Remote Sensing, ES 5053 (Fall 2004)

        This course will provide a thorough introduction to remote sensing theory, technology, and application. The emphasis in this course is on understanding the underlying principles of acquiring and interpreting data from imaging systems covering the electromagnetic spectrum from the ultraviolet through the microwave and applying them. The first part of the course is devoted to understanding the techniques for data collection and the interaction of electromagnetic energy with the Earth's surface. The second part will be devoted to applications. Remote sensing is now the technique of choice for mapping land, ocean, and atmosphere such as minerals and rocks, faults, land use and land-use change, temperature, precipitation, global atmospheric and ocean phenomena, and for studying a host of local and regional problems such as drought, flooding, and globe climate change. Commercial use in precision farming and city and county planning is being promoted by high spatial resolution imagery (meters to sub-meter) provided by companies such as SpaceImaging, DigitalGlobe, and Resource21. Understanding what remote sensing can and cannot do is a prime goal in this course.

        No prerequisites for this course, but you are assumed to have some basic computer experiences and background on physics and math.

Dr. Hongjie Xie , Email: mailto:hxie@utsa.edu, Tel: 210-458-5445
Department of Earth and Environmental Sicences at UTSA
http://www.utsa.edu/eps/programs/EnvSci/HXie.htm

Wednesday 3:30-5:30 or by appointment at room Sci. Bldg. 2.02.16

Lecture and Lab:

Wednesday 5:30-8:50pm at  Sci. Bldg. 2.03.04. The first 2 - 2.5 hours are lectures, rest of time are for labs. You are required to attend all lectures and labs except you have a good excuse (you should let me know prior to the class).

Textbook:

Remote Sensing of the Environmen: An Earth Resource Perspective, John R. Jensen, 2000, Prentice Hall press. You can get this book from UTSA Book Store or from online bookstores such as http://amazon.com and http://www.addall.com/ (ISBN number of the book is 0134897331). 

Remote sensing principles and interpretation (3rd edition), Floyd F. Sabins, 2000, Freeman press;
Remote sensing and image interpretation (5th edition), T.M. Lillesand, R.W. Kiefer, and J.W. Chipman, 2004, John Wiley press;
Fundamentals of remote sensing and airphoto interpretation (5th edition), T.E. Avery and G.L. Berlin, 1992, Prentice Hall press;

Online materials:
NASA Remote Sensing Tutorial, http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Front/tofc.html
CCRS Fundamentals of Remote Sensing, http://www.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/ccrs/learn/tutorials/fundam/chapter1/chapter1_1_e.html
Remote Sensing & Image Analysis, P. Gong, http://nature.berkeley.edu/~gong/textbook/
USGS Earthshots, http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/tableofcontents

Grade Policy:

The final grade for the course will be determined as below. Active class participation and exceptional performance in term project will be reward with extra credit.

Lab exercise 50%
Midterm exam 30%
Term project 20% 

Lab exercise:

Lab exercise will be assigned on Wendesday and due midnight Tuesday the following week. Late exercise is unacceptable, unless you do have an good excuse. No make-up lab exercise. Email submission is unacceptable unless you do have no time to hand in your typed hard copy submission to my office. Lab exercise is very important for you to actually understand the remote sensing concepts,  to use image processing software package, and to prepare you to solve real world problems.

Term project:  

A portion (20%) of this class is a term project on either a remote sensing research topic of your interest (or your major) or a review of a newly (since 2000) published remote sensing research paper from a peer-reviewed Journal. For the remote sensing research topic, you will submit a proposal stating the topic, the student name (one student or two students as a group), the data and methods, the expecting results, and so on. For the review of a research paper, you (only one student) will have to find a good science, technique, or application paper in remote sensing field from peer-reviewed Journals (Remote Sensing of Environment, International Journal of Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, ASPRS Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, and ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing), then you also need to submit a proposal stating the paper title, the journal name, the authors, the main contents, what science and techniques you may focus or apply to your future research, and so on. All students will give a 15 minutes class presentation and a final project paper (report). Instructor will also give some topics for your reference. More details will be given in the Term Project Assignment on October 20.  However, I encourage you to think about the project even work on it as early as possible. You are always very welcome to discuss with me about your topic or the paper you will give a review.

Tentative Schedule: