STREAMS OF BRYCE CANYON : A MISSING LINK IN GROUND TRUTH

Every tale has more than one side or perspective. And so it is with NASA, which studies Earth science from different angles – from satellites, from aircraft, and sometimes from the ground. But somehow, no matter how many ways there are to view a place, there’s nothing better than being there.

Case in point: Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. The interlocking peaks of the canyon rim can top 9,000 feet – high enough that year-round flurries created this snow-capped winter wonderland captured by photographer James Van Gundy. The spectacular oranges, browns, reds, and yellows of the limestone and the unique rain- and frost-carved stone make the park a destination for more than 1.5 million tourists each year.

Those peaks offer breathtaking views of three states and 200 miles of visibility.

In contrast, a Landsat satellite image of the park, taken in 2006, tells a top-side story of streams and rivers and valleys that stretch out like the fingers of a child’s hand print. A host of new colors emerge, not apparent from the ground view. The greens of coniferous forests. The blues of lakes and the Tropic Reservoir.

GEOINFORMATICS : IN AN ENGINEERING PERSPECTIVE

Knowing the earth by its dimensions and imaging the natural processes on earth through the geospatial technologies are the prime goals of Geo-Informatics. The tell-tale stories of ancient cartographers and their handmade paper maps, large scale techniques of triangulation, stereoscopic principles and earth observation satellites speak in volumes about Geo-Informatics as a technology. Much water has run under the bridge since then. The potential of this technology has aggrandized from Earth science and cartographers to Geo-Informatics engineers. Construction of geospatial solutions as a conglomeration of scientific principles and Engineering innovations is the need of the hour.

Geomatics engineering is based on the framework of applied mathematic, physics, remotesensing ,computerscience, integration of satellite communication systems , design and management of complex hardware and data system. Probing the earth and its atmosphere from space provides an efficient, cost effective and rapid approach to discover natural resources, understand the climate system and monitor ocean circulation. Hence it requires complete understanding of the physical principles which go behind the remotely sensed images and complex mathematical principles involved in excellent geospatial softwares which process those imageries.

Geomatics engineering is a modern dicipline which integrates acquisition, modelling analysis and management of spatially referenced data. i.e data identified according to locations. Based on the scientific frame work of geodesy, it uses terrestial marine airborne, and sattelite based sensors to acquire spatial and other data. Also it includes the process of transforming spatially referenced data from different sources into common information system with well defined accuracy characteristics.

By and large the nuances of geomatics Engineering has increased manifold. The advent of hyperspectral remote sensing is one of the most significant breakthroughs in Geomatics. The capability of distinguishing different features and describing the same ground objects in various levels of details enhanced greatly.

The contribution of a Geomatics Engineer starts even before the satellite is launched into orbit. It is imperative to decide the sensor configuration and the typical wavelenghts of the sensor which can sense radiometrically and geometrically different features on Earth in a distinct manner. Hence the verdict of the Geomatics Engineer is extremely important while designing the spectral resolution of a sensor. Once the satellite is put into orbit it becomes highly essential to know the pertubing forces due to earth’s asphericity,solar Radiation, Tidal forces and third body perturbations which can alter the image characteristics of the Remote sensing satellites. Here the regular corrections to be made to the imagery for various perturbing effects must be studied and modelling of these variations must be handled by a Geomatics Engineer.

After the satellite starts transmitting data to ground station , scene –wise storage and management of data is carried becomes his responsibilty. The various levels of Geometric and Radiometric corections are then performed. The data is imported into a GIS or image processing software for data analysis and classification. Finally the Geomatics Engineer disseminates the data according to user requirements , there by bringing the process in to its consummation.

But, its ironical that the softwares which were actually introduced to perceive the technology in a better way hinders the real understanding of its principles.The extent of analysis must not be bound by the modules available. Thus what’s needed is to fathom the concepts of Geoinformatics running behind the screen rather than laying our hands just on the ‘mouse clicks’.

Thus, the burgeoning multifacted arena of Ge-Informatics Engineering enables the scientists to achieve credible Geospatial solutions not only for processes happening on Earth but also for umpteen unanswered mysteries in other planets. Proud to be a Geomatics Engineer!

EARTH IN SATURN'S SHADOW

This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more like an artist’s creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is a composite (layered image) made from 165 images taken by the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft over nearly three hours on September 15, 2006. Scientists created the color in the image by digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared, and clear-filter images and then adjusting the final image to resemble natural color. (A clear filter is one that allows in all the wavelengths of light the sensor is capable of detecting.) The bottom image is a closeup view of the upper left quadrant of the rings, through which Earth is visible in the far, far distance.

