Remote Sensing Technologies for Updating GIS Information

Benefits from merging of GIS and remote sensing technologies are well recognized. On one side, GIS can be use for improving the information extraction potential of remotely sensed data. On the other side, remotely sensed data can be used for updating GIS information. For the context of this study, a brief review about the uses of remotely sensed data is limited to their roles in updating GIS information only.

Remote sensing and image processing are powerful tools for many research and application areas. Remote Sensing may define as the process of deriving information by means of systems that are not indirect contact with the objects or phenomena of interest. Image processing specifically refers to manipulating the raw data produced by remote sensing systems.

Remote sensing often requires other kind of ancillary data to achieve both its greatest value and the highest levels of accuracy as a data and information production technology. Geographic information systems can provide this capability. They permit the integration of datasets acquired from library; laboratory and field work with remote sensed data. On the other hand, applications of GIS are heavily dependent on either the timeliness or currency of the data they contain, as well as the geographic coverage of the database. For a variety of applications, remote sensing, while only one source of potential input to a GIS, can be valuable. Remote sensing can provide timely data at scales appropriate to a variety of applications. As such, many researchers feel that the use of geographic information systems and remote sensing can lead to important advances in research and operational applications. Merging these two technologies can result in a tremendous increase in information for many kinds of users (Star and Estes, 1990).

As we have mentioned, interconnecting remote sensing systems to geographic information systems is valuable in many different applications. We will now discuss a number of common techniques for moving data between these two kinds of spatial data-processing systems.

Remotely sensed data is almost always processed and stored in raster data structures. When working simultaneously with an image processing systems and a raster geographic information system, it is usually easy to move data between the two. Typically, a single theme of information is extracted from the remotely sensed data. Once the remotely sensed data has been converted to a desired data type, transferring this data to a raster GIS is relatively simple. Header and trailer records of files may need to modify during the conversion process, but converting between different raster data structures, most operational image processing and raster geographic information systems provide mechanisms to read and write them.


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