1998

Mäkisara, Kai

The primary purpose of this report is to help the prospective users of the Finnish airborne imaging spectrometer AISA to better utilise the data the instrument collects. Most of the topics discussed are also applicable to other airborne imaging spectrometers. The emphasis is on understanding the formation and the characteristics of the data and the data processing methods used with this kind of data. The structure of the AISA instrument is reviewed with emphasis on the aspects that have effect on the usability of the data collected by the instrument. Practical methods and rules of thumb for selection of the data collection parameters for different applications are presented. The radiometric processing of the data, including the atmospheric correction is reviewed. The problems related to analysis of the hyperspectral data are also discussed. A method for automatic selection of spectral channels is presented. The method can be used either for data collection or for data analysis. The requirements for the software used for analysis of hypersspectral data are presented. The software made at VTT for preprocessing and spectral channel selection are introduced. A short bibliography of earlier research on use of imaging spectrometer data is included in the report.