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Case Study : Professor Aids Rescue Efforts Using ENVI ImageAnalysis Software and ArcGIS

Imagery Guides Emergency Response

Responding quickly and effectively after a disaster has occurred is paramount to reducing injuries and saving lives,preventing property loss and mitigating further damage. Today, geospatial imagery and advanced image analysistools are used to provide timely, critical information to decision makers following manmade and natural disasters.Information from imagery has been utilized after recent natural disasters including the 2010 Haiti earthquake andHurricane Katrina and is currently being used in Japan following the monstrous earthquake and subsequent tsunami

that struck in 2011.SynopSiS

-Using ENVI, Dr. Winemiller and his students were

able to easily process imagery gathered from

many different satellites and prepare it for viewing

and analysis.

-The integration of ENVI and ArcGIS allowed Dr.

Winemiller to seamlessly integrate the processed

and analyzed imagery into ArcMap where detailed

maps were created.

-Satellite imagery that was processed and analyzed

in ENVI gave emergency responders in Japan criti-

cal situational awareness about areas devastated

by the earthquake and tsunami.

A pre-disaster (left) WorldView-1 image taken February4, 2011 and a post-disaster (right) QuickBird image takenMarch 18, 2011 that have been visualized using ENVI.Images courtesy of DigitalGlobe.

On March 11, 2011, a powerful 9.0-magnitudeearthquake hit Japan unleashing a massive tsunamithat crashed into Japans northeastern coast, resulting inwidespread damage and destruction. Japanese ofcialssoon realized that they needed crucial information fromimagery in order to help their citizens and asked theworldwide remote sensing community for help. Shortlyafter the earthquake and tsunami, Dr. Terance L.Winemiller, GISP, Associate Professor of Anthropologyand Geography at Auburn University at Montgomery(AUM) was contacted by the GISCorps working with

the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) asking if he wouldvolunteer to process and analyze imagery from Japan.Soon after agreeing to help, Dr. Winemiller had 1,200different imagery datasets at his disposal and needed toquickly and accurately process and analyze the imageryand create maps to provide valuable information toemergency responders.

Professor Provides Assistance

AUM in collaboration with the GISCorps was one of fouruniversities across the United States tasked by USGS to

process and analyze imagery to help guide emergencyresponse efforts in Japanese coastal communities thatwere directly impacted by the tsunami. Less than twodays after the disaster, Dr. Winemiller and a team of GISstudents at AUM began working on the project. Theystarted by searching for imagery on the USGS EarthResources Observation Systems (EROS) Hazards DataDistribution System (HDDS) public and restricted databasesand other public sites for coverage of the three areas inJapan they were assigned, Miyagi-Kamaishi, Iwate-Miyakoand Iwate-Miyakoshi.

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Since time was of the essence, Dr. Winemiller and his students took the imagery that they had and started using thebuilt-in capabilities in ENVI to process the imagery. Automated pre-processing tools in ENVI allow users to quickly andeasily prepare imagery for viewing or additional analysis. Enhancement capabilities utilized by Dr. Winemiller and hisstudents included resampling, subsetting, building mosaics and georeferencing. Resampling lowers pixel count andincreases pixel size so that different images can be registered with each other and fused together. Subsetting crops im-ages to focus them on areas of interest. Georeferencing establishes the correct position of an image relative to anotherimage or a map. Building a mosaic combines multiple images together into one larger scene.

Dr. Winemiller and his students had satellite imagery from amultitude of sensors including IKONOS, SPOT, WorldView-1 and -2,

QuickBird, Landsat, ASTER and others. The rst thing they neededto do was look through the imagery to determine their coverageand see if they had any utility for their mission. They did this byopening and examining their imagery in ENVI. ENVI supportsimagery types gathered from todays popular satellite and airbornesensors including panchromatic, multispectral, hyperspectral, radar,thermal, lidar and more. Dr. Winemiller and his students soon realizedthat a large percentage of the imagery needed to be enhanced inorder to improve clarity and be able to match up images from differentsensors pixel for pixel and link them together so that they could createaccurate maps that could be used for damage assessment.

Dr. Winemiller and his students had to sift through and ingest largeamounts of data from a variety of sensors and platforms in a shortperiod of time and produce before and after scenes of the areasso the extent of the damage could be understood. They neededtechnology that would enable them to easily process and analyzetheir imagery and export it to ArcGIS where detailed maps couldbe produced. They ultimately chose ENVI software for their solution,which combines the latest spectral image processing and imageanalysis capabilities in a user-friendly interface, allowing the user toobtain accurate results that are produced fast and efciently.

Data layers in ArcGIS 10 including updated available satellite imagery footprints by sensor downloaded from the USGS EROS HDDS.

ENVI was the perfect toolto use because it was fullycapable of doing all of thedifferent types of image

processing that we needed

- Dr. Terance L. WinemillerGISP, Associate Professor of Anthropologyand Geography at Auburn University at

Montgomery (AUM)

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Satellite imagery has become a major componentof post-disaster relief efforts like the one inJapan. The global coverage of satellite sensorsmake them ideal for providing the imagerythat is required when time is at a premium,such as after a disaster. In order to processand extract the valuable information containedin imagery, ENVI is frequently relied upon.

2011, Exelis Visual Information Solutions Inc. All rights reserved. www.exelisvis.co

ENVI To find out more about ENVI, call 303.786.9900or visit www.exelisvis.com/ENVI.

Pre-tsunami ENVI feature extraction results in ArcGIS10. Features extracted fromWorldView-1 (March 11, 2011). Images used with permission by DigitalGlobe.

Post-tsunami ENVI feature extraction results in ArcGIS10. Features extracted fromWorldView-1 (March 19, 2011). Images used with permission by DigitalGlobe.

Using satellite imagery and ENVI enabled usto create up-to-date maps that gave emergencyresponders in Japan critical situational awarenessabout areas that were affected, damage extentand the resources that were needed, saidDr. Winemiller. We were happy to be able to

help our global neighbors and to provide ourstudents with a terric learning opportunityinvolving a very real-world situation.

Because of the need to get imagery to responderson the ground as quickly as possible, there waslimited opportunity for Dr. Winemiller and hisstudents to perform detailed image analyses.Initially, visual comparisons of the processedbefore and after scenes was performed toidentify the areas with the most damage.Shortly thereafter, Dr. Winemiller was ableto use the feature extraction tool in ENVI onpre- and post-earthquake imagery and identifygrids, building footprints and other items tomore accurately compare images. The feature

extraction tool in ENVI extracts specic objectsof interest based on their spatial, spectral andtexture characteristics. If given more time, Dr.Winemiller hopes to use the change detectiontool in ENVI to detect and measure changesbetween images. The automated workow fordetecting change in ENVI identies the typeand extent of changes that have taken placein an area over time.

Integrating ENVI and ArcGIS

After the images were processed in ENVI, Dr. Winemiller and his students output the images as GeoTIFFsand imported them as datasets into ArcMap where they created detailed maps using the enhanced andprocessed imagery. The workow between ENVI and ArcGIS was a piece of cake, said Dr. Winemiller. ENVImakes it seamless to update ArcGIS with current information from geospatial imagery. ENVIs advancedimage analysis tools are also available directly from the ArcGIS desktop and server environments for userswho wish to access them inside these platforms.