Revisions for Infragram
| 122 | liz |
May 17, 2013 17:47
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists, and anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health can use. What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. Widespread use of infrared imagingThe study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor. How does it work? (Quick Science)Infrared imaging for vegetation analysisInfrared photography can help assess a plant's health. Infrared imagery for agricultural and ecological assessment is usually captured from satellites and planes, and the information is used mainly by large farms, vineyards, and academic research projects. For example, see this illustrated PDF from a commercial imagery provider who has been studying the usefulness of infrared imagery and has quotes from farmers who use it. There are public sources of infrared photography for the US available through the Department of Agriculture -- NAIP and Vegscape -- but this imagery is not collected when, as often, or at useable scale for individuals who are managing small plots. By creating a low-cost camera and working with farmers and environmental activists, we hope to explore grassroots uses for this kind of technology. What could farmers or activists do with leaf-scale, plant-scale, lot-scale, and field-scale data on plant health if the equipment costs as little as $10 or $35?
Screenshot from 2011-09-10-colorado-boulder-foothills-community-park-NRG. See how clearly plants are identifiable from bare earth or pavement. The unique colors in this photo will be explained below, keep reading! Why does it work?Though we cannot perceive it with our eyes, everything around us (including plants) reflect wavelengths of light in red, green, blue and beyond into infrared, ultraviolet, and more. Our colorful world is created by varying amounts of particular wavelengths being absorbed and reflected. This also means that everything has a recognizable "spectral signature". Whoa.
Plants use visible light (mainly blue and red light) as 'food' -- but not so much green light, which is why they reflect green away, and thus look green to our eyes. They also happen to reflect near infrared light (which is just beyond red light, but not visible to the human eye). This is because they chemically cannot convert infrared into usable food, and so they just bounce it away to stay cool. The illustrations show what colors of light plants absorb versus reflect away.
By using this unique property of plants, plus our ability to take near-infrared photos we can create composite images which highlight where plants are and how much they are photosynthesizing.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 121 | liz |
May 17, 2013 17:41
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists, and anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health can use. What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. Widespread use of infrared imagingThe study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor. How does it work? (Quick Science)
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 120 | liz |
May 17, 2013 17:41
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists, and anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health can use. What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. Widespread use of infrared in science researchThe study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor. How does it work? (Quick Science)
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 119 | liz |
May 17, 2013 17:38
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists, and anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health can use. What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor. Read further on how infrared imaging is used by farmers and gardeners: http://publiclab.org/wiki/near-infrared-imaging
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 118 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:54
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 117 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:49
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 116 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:48
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"
The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists! It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 115 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:40
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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Revert | |
| 114 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:38
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 113 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:38
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 112 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:36
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform -- developed collaboratively, by the Public Lab community -- for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 111 | donblair |
May 17, 2013 03:35
| over 11 years ago
"The Infra-whatnow?"The Infragram is a simple, affordable infrared camera platform, produced by the Public Lab community, for measuring plant health and geeking out on gardening. It's for farmers, gardeners, -- and DIY scientists!
It was originally developed to assess damage to wetlands in the wake of the BP oil spill; but it's also a simple, easy-to-modify, open-source hardware and software tool that home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists -- anyone who's curious about plant physiology and health! What is it good for?
Vineyards, large farms, and NASA all use near-infrared photography for assessment, usually by mounting expensive sensors on airplanes and satellites. Infragram brings this technology to average citizens, enabling them to monitor their environment through quantifiable, citizen-generated data. Just as photography was instrumental to the rise of credible print journalism, DIY data collection technologies like Infragram democratize and improve reporting about environmental impacts. How does it work? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 110 | cfastie |
May 17, 2013 00:52
| over 11 years ago
The Infragram is the name of the infrared/visible light camera which Public Lab is offering in a Kickstarter in May 2013. (link coming soon) Why do we do it?What is it? (Quick Science)The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9.
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 109 | cfastie |
May 16, 2013 23:05
| over 11 years ago
The Infragram is the name of the infrared/visible light camera which Public Lab is offering in a Kickstarter in May 2013. (link coming soon) Why do we do it?The study of Earth's environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9. What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 108 | cfastie |
May 16, 2013 23:04
| over 11 years ago
The Infragram is the name of the infrared/visible light camera which Public Lab is offering in a Kickstarter in May 2013. (link coming soon) Why do we do it?The study of Earth???s environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9. What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 107 | cfastie |
May 16, 2013 23:02
| over 11 years ago
The Infragram is the name of the infrared/visible light camera which Public Lab is offering in a Kickstarter in May 2013. (link coming soon) Why do we do it? (images, explanation)The study of Earth???s environment from space got its start in 1972 when the first Landsat satellite was launched. The multispectral scanner it carried, like the scanners on all subsequent Landsat satellites, recorded images with both visible and near infrared light. Remote sensing scientists quickly learned that by combining visible and infrared data, they could reveal critical information about the health of vegetation. For example, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) highlights the difference between the red and infrared wavelengths that are reflected from vegetation. Because red light is used by plants for photosynthesis but infrared light is not, NDVI allows scientists to estimate the amount of healthy foliage in every satellite image. Thousands of scientists, including landscape ecologists, global change biologists, and habitat specialists have relied on these valuable satellite-based NDVI images for decades. The goal of the Infragram project is to bring the power of NDVI and other infrared vegetation images back to earth where everyone can now take close-up images of plants or landscapes and instantly learn about their health and vigor.
Figure above: Normal color photo (top) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image. NDVI image was derived from two color channels in a single photo taken with a camera modified with a special infrared filter. Note that tree trunks, brown grass, and rocks have very low NDVI values because they are not photosynthetic. Healthy plants typically have NDVI values between 0.1 and 0.9. What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 106 | warren |
May 15, 2013 02:54
| over 11 years ago
The Infragram is the name of the infrared/visible light camera which Public Lab is offering in a Kickstarter in May 2013. (link coming soon) Why do we do it? (images, explanation)
What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links)
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| 105 | warren |
May 15, 2013 02:52
| over 11 years ago
Why do we do it? (images, explanation)
What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links) |
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| 104 | donblair |
May 15, 2013 01:24
| over 11 years ago
Why do we do it? (images, explanation)
What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links) |
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| 103 | donblair |
May 15, 2013 01:24
| over 11 years ago
Why do we do it? (images, explanation)
What is it? (Quick Science)
How do we do it? (prototypes, links) |
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