On this day, Saturn interceded between the Sun and Cassini, shielding Cassini from the Sun’s glare. As the spacecraft lingered in Saturn’s shadow, it viewed the planet’s rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world. Seen from more than a billion kilometers (almost a billion miles) away, through the ice and dust particles of Saturn’s rings, Earth appears as a tiny, bright dot to the left and slightly behind Saturn.

Although it might appear that Earth is located within Saturn’s outermost rings, that positioning is just an illusion created by the enormous distance between Cassini and Earth. When Cassini took this image, the spacecraft was looking back at Saturn from a distance of about 2.2.million kilometers (about 1.3 million miles). The Sun was millions of additional miles beyond, hidden behind Saturn. On September 15, Earth’s orbit had brought our home planet to a location slightly behind and to the left of the Sun from Cassini’s perspective.

Here is the website to get more enthralled!
http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2230&js=1

The STEREO Ahead spacecraft kept a close eye on two active regions on Feb. 12, 2010. The one on the left popped off a small flare. The still shows the bright flash of the flare in UV light at 195 Angstroms. The active region near the center shows a lot of magnetic struggles within it, and it bursts out a small coronal mass ejection (CME) after the arch of particles is seen rising up. Flares are intense explosions on the Sun that blast out radiation into space. CMEs are larger and longer lasting solar storms that carry a larger cloud of particles and magnetic field into space. Both can create what we call "space weather" effects such as power disruptions, satellite problems, and aurora if aimed at Earth.

IMAGE FUSION

PROBLEM :

HOW DO WE GO ABOUT FUSING A MICROWAVE IMAGE AND OPTICAL IMAGE OF A SAME AREA ?

The conventional style of Georeferencing always exists. But what if we are not microwave specialists and could not identify features just by seeing?
If we go for a path and row we can find only a scene and not a specific point which we would require to georeference an image and thus fuse them. Further its a critical situation if we use a fusing of an Interfereogram.

A new dimension to GPS through SONAR

GPS does not work underwater-the radio signals on which it depends cannot pass through water. So submariners have yet to benefit from the revolution in navigation that it allows.

Now engineers working for the US Office of Naval Research think they have found a simple way to let submarines and divers get an accurate GPS fix.

A base station is tethered to the sea bed at known depth and known GPS location. A submersible anywhere in the area sends out a sonar request pulse to which the base station replies with a signal which gives its GPS position and depth as well as the bearing angle from which the submersible?s request arrived.

The submersible then uses its own depth, which is easily measured, plus the round trip pulse time and the bearing angle sent by the base, to calculate its own position. Simple.

Reference :
http://www.divespots.com/pdf/DiveSpots_article_uwgps.pdf

NATURE : RESILIENT IN ITS PULCHRITUDE

The sky Stood staring at me ;

Scattering its Red and Yellow.

Much have i Longed ,

For this unabated exhilaration

There fell my heart for the God made Earth!

When the dew dropped and

The Sun hid itself behind the horizon,

Soon did I realize

The departing trees and smoke emitting chimneys

which refelected the try-catch game

With those coterie of men

who architect the signboard

"A Tree- The Last natural specimen on Earth;

Tresspassers will be prosecuted."

MESOSCALE THERMAL FRONTS AND EVAPORATION RATES

I would like to brief one of my ideas which would certainly have a great say in limiting climate change if not curb it completely. Any coup for limiting this issue must involve the complete understanding of atmospheric parameters. So my idea also revolves around comprehending certain land and oceanic parameters which can alleviate climate change. Climate change in a broad sense means anomalous behavior of atmospheric parameters due to some natural or anthropogenic activity.

Sea level rise as we all know is a major effect of climate change. Through out my write up I’m going to focus on this oceanic parameter which is the need of the hour. Mesoscale thermal fronts and sinks are areas of thermal discontinuities where absorption of CO2 by ocean from atmosphere is relatively high. I am currently working in a paper where I am trying to map these regions from satellite images like AVHRR and NOAA.

