Geospatial Blog

Oct. 13: Happy Columbus Day! The mid-term exam is underway (see below). It covers lecture and lab materials through last week.
Our class field trip to Ross Reservation will take place on Saturday. Meet in north parking lot (next to practice football field) at 8:30 am. Bring your lunch/beverage, and dress for walking through prairie and woodland habitats. Also have a notebook for recording observations. The weather forecast calls for sunny sky and high temperature in the mid 60s. In addition to GPS exercises, we plan to conduct kite/blimp aerial photography of the study plots (see below).
All students residing in eastern Kansas are expected to participate. Other students should contact your instructor to arrange an individual field experience.
Oct. 12: The mid-term exam is now available. Please follow instructions for submitting your answers by the deadline. Mid-term grades are due before the exam will be completed; thus, mid-term grades will be based on lab exercises and class participation to date. Check blog later this week for further details about the class field trip on Oct. 18th.
Oct. 6: This past Friday your instructor and his wife conducted blimp aerial photography at Ross Reservation. Our main focus was to document the northeastern portion of the reservation. This area has been prepared with 30-by-30-meter study plots based on the UTM grid. The plots will be used for long-term observations of prescribed fire and mowing treatments--see detailed plan below.

Ross experimental plots. Base image from DOQ.

**Oblique color-visible views**
View southeast	View westward	View northeast

Oblique color-infrared views

View southeast
View westward
View northeast

Vertical color-visible views (north toward right)

Eastern margin
Central portion
Western margin

**Vertical color-visible views** (north toward right)
Eastern margin	Central portion	Western margin

Vertical color-infrared views (north toward right)

Eastern margin
Southwest corner
Western margin

**Vertical color-infrared views** (north toward right)
Eastern margin	Southwest corner	Western margin

Note:

Icemaps2

Landsat

Fall Break--no class meeting this week!

Reminders:

mid-term exam

field trip

Sept. 29: Our next on-campus class meeting will be in the month of October, when fall colors come to Kansas. Already some trees are turning color and dropping leaves. Our subject this week is manned space photography (see example below), and our lab exercise is web-based GIS. On-campus students will have a demonstration of manned-space photos.

Linhof large-format (5-inch) film camera used onboard space-shuttle and space-station missions. Near-vertical shot of the Nile River and Mediterranean coast in the vicinity of Alexandria, Egypt. This image shows the dramatic contrast between the irrigated delta and barren desert (lower left corner). Natural color, March 1990, STS36-151-101. North toward top; image obtained from NASA Johnson Space Center.

Sept. 22: We continue the theme of remote sensing with aerial photography and GCraft airphotos. In class this week, we will demonstrate stereo airphotos. Tutorial 1-5 is due now, and students should start working on 1-6. This exercise will bring together all elements of map composition.

Last Friday your instructor went to Cheyenne Bottoms with graduate student Lida Buster, who is conducting her thesis on aerial and satellite imagery of this famous wetland site in central Kansas. Following historic flooding last year, the marshes remain full of water this year. For more information, see Cheyenne Bottoms.

Kite aerial photographs of Nature Conservancy marsh at Cheyenne Bottoms. Color-visible (left) and color-infrared (right) views toward the northeast with delta of Deception Creek in the upper left portion.

Sept. 15: We're moving into new territory this week with remote sensing, which includes aerial photography and various types of satellite imagery. See course lecture on remote sensing and GCraft remote sensing.
In class, we will review various types of remote sensing imagery. Tutorial 1-4 is due this week, and students should start working on 1-5, which deals with map query.
Sept. 10: Nick Hubbard recommends to check out this site for an interactive fly-through simulation: Electric Oyster.
Sept. 8: Our subject this week is GPS--see NCGIA GPS overview and USGS GPS, map and compass. If the weather is good on Thursday, we'll go outdoors for an introduction to GPS. Tutorial 1-3 is due this week, and students should start working on 1-4.
The following pictures were contributed by Tyson Seirer, who recently participated in an aerial survey of pronghorn (antelope) in the Flint Hills region, southwest of Emporia. Photos © T. Seirer.

Sept. 6: Contributed by Leanna Roark: I went to the website www.nhc.noaa.gov for the National Hurricane Center. I went to the selection tab GIS/RSS (left column). I looked at the different options and choose the third option. This option shows the different NHC breakpoints. This opens up a map of the North America and South America plus surrounding islands. You can select satellite option to show more topography. You can select hybrid to add on cities, country names, and roads. This is like what we did in Exe. 1-2 and Exe. 1-3.
Sept. 4: From Greg Gantz: In our class last week we were looking at maps and we discussed the conversions from coordinates to UTM. This website I found will convert any coordinates into UTM and show a map of that area. Here is the website: http://boulter.com/gps/.
Check it out. Enter the lat/long, 38° 25' 0" and 96° 10' 45". Where is this location? Be as specific as possible. What are these values in decimal degrees and UTM?

Roster of active students (ver. 1.1).

