A PORTABLE, LOW-COST IMAGE PROCESSING PROTOTYPE FOR USE BY INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS

A PROTOTYPE OF A PORTABLE IMAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM WILL BE CONSTRUCTED USING A LAPTOP MICROCOMPUTER, AN OPTICAL WORM DISK, APPROPRIATE COLOR DISPLAY SUBSYSTEM, AND MODIFICATIONS AND ADDITIONS TO AN EXISTING SOFTWARE PACKAGE WRITTEN IN C AND CURRENTLY RUNNING ON THE DESKTOP IBM PC, XT, AND ATS. THE UNIT WILL ALSO FUNCTION AS A COMPUTER AIDED IMAGE PROCESSING (CAIP) STATION IN A NETWORK OR WITH A MASSIVE PARALLEL PROCESSOR (MPP). THE SYSTEMS USER INTERFACE WILL BE DESIGNED SO THAT IT CAN EASILY BE USED BY NON-COMPUTER SCIENTISTS WHO ARE NOT INTERESTED IN BECOMING INVOLVED IN IMAGE PROCESSING OR REMOTE SENSING; BUT IN EMPLOYING SATELLITE AND OTHER IMAGERY TO ESTABLISH SOME HYPOTHESIS OF THEIR OWN. ADDITIONAL EFFORT WILL BE EXPENDED TO DETERMINE WHAT PORTION OF NASA/GSFC'S LAS AND NASA/NSTL'S ELAS SOFTWARE CAN BE MODIFIED FOR DIRECT USE WITH THIS STATION. AN ALGORITHM CURRENTLY RUNNING ON THE DESKTOP SYSTEMS FOR RUBBER SHEETING IMAGES VIA CUBIC CONVOLUTION AND OTHER INTERPOLATION SCHEMES WILL BE MODIFIED INTO AN INTERACTIVETECHNIQUE FOR CO-REGISTERING NON-CONGRUENT MULTISENSOR IMAGE ON THE STATION. AN ALGORITHM FOR CLUSTERINGMULTIVARIABLE IMAGESBASED ON THEIR SPATIAL, SPECTRAL, AND TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS WILL BE INTEGRATED INTO THE STATION'S SOFTWARE. A RASTER ORIENTED WATERSHEDSIMULATION MODEL WILL BE ADDED TO DEMONSTRATE THE TOTAL, SYSTEMATIC FLOW-THROUGH TO AN END PRODUCT.