on it right now. Lots of them deal with fire, which was where I had originally learned about it, but there are studies using this technique for almost any subject that uses Remote Sensing. I need to read a bit more to understand the particulars but if I can learn to use the program, and not calculate anything myself, I think this would be very useful.

Day 8--ECHO and other things

So after following some good advice first my adviser to e-mail someone, and then from that person's response to e-mail someone else, I have some confirmed information on how to obtain free ASTER data. I just need to sign up for an ECHO account which, is not as easy as it sounds. I attempted to follow the link I was given (https://api.echo.nasa.gov/pump/faces/register_pump.jsp) I could not actually sign up (the page was not available). I e-mailed back to inquire and will probably try again later.

It also seems possible that we will be able to obtain the data since we will only need a couple of bands and a few images, only the visible red and near infrared to calculate NDVI.

Also, I wanted to explore again the price of Landsat-5 Data and it still appears to be free. There is a quote on the main USGS website saying "The opening of the Landsat archive to free, web-based access is like giving a library card for the world's best library of Earth conditions to everyone in the world". So I assume I can download it for free over the internet.