One reason I chose remote sensing was because my basic understanding of it was that it heavily related to GIS, a subject I enjoyed last year and got a lot out off. Since taken the course for a while now I’ve begun to understand more why this is the case, with GIS being more greatly directed at using maps to illustrate processes within the world , whilst remote sensing is more the provider of information which is then subsequently used. This interested me because it did make me wonder where the information I was using, actually came from? And even though ideas of resolution and types of sensors came up, my understanding was fairly primitive and I have since come across it quite frequently making me want to know more about it and where would I get the data I might need in the future.
Resolution spatially and temporally I had come across quite frequently throughout my studies, with notable academics such as Doreen Massey’s views on space and place being quite an iconic aspect of first year. Pixelating of images as a result of resolution is something that I have been made aware of since getting my first mobile phone and subsequent understandings from photography. However spectral resolution took a while to get my head around, with there being several different types of ways sensors achieved their data. It is the ability of a sensor to differentiate between wavelength intervals, with finer resolutions having narrower wavelength bands (NRC, 2017). The three main types panchromatic, multi-spectral and hyper-spectral resultantly have different spectral resolutions from one another as a result of the different widths (Campbell, 2011). Recently, advancing technologies has meant an unprecedented development in remote sensing, which has led to incredible potential regarding observation capabilities.
References
Campbell, J. (2011). Introduction to Remote Sensing. Taylor & Francis, London.
NRC (2017). Spectral Resolution | Natural Resources Canada. [online] Nrcan.gc.ca. Available at: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/node/9393 [Accessed 23 May 2017].
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