Module 1 - Visual Interpretation

This week, I completed the first lab for my remote sensing course. This week I studied how to identify features in an aerial photo.

The objective of the first map (attached) was to identify the tone and texture. This was accomplished by examining the photo and finding areas that were light and dark, coarse and fine. These tones and textures were not the same throughout the photo and were affected by how the light was reflecting off the objects and how dense the vegetation was. 

Deciding where to place my polygons took me a little time, at first I chose parts of the map that were very general and not detailed. I began again and selected more specific areas of the map that were light and dark, and coarse and fine. I think that the light and dark areas were easy to identify. Finding areas that were in between took closer examination. 

The objective of the second map (attached) was to identify features in the photo. I was able to identify a building sign and a water tower based on their shadows. I noted neighborhoods, ocean waves, and parking lots based on their patterns in the photo. I found an ocean pier and a building based on their size. This exercise was interesting to do. I enjoyed looking over the map and trying to determine what everything was from their shadows and patterns. 

For shape and size, the features that stood out to me were the long ocean pier, a building on the beach, and the long curving roads. I noticed the ocean pier because it is irregular, the building I chose was near the dunes and its shape was irregular in comparison, and the roads are wide, dark, and curving and stand out against the natural landscape. 

For shadows, the features that stood out to me were the tall water tower, the beachside building sign on top of one of the buildings, and the parking lot lights. Each of these tall features cast a different shadow, and without the shadow, you would not be able to tell what each feature was. The water tower cast a very long shadow with a bulb at the top of it, overhead it just looked like an oddly placed round feature. I almost missed the building sign on the beach, until I noticed the shadow of the three irregular and spaced-out squares over the top of one of the beachside buildings. The parking lot lights cast very distinctive, long, and thin shadows. 

For patterns, I chose the ocean waves, the neighborhood of houses, and a car-lined parking lot. I almost disregarded the ocean waves as a pattern, but chose this as an example as the pattern of the waves rolling up to the beach is distinctive and set apart from the rest of the landscape. If it weren’t for the waves, you may assume the body of water was a lake. The neighborhood of houses stood out as a pattern as each house is quite similar and almost the same size, and also irregular next to the sand dunes. I chose the car-lined parking lot where a row of 10-20 cars are parked in an otherwise empty lot. Without the pattern of the parked cars, the lot would look like an empty field. 

For association, I chose the beach parking lot and the hotel pool. The parking lot is identifiable by its proximity to the beach. I think this parking lot is associated with the beach because it is large enough for many people to park and walk down to the ocean. I chose the hotel pool by its association with the similar building complex that surrounds it. The pool could otherwise be thought to be a pond or landscape feature, but it is set between two hotel buildings where guests can easily access it.