Overview and Storage of Remotely

Sensed Data
1. Meteorological Satellite Data
the most widely known and used are from the AVHRR sensors aboard the
NOAA series of satellites, the most recently launched being the 18 th
.
These satellites orbit around the Earth at an altitude of 833 km with an
average period of approximately 102 minutes

This radiometer has a nominal swath width of 2400 km

2. Oceanographic Satellite Data

The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite was launched

on August 1, 1997 into a 705 km sun-synchronous orbit that is inclined at
98.2°
3. Earth Resources Satellite Data

 Landsat Data

 SPOT Data

• Designed by the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES),

SPOT was first launched into an orbit of 832 km on February 21,
1986
• SPOT1-5

 IRS Data

• mapping is the India National Space program. Since the late 1980s, the IRS
program has witnessed the launch of a series of satellites with a revisit
period of 22 days.
• The first one, IRS-1A, was launched on March 17, 1988, followed by IRS-1B
on August 29, 1991
4. Very High Spatial Resolution Data
Comparison
 Storage of Multispectral Images

• The space needed to store a multispectral image is affected

by several variables, including the physical size of the
image, the number of spectral bands it has (b), and its
radiometric resolution or quantization level q. So the total
space D required is calculated as below:
D = r * c *b * q

• For instance, storage of a 512 by 512 image of 4 bands that

has a quantization level of 8 bits (256 gray levels) requires
a space of 8,388,608 bites or 8.4Mb
DIGITAL IMAGE
DN Number / Brightness Values
Data media & formats for RS Images

- The data are available on practically all media such as

floppies, DAT’s, CD-ROM’s and also through internet

- The multispectral data are stored in anyone of the three

formats :

1 BIP Band Interleaved by Pixel

2 BIL Band Interleaved by Line
3 BSQ Band Sequential
21 38 6 11 100 125

43 55 12 13 89 94
Red Green Blue
BIP : In this case the data is stored in scan lines and
in each scan line 1st pixel of first band is followed by
data from other bands, sequentially.

Record Scan line Pixel

1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 ....
1 1 b1 b2 b3 b4 b1 b2 b3 b4
2 2 b1 b2 b3 b4 b1 b2 b3 b4 ...
. . . . . . . . . .
21 38 6 11 100 125

43 55 12 13 89 94

21 6 100 38 11 125

43 12 89 55 13 94

BIP
BIL: In this case all the pixels of a band and scanline
are out first and the equivalent scanline of second band
follows

Record Scanline Pixel

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ....
1 1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 ....
2 1 b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 ....
3 1 b3 b3 b3 b3 b3 b3 b3 b3 ....
4 1 b4 b4 b4 b4 b4 b4 b4 b4 ....
5 2 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 ....
. . . . . . . . . . .... .
 21 38

6 11
21 38 6 11 100 125
100 125
43 55 12 13 89 94
43 55

12 13

89 94
BIL
BSQ: In this format the entire image of 1st band is given
and is then followed by entire image of 2nd band and so on.

Record Scanline Pixel

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9...
1 1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 . ....
2 2 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 b1 . ....
. . . . . . . . . . ...
. . b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 b2 . ....
. . . . . . . . . . . .. .
 21 38

43 55

21 38 6 11 100 125 6 11

43 55 12 13 89 94 12 13

100 125

89 94

BSQ
 Image Statistics
Why extract initial statistics about digital image data?

 Representation (or summary) of data in each spectral

band.

 Assist in image enhancements.

 Selection of bands with maximum information content.

 Eliminate bands with redundant/unnecessary

information.

 Use in other image processing functions (e.g., image

classification.
 Minimum
Shows the lowest value of the data. For example, the
satellite has minimum and maximum value which is 0
and 255 respectively. Once you open the properties that
will gives the minimum value information about the data. In
the image, minimum value starts from 0.
 Maximum
Shows the highest value of the data. For example, the
DN values of satellite has a maximum range about 255
which is for pure soil. The maximum DN value information
presents in the properties of data.
 Mean
Average of all brightness values in the image. If the
histogram shows the DN/pixel values from 0 to 84 then it
will gives the average value. Sum of DN values/ No. of
Pixels.
 Median

Value midway (or at midpoint) in the

distribution of brightness values.
 Mode

The value that occurs most frequently in a

distribution (usually highest point on
distribution curve of histogram)
Typical of most remotely sensed
spectral image data.

Minimum
Minimum Maximum Maximum

Range Range