Remote Sensing & Geographical Information System (RS & GIS) - Semester 5

Practical 01 - RS Data handling with ArcGIS 10.5.1 Software package

Introduction
Remote sensing is the art and science of making measurements of the earth using sensors
on airplanes or satellites. These sensors collect data in the form of images and provide
specialized capabilities for manipulating, analyzing, and visualizing those images with the
help of GIS software. Spot, Landsat, GeoEye, IKONOS and Aster are some of the earth’s
observation satellites which captured images in different resolution.

Landsat images provide information meeting the broad and diverse needs of business,
science, education, government, and national security. They are now freely available in the
internet. The mission of the Landsat Program is to provide repetitive acquisition of high-
resolution multispectral data of the Earth's surface on a global basis. The data from the
Landsat spacecraft constitute the longest record of the Earth's continental surfaces as seen
from space.

Objectives

 To gain an understanding of GIS software and its uses

 To visualize satellite images using ArcGIS software
 To create colour composites and identify the features in the images

Task 1:

Open the ArcMap application and familiarize with its interface.

 If you have a shortcut icon for ArcMap on your desktop, double-click it to start
ArcMap.
 If not, click the start menu, then choose All Programs > ArcGIS > ArcMap
 Open a “blank map”
 Dock an Un-dock the toolbars
 Close and Re- open the “toolbars” (Standard, Tools, Layout, Draw, Editor etc..)
 Close and Re-open the “Table of Contents”
 Dock and Un-dock the “Table of Contents”
 Hide “scroll bars” and “status bar”
 Toggle between “Data view” and “Layout view”

T.W.S. Warnasuriya (OCUSL) 11/12/2017 Page 1

Remote Sensing & Geographical Information System (RS & GIS) - Semester 5

Task 2:

Use ArcMap to explore RS Data

 Import the data stored in “Rs_Practical_1” folder in your computer into ArcMap.
 Find out the differences between each image band
 Compare the histogram of different bands
 Fill the following table with the obtained information from “Properties” of each
band and Meta Data file

Satellite platform: Date of acquisition: path: Row:

Band Region Spectral Spatial Radiometric Datum Projected Min. Max. Data
of EM resolution resolution resolution coordinate DN DN format
spectrum system value value

Task 3:

Create colour composites

 True colour composite

 False colour composite
 Try to identify the features in the colour composites
 By changing the band combination understand the changes of features
 Find and list down coordinates for ten identifiable features.
 Export ‘true’ and ‘false’ colour composites and save in PDF and JPEG formats with
north arrow, scale, title, coordinates etc….

T.W.S. Warnasuriya (OCUSL) 11/12/2017 Page 2