Development of a GPS - Linked Airborne Video System

机载视频已显示出作为一种快速、低成本的手段获取图像的前景，可用于各种生态应用：鱼类和野生动物栖息地、植物群落、植物量测定、作物破坏、杂草侵扰。图像采集可以在适合于检测小到单个有机体(例如，树木、鹅)的对象的空间尺度上与感兴趣的事件(例如，洪水、藻类水华)相一致。然而，通过将截取帧的视频图像合并成适用于地理信息系统的综合地理参考数据库，可以大大提高机载视频的好处，在地理信息系统中，这些信息可以与其他空间数据库(例如，人口密度、土地所有权)相结合，并利用地理信息系统固有的多种空间分析工具进行处理。因此，该奖项的目标是开发一种原型机载视频数据库采集系统，该系统能够：1)在采集时收集对视频图像进行地理参考所需的所有信息；2)实时显示所采集图像的空间范围和位置；3)选择要分析的图像并将其镶嵌到全面的地理信息系统覆盖范围中。

Airborne video has demonstrated promise as a rapid, low-cost means of acquiring imagery for a variety of ecological applications: fish and wildlife habitat, plant communities, phytomass determination, crop damage, weed infestations. Image acquisition can be timed to coincide with an event of interest (e.g., a flood, an algae bloom) at a spatial scale suitable for detecting objects as small as individual organisms (e.g., trees, geese). The benefits of airborne video could be greatly enhanced, however, by combining frame-grabbed video images into a comprehensive geo-referenced database suitable for use in a Geographic Information System (GIS) where the information could be integrated with other spatial databases (e.g., population density, land ownership) and manipulated using the multitude of spatial analysis tools inherent to GISs. Therefore, the goal of this award is to develop a prototype airborne video database acquisition system capable of: 1) gathering all the information needed to georeference a video image at the moment of acquisition, 2) displaying in real time the spatial extent and location of images acquired, and 3) selecting images for analysis and mosaicing them into a comprehensive GIS coverage.