Sept. 1: Happy Labor Day and first day of September. Originally September was the seven month, hence the "sept" prefix, when the new year began on March 1st.
Our reading this week deals with georeferencing and map projections. On campus, we will examine some antiquarian maps from the 16th century (Europe) and 18th century (N. America). Tutorial exercise 1-2 is due this week, and students should begin working on tutorial 1-3.
Aug. 26: Last week in class, your instructor gave a challenge to on-campus students to find out how many U.S. colleges/universities have an insect mascot (like Corky the Hornet) and how many use some kind of cat--panther, wildcat, tiger, etc. Nick Hubbard identified 81 "cat" colleges and 17 "insect" colleges, including the Arkansas-Monticello Boll Weevils.
Clearly large carnivores are more popular than small insects. Let's open this challenge up to all students. Can you identify additional cat or insect colleges? Can you find any geographic patterns for the mascot distributions?
Aug. 25: The first full week of classes; on-campus students will have a demonstration of conventional (paper) topographic maps. Reading is NCGIA unit 002. Idrisi tutorial 1-1 is due, and students should begin working on tutorial 1-2.
All students are encouraged to submit comments, questions, pictures, websites, or other interesting items for this geospatial blog (see examples below). This is a moderated blog, which means your instructor will review all items for appropriate use. Please send your text and images via email; each item should be identified clearly for potential use on the blog. Your instructor may do some light editing before placing submissions online. Note: part of your course participation grade depends on blogging.
Earth Science Club: join the first student club meeting for rock cutting and pizza, 5 o'clock Wednesday afternoon, SH 110.
Aug. 18: The fall semester begins this week! On-campus students meet in the GSA lab (SH 16) at 1 o'clock Thursday afternoon. Your initial reading assignment is GCraft overview.
Students should review the basic procedures for conducting lab exercises with Idrisi Andes and proceed to Idrisi tutorial 1-1. All distance-learning students should be in contact with your instructor and need to acquire Idrisi software at this time.
Aug. 15: Your instructor recently returned from Pennsylvania, where he helped a colleague move from ESU to Clarion University. In the kitchen of the colleague's newly purchased house, we discovered a compass (rose) diagram cut into the linoleum floor. Most remarkable for a private home to have such a symbol. This will help orient our colleague to her new situation.

Compass diagram in kitchen floor of private home, about one foot in diameter. The floor dates from the 1950s, although the house is much older.

Aug. 4: Your instructor has just returned from Colorado, where he and his wife conducted high-altitude kite aerial photography at La Veta Pass, ~9400 feet elevation (see below). We hope to conduct similar aerial photography on our field trip to Ross Reservation.

Kite aerial photographs at La Veta Pass, Colorado
View northward at La Veta Pass. US highway 160 can be seen in right background. Crossing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, it reaches a crest of 9413 feet near the center of view.
Mount Maestas (right) and Rough Mountain (left) with US highway 160 crossing bottom of scene. Both these mountains are formed by igneous intrusions along the main front-range fault system.
View toward southeast. Mt. Maestas to left; Spanish Peaks form a silhouette behind a thunderstorm in the right distance. US highway 160 across the bottom of scene.
View toward northwest. US highway 160 descends western side of La Veta Pass in the distance. The open meadow and forest are frequented by elk herds.
Looking toward the southwest, the "ghost town" of Old La Veta Pass can be seen in the clearing to left center of scene. This was the original railroad crossing of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the late 1800s; crest elevation 9382 feet.
Near-vertical view of KAP site; kite flyers to right side. Numerous trees, a power line, and turbulent updrafts made for difficult flying conditions in the thin air at this altitude.

**Kite aerial photographs at La Veta Pass, Colorado**
	View northward at La Veta Pass. US highway 160 can be seen in right background. Crossing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, it reaches a crest of 9413 feet near the center of view.
	Mount Maestas (right) and Rough Mountain (left) with US highway 160 crossing bottom of scene. Both these mountains are formed by igneous intrusions along the main front-range fault system.
	View toward southeast. Mt. Maestas to left; Spanish Peaks form a silhouette behind a thunderstorm in the right distance. US highway 160 across the bottom of scene.
	View toward northwest. US highway 160 descends western side of La Veta Pass in the distance. The open meadow and forest are frequented by elk herds.
	Looking toward the southwest, the "ghost town" of Old La Veta Pass can be seen in the clearing to left center of scene. This was the original railroad crossing of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the late 1800s; crest elevation 9382 feet.
	Near-vertical view of KAP site; kite flyers to right side. Numerous trees, a power line, and turbulent updrafts made for difficult flying conditions in the thin air at this altitude.

Notes: All distance-learning students should acquire Idrisi Andes software at this time. Your instructor will be out of town and away from email Aug. 6-12th. Please do not send any messages during this period.

Welcome to Geospatial Analysis! This course will be offered during the fall 2008 semester. The course is taught in a distance-learning mode with weekly lab and review sessions available for on-campus students. Course requirements, readings, and lab exercises are quite similar for both on-campus and distance-learning students.
Distance-learning students should enroll for ES 351 ZA. They must have access to Idrisi Andes software, which is the primary GIS utilized in this introductory course. Distance-learning students can obtain a "student starter" license for only $95, which is limited to one year usage.
Beginning in August, students should consult this blog frequently for course activities, notes, announcements, and reminders. Please contact the instructor with any comments or questions about the course.