But why these sinks are important? Yes, these regions absorb co2 and increase their boundaries and thereby aggrandizing the total ocean temperature. So as ocean heat increases the evaporation in that region alone starts increasing and the winds driven from that region bring heavy rainfall. So, at one part where there are sinks the rainfall decreases and another part the evaporation is high resulting in heavy showers. This causes heavy cyclones in some regions and draught in other regions. And when the thermal fronts spread, the regions under high rate of evaporation increase drastically, giving rise to more and more cyclones. So we have to control the high rate of evaporation in places of thermal fronts. Hence identification of these places is the prime goal.

1. Map the regions using MODIS thermal bands.
2. Using image processing techniques we can find out the areas of thermal fronts and sinks.
3. On knowing the lat long of those areas we can control the rate of evaporation at those places alone.
4. Cetyl alcohol is found to be the chemical which is strong, flexible to wind and ocean currents. This can be sent through undersea pipelines as we send the liquid co2 into oceans. But the foremost thing here is to monitor the lat long in which it has to be spread. Here comes the geospatial technology.
5. Next we have to validate the results because these chemicals can also have alternative impacts.
6. So we need a marine geospatial system which can monitor the latitude. Longitude, SST and wind speed in that area in daily timescale to see if there is any change in SST after the Cetyl alcohol is sent.
7. This system must comprise a GPS, a thermal sensor for estimation of SST, an antenna for immediate transfer of information to the land system.
8. The land system must have a MARINE GIS application to create buffer around thermal fronts, increase or decrease the buffer once the SST information is transferred, make simulations for increase in Cetyl alcohol content by generating DEM layers.
9. Here Generation of DEM is necessary in order to know the level at which Cetyl alcohol must be supplied. Also DEM must be created fro sea continental shelf region.
10. On the whole it should function as a real time monitoring system.

So in compendium I can say that the whole operation involves Geospatial technology in oceans for limiting climate change.

FROM ELUSIVE LICENSED SOFTWARES TO ENABLING OPEN SOURCE..

Open source soft ware is a relatively novel concept that has started dominating not only the IT SECTOR but also spatial information system like GIS. In a broad sense open source technology has almost replaced the licensed soft wares with its redistributive and collaborative nature. Nothing in open source sector defines more than how passionately we go about innovating things. But still a fallacious thought which exists about open source is that it requires enormous programming skills than the normal licensed software. But this is not true. There are open source soft wares which are compatible with c and c++. A basic programming knowledge is the need of the hour. When mankind has learnt to fly, build tunnels through mountains and under the sea and transport itself into space at will, open source is not far behind.

Yes, it’s true! A degree of skepticism in my mind about open source was obliterated by this extensive lecture on open source who was instrumental in devising a ‘Business GIS Application’.

It was a normal Friday morning not much to ponder about as our semester started just 4 days before. We were in our GIS labs when we were instructed by our professor to head towards the auditorium. It was exhilaration all around! Of course the very thought of relieved from the normal classes all through the day added to our zeal.

A PhD student from University of Ireland (correct me if I’m wrong), an extensive user of Open source GIS packages Mrs. Easwari Shivanyanam appeared on the dais to share her experiences on the exemplary nature of open source technology in developing a Business GIS Application for a company in Srilanka.

Albeit it may not be possible for me to focus more on the technical side of this workshop , I would like to state the problems which she explained us and the solutions for the same.

PROJECT: DEVELOPMENT OF A BUSINESS GIS APPLICATION WHICH IS COST EFFECTIVE AND ALSO EFFICIENT.

INDUSTRY: RETAIL INDUSTRY

WHY GIS, WHEN WE HAVE A NORMAL BUSINESS DATABASE?

· To ameliorate the problems faced by the sales representatives in reaching the destination.
· A map can speak in volumes than the normal textual content.
· To convey the info to the head office once a product is sold.
· It can be updated in the database immediately.

USES
· To fathom the hotspot analysis in a buffer
· Cluster analysis, Trend analysis of a product over a few years in an area, route updating and land use changes.
· This can facilitate the companies to compare their improvement over the years.
· GPRS enabled mobile printer can be utilized for immediate generation of bills and a facsimile can be transferred to the head office through a palmtop.
· Shortest path algorithms : to guide the sales rep
· Track of the sales rep through out the day.
· A clear map can alleviate ambiguous situations and repeated visits to a particular street.
· It can also be a great use in finding how much distance a sales rep has covered in a day, in a month and so on and what’s his output.

PROBLEM IN THE CASE STUDY

It should be customer specific. In this case the company was highly benefited by the Business application involving GIS as the sales representatives were able to send instant SMS to head office in case of lack of products. Every new shop where the product is sold is updated in the map. The regional manager should be able to keep track of everything sold in his region.

