Sensor Enables 3D Mapping of Rainforests

rhettb writes with an article about a fancy mapping sensor. Quoting Mongobay: "High above the Amazon rainforest in Peru, a team of scientists is conducting an ambitious experiment: a biological survey of a never-before-explored tract of remote and inaccessible cloud forest. They are doing so using an advanced system that enables them to map the three-dimensional physical structure of the forest as well as its chemical and optical properties. ... This sensor — built by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory — is the first of its kind. The spectrometer can detect dozens of signals such as photosynthetic pigment concentrations, water content of leaves, defense compounds like phenols, and structural compounds such as lignin and cellulose. These signals can build signatures to distinguish individual plant species as well as other measures of forest condition."

Comments

Re:Beat 'em to it

[Mister Fright]

Cool! What format do you save this data to allowing you to analyze it?

Hyperspectral imaging is so cool

[Sgs-Cruz]

Hyperspectral imaging (viewing electromagnetic radiation across a much wider wavelength/frequency range than the human eye can see) is one of these things that just boggles the mind with the possibilities. For a system to be able to simultaneously "see" in far IR or even terahertz or microwaves, all the way up to X- and gamma-rays.... Well, it's like Predator. But doing cool things like monitoring the health of rainforests or quickly identifying explosives.

Re:Beat 'em to it

[tonywong]

So how did you get around the part where they say the cloud forest is remote and inaccessible?

Maybe your visual system works but your reading comprehension system needs an upgrade.

Re:Beat 'em to it

[tibit]

Your visual system does NOT do 3D mapping of anything. It does some model fitting from a stereoscopic image, and cannot do most of what their sensor platform does. You're either horribly misinformed or just trolling.

The forest they looked at would be about as accessible in terms of location accessibility to a human eye as it is to their platform: they fly a plane over the forest. Their sensor platform is mounted on a plane.

Alas, it's silly to think a human could be as effective as their sensor platform, because their platform has access to way more data than human visual system does. Not only do the spectrometers sense well into the infrared (2um), but the LIDAR system also measures 3D distribution of biomass, and the relief of the underlying terrain. They can see freaking old riverbed right through the trees, while also seeing the tree canopies. The latter image is not a photograph, mind you. It is a visualization, or reconstruction, of the LIDAR and spectral data.

In the "good old days", when all you had was your eyes and a theodolite, you'd need a lengthy and risky expedition on the ground to acquire all that 3D data manually -- and that works well only for ground relief. We're not monkeys.

It isn't NASA's JPL.

[Iron Condor]

JPL is NOT a NASA center. Why is that so hard to get into people? JPL is a division of Caltech. The people there have contracts that say they work for Caltech. They get paychecks from Caltech.

JPL had hardware in Earth's orbit before NASA even existed.

JPL does a lot of work for NASA (i.e work where NASA is a customer - think Mars rovers etc) but at all times, some fraction of JPLs work is non-NASA. Has always been. The fraction has historically varied. Especially in the sensors, detectors and instrumentation side of the house, the fraction of non-NASA projects can easily exceed 50%. Yes, that includes DOD customers, but a lot of people appear to forget NOAA (who do you think invents all those clever weather satellites?) and a host of smaller research organizations (like, in this case, Carnegie) who simply need the best of whatever device they're looking for.

JPL is not cheap - if you want cheap, go somewhere else. But if you need something that measures subtle signals (like distinguishing individual types/genus/species of underbrush from each other from aircraft altitude to identify and monitor invasive species) in adverse conditions for years at a time, then JPL is probably the go-to shop. And no, it is not "NASA's JPL" and yes, your money is just as welcome as anybody else's.

Re:It isn't NASA's JPL.

[unkiereamus]

From JPL's own site:

Motivated by Explorer 1's success, JPL Director William Pickering wanted to move into space exploration. He thought the relatively small, non-profit JPL could never raise the money necessary to remain on the leading edge of rocket technology as much larger aviation companies entered the rocketry business. He convinced the Army and President Eisenhower to make JPL part of the nation's new space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In that role, JPL, with its links to Caltech's science community, could lead in the creation of the new realm of space science. In December 1958, the Army formally transferred JPL to NASA, although it remained under Caltech management.

If you're interested, here's the URL: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jplhistory/early/joinnasa.php Note the URL, if you please.

tl;dr: Neener neener, you're wrong.

Troubleshooting

[Translation Error]

I heard they spent a week trying to track down a bug where large chunks of the rainforest would simply disappear--and then they realized it wasn't a bug...