Development of a GPS - Linked Airborne Video System

机载视频作为一种快速、低成本的获取图像的手段，已被证明有希望用于各种生态应用：鱼类和野生动物栖息地、植物群落、植物质量测定、作物损害、杂草侵扰。图像采集可以在空间尺度上与感兴趣的事件（例如，洪水，藻类爆发）相吻合，适合于检测小到个体生物（例如，树木，鹅）的物体。然而，通过将帧抓取视频图像合并成适合于地理信息系统（GIS）使用的综合地理参考数据库，机载视频的好处可以大大增强，在地理信息系统中，信息可以与其他空间数据库(例如人口密度、土地所有权)，并使用地理信息系统固有的大量空间分析工具进行操作。因此，该合同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)收集采集视频图像所需的所有信息，2)实时显示所采集图像的空间范围和位置，3)选择图像进行分析并将其拼接成一个全面的GIS覆盖范围。

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.