All the maps given were in Map info format (as mentioned in the lecture). No money would be spent on the software development except a single PC. So Open source soft wares were a blessing in disguise! Open street maps were utilized extensively.

SOFT WARES USED: QGIS, POSTGIS WITH POST GRESQL,
R- STATISTICAL PACKAGE.

APPLICATION DESIGN

The basic requirement of the customer was ‘create and edit capability’ of the application. They had also opted for Google map interface. So that was taken as the base map. Further thematic maps were generated. Last but not least a genteel appearance.

Two basic methods used were
1. What if analysis.
2. Optimal route calculation.

The former had a significant use when a polygon had to be removed and the same situation has to be faced. From my understanding I can put it like this…

What if a particular road is blocked and the product has to reach the destination somehow. So an aliter has to be visualized for the destination which is highly possible with GIS in hand.

The afternoon session focused more on the various open source soft wares, brief hints on many. It was an application which juxtaposed many open source soft wares.

Of course it would have really been knotty task in bringing everything to one platform. I have given below a few sites which were mentioned in the lecture session.

· http://www.mapserver.org/
· http://www.postgresql.org/
· OGC
· GDAL
· http://www.spatialreference.org/
· Refraction.net
· TIDAC.CH-(IN CHENNAI) - A company which designed the Tamil Nadu govt. website.
· Unsusthnic.in

Thanks to Mrs. Easwari who motivated us so much andshared so many experiences in this domain. I might have missed out some technical specifications in the lecture. I welcome the points and looking forward eagerly to upload them in this post.

2012: Human-nature battle

Its yet another warning sounded by our technocrats in the Hollywood. The director has shown a perfect coherence in his scripts. The last part of the film which portrays the tracking of disaster is something praiseworthy. The African Geologist has made his part laudable by his clear diction and body language.

Hey buddies, i don't wish to comment more as i feel that its a must watch movie.

TRACES OF THE PAST

Have u ever wondered visiting your school after entering your college?? Perhaps 2-3 years later….If u had done it so, these lines can certainly take u down your memory lane; make you exult in the days of excitement, favorite teachers, silly fights, tough punishments...

Two drops down my cheeks …for those days which I can never get back... but only replay…

It was last winter. I had completed my third Semester exams. I was much relieved. I wanted to see my school and my dear teachers. My school has two buildings. First, I entered the building where I had spent hours listening to my teachers till my 9th standard... I was looking out for my favorite English madam. Her name is Mrs. Kamala Kishore. A Dynamic teacher who can attract her students just by her words. Yes, for next few seconds, I had lost myself in those ecstatic moments which I had with my favorite teacher and my eyes started searching her. If not for her imposition, I don’t know if I would be writing the spelling of words like “opportunity”, “business” correctly, even today…

Ya there she is... My eyes spotted her. But this time my eyes deceived me. It was not her. Just then I spotted my Tamil teacher. I went inside her class. She could identify me very well. She remembered my name even after so many years and called me “Vaa Aishwarya eppadi irukka?” My happiness went out of bounds. Ya really those were some halcyon moments. Typically not though always, I used to sit in second bench in that class where I could see my juniors; many identified me; called me “akka ippa neenga Endha College?”

I moved my steps outside the class taking a sweet leave from my Tamil madam. Many new faces. One teacher even thought that I had come to pick up someone. Many of my teachers had resigned. Then, I walked to the main building (as we call it).

That was the path through which I had carried bundles of books for my teachers. All teachers used to like me so much, not only for my academic records, but also for my ‘chubby cheeks’. Even now I remember some teachers call me during lunch hour and pinch my cheeks.

By then it was allmost 3.30. Time for the final bell and evening prayer!!! The choir girls rushed inside for the prayer. That brought a flash of one more nostalgic moment, when I was also a part of school choir group singing the Christmas carols …

I kept my first step. I recalled my heydays and sorrowful fights with my friends in front of the main building. There shouted a voice… “Who r u? You can’t enter now…” That was the watchman for whom I had given company so many days while waiting for my mom. I said,” uncle don’t u remember me?”. That was sad… He couldn’t …

That was the moment when two drops of tears ran down my cheeks. Really, I was disheartened to the core. The path which I had trodden in past several times without any permission now requires permission and specific timings...

I left my nostalgic building with a heavy heart and tears stagnant in my eyes….