WORKSHOPS

These workshops are limited to 40 people per workshop. Sign up is on a first-come, first-served basis. Most of these workshops are sold out by the early registration deadline, so sign up early to ensure a spot in the workshop(s) of your choice. These workshops are not included with registration. You must register for at least one daily conference registration.

Sunday, November 10

Robert Brock, Aerial Image Technology
Brian Huberty, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court A, Second Level, Tower Building
Sponsored by ISPRS WG I/6

This course is designed to instruct how to acquire and implement a "go anywhere in the world" "do-it-yourself" remote sensing acquisition package. It is designed to fit in general aviation aircraft (such as Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft) anywhere in the world. The system can be transported to areas of interest essentially in a briefcase.

Monday, November 11

Dave Fuhr, Airborne Data Systems
Brian Huberty, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
8:00 am to 5:00 pm, .8 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court B, Second Level, Tower Building
Sponsored by ISPRS WG I/6

The objective in this course is to dig deep into current professional airborne digital mapping systems. We will discuss all systems and all technical aspects - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Participants will leave with a better understanding of what it takes to acquire the proper system for your application or how to better contract airborne digital mapping projects.

Mike Renslow, Spencer B. Gross, Inc.
8:00 am to 5:00 pm, .8 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court A, Second Level, Tower Building
Sponsored by ASPRS and ISPRS WG I/3

This workshop presents the fundamentals of lidar technology, data characteristics, supporting technologies, processing, creation of digital map products, and applications. The workshop is designed for technicians and professionals who require an in-depth review of lidar technology and data characteristics, and how the data integrate into existing mapping and GIS applications.

Raad A. Saleh, S&J International
8:00 am to 5:00 pm, .8 CEU hours
Room: Spruce, Mezzanine Level, Tower Building
Sponsored by WG I/4

Several spaceborne and airborne image acquisition technologies are currently available, such as high-resolution, multispectral, and hyperspectral systems. These technologies are used for information extraction of Earth surface for various applications, including digital surface/terrain models generation, feature extraction, as well as temporal and quantitative analyses. The goal of this workshop is to discuss and expound on the reliability, accuracy and comparative costs of various image acquisition technologies. In addition, the workshop will evaluate spaceborne technologies against airborne film-based and direct digital acquisition systems, in terms of comparative costs and other criteria. The workshop will conclude with outlook into future intelligent Earth observing systems.

Robert Burtch, Ferris State
8:00 am to 5:00 pm, .8 CEU hours
Room: Silver, Mezzanine Level, Tower Building

The purpose of this workshop is to prepare individuals who are planning to sit for the ASPRS Certification exams. The workshop will begin by explaining the purpose and form of the exam. It will then begin to identify key topical areas which an applicant should be aware of prior to taking the exam. Topics will begin with a review of the basic concepts and sample questions to show how these topics will be covered on the exam. Finally, the workshop will identify resources which certification candidates should use in their exam preparation.

Frank L. Scarpace, University of Wisconsin-Madison
8:00 am to 12:00 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court D, Second Level, Tower Building

This workshop is designed to teach the Photogrammetry and GIS professional how to easily create and update orthophotos. The workshop will discuss how to use existing maps and/or orthophotos to create new orthophotos from new or historical aerial imagery. The use of traditional ground control as well as creating DEMs from points/breaklines exported from plotters will be discussed. Quality control tools will be discussed to verify that the new orthophoto will overlay precisely with existing orthophotos. Tools such as coordinate transformations (of images, DEMs and Shape files), file type conversion, and automatic color balancing of mosaicing will be extensively discussed.

Karen Schuckman, EarthData Technologies, LLC
Steven Mah, ITRES Research Ltd.
Charles O'Hara, Mississippi State University
1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court D, Second Level, Tower Building

Recent advances in digital photogrammetry and airborne remote sensing can be used to provide engineering-scale mapping quickly and cost-effectively. High-resolution, high accuracy data can be acquired over large project areas for evaluation of multiple alternative corridors in the NEPA permitting process. The challenge is to gain acceptance of technologies such as direct georeferencing with airborne GPS and inertial measurement units (IMU), lidar and hyperspectral imagery by state DOTs. These new data types must be integrated into existing engineering and environmental assessment workflows. The final results must meet stringent DOT accuracy specifications. This workshop is based on a Technology Application Project conducted for the U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration in cooperation with the National Consortium for Remote Sensing in Transportation, North Carolina Department of Transportation, ITRES Research Ltd. and EarthData International of North Carolina. Detailed results from the demonstration project, including technical approach to data acquisition, data processing, accuracy assessment and quality assurance processes will be discussed. Sample data sets will be distributed to workshop attendees.

Tuesday, November 12

William Farrand, Farr View Consulting
Stuart Blundell, Visual Learning Systems, Inc.
8:00 am to 12:00 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Silver, Mezzanine Level, Tower Building

Imaging spectrometry, commonly referred to as hyperspectral remote sensing, provides high-resolution spectral information for environmental and natural resource projects. An experimental hyperspectral sensor is currently in orbit and operational orbital hyperspectral systems are planned. In this workshop, we will provide students with an introduction to imaging spectrometry, hyperspectral image processing techniques, and automated feature extraction to demonstrate how digital imagery can add value to maintenance of geospatial databases. We will emphasize that the added value in imaging spectrometry is on the spectrometry, the ability to identify materials based on their reflectance signatures. We will briefly go into the phenomenology of reflectance spectrometry and explain why some materials are more amenable to mapping than others. We will describe commercially available processing systems that are available for processing hyperspectral and multispectral data and discuss the processing techniques within those packages. Some of the techniques that were originally developed for use with airborne hyperspectral data are also highly effective when applied against orbital multispectral data. Also, certain processing techniques are better suited to certain applications. We will explain why this is so.

We will provide a package of materials to the students that will include hard copies of the overhead transparencies and an extensive list of references on the topics addressed. We will engage the class with an in-class exercise and several "take-home" hands-on exercises. Students with access to laptop or notebook computers are encouraged to bring them to the course as software will be made available.

Gary Thompson, North Carolina Geodetic Survey
8:00 am to 1200 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court D, Second Level, Tower Building
Sponsored by ISPRS WG I/3

This workshop is designed for geospatial professionals who are using or considering the use of lidar data for an elevation data layer: community-, county- or state-wide GIS applications requiring a high accuracy digital elevation model. The North Carolina Flood Plain Mapping Project will serve as the example.

Randolph H. Wynne, Virginia Tech
James B. Campbell, Virginia Tech
8:00 am to 12:00 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court A, Second Level, Tower Building

This workshop will review basic concepts and methods of image classification, to include hybrid classifiers, such as Guided Clustering and Iterative Guided Spectral Class Rejection. The course will emphasize mastery of the critical steps required to select and evaluate training data for supervised classification. Training data must be assessed with respect to separability, effective partition of spectral data space, and frequency distributions. Students will review these basic concepts though discuss-lectures, then apply them to practical problems through guided tutorials and exercises. This workshop is intended for those who have a basic knowledge of supervised image classification using ERDAS Imagine but require a more advanced level of experience in applications to natural resources data. Our material is presented at the intermediate level, as we expect students to have mastered basic principles of digital image classification, and to be prepared to apply ERDAS Imagine in class exercises.

Russell G. Congalton, University of New Hampshire
Kass Green, Space Imaging Solutions
8:00 am to 12:00 pm, .4 CEU hours
Room: Tower Court B, Second Level, Tower Building

This course focuses on the principles, techniques, and practical aspects of assessing the accuracy of GIS information derived from remotely sensed data. Participants will receive instruction in how to design accuracy assessment procedures, allocate accuracy assessment samples, collect both field and photo reference data, and analyze accuracy assessment results. Examples of accuracy assessment case studies based on actual project data will be presented and discussed. Each participant in this course will come away with a solid understanding of accuracy assessment procedures for spatial data, and the knowledge to properly interpret the results of such procedures. In order to maximize the benefits of completing this course, participants should have previous experience with GIS and remotely sensed data. In addition, a good understanding of statistical principles is also strongly suggested.