NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility

Welcome to the FSF home page. The NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility is now located at the University of Edinburgh and is run alongside the NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility (GEF).

Included in this site are links to all relevant loan application and user information. Please follow the links on the left hand menu. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or require any further information not available on this site.

We look forward to seeing you in Edinburgh at some time... The FSF Team

News items:

The annual FSF Introduction to Field Spectroscopy course (Posted 24/04/2013) The highly regarded annual FSF Introduction to Field Spectroscopy 2 1/2 day course will be held again next year at the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh. Dates will be posted here in due course. Please note that places are limited and the course is usually over subscribed, so those PhD students and early career researchers interested in attending should contact FSF fsf@nerc.ac.uk to book a place well in advance.

Python front ends for 6S and ProSAIL, written by Robin Wilson of U. of Southampton, are available through the FSF User Group (Posted 24/04/2013) Py6S is a Python interface to the respected 6S atmospheric Radiative Transfer Model which makes it significantly easier to use and adds useful new functionality. All of the functionality of the 6S model is supported, and various helper methods are provided to make common operations - such as running a simulation for a number of angles, or for all of the bands of a satellite sensor - very easy. Field spectroscopy data can also be imported and used to configure the ground reflectance of the model, allowing simulations of the at-sensor radiance that would be measured for a set of field spectral measurements. Py6S is fully integrated with the Python NumPy, pandas and Matplotlib modules to allow easy plotting of results and import/export of data and can be accessed from the FSF User Group web page here. PyProSAIL is a very simple Python interface to the ProSAIL combined leaf and canopy reflectance model. In a similar manner to Py6S, it provides a far nicer interface to the model, and allows easy plotting of the results. PyProSAIL can also be integrated very easily with Py6S, for example, to simulate how changes in leaf properties, and thus the reflectance of the canopy, would be manifested in the radiance received at a satellite.PyProSAIL can be accessed from the FSF User Group web page here.

The next FSF application deadline - 1st June 2013 - is fast approaching. If you need any advice please contact FSF directly (Updated 24/04/2013) Please note that loan guidelines, the new application form and advice on new reporting requirements are available here. In addition, there are some example applications on the web site to indicate the level of detail expected for an application to be highly graded. Please note that the new application form must be used. Please note that none of these highly regarded applications exceeded 9 pages! If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to receiving your applications!

Reporting requirment and 'costs' for applicants borrowing instruments from FSF (Updated 24/04/2013) At the time of loan a NERC FSF Loan Agreement form will be supplied to the PI listed on the application. This form will detail the main instruments being lent with serial numbers, the instrument capital values, the daily financial value assigned by NERC to the loan and the agreed loan period. The total value of the loan will be recalculated on return of the instruments to FSF and this value used by NERC in the RAE. A sample of the new Loan Agreement form can be down loaded from here.

Within 1 month of completion of a loan investigators must provide a Loan Report detailing any problems encountered while using FSF instruments and indicating the success of field data acquisition. Within one year of completion of a loan investigators must supply an Interim Science Report to FSF and within 2 years of completion of a loan a Science Report. Sample report formsindicating what is required can be found on the FSF web site. Copies of these report forms will also be included on the memory stick supplied with FSF instruments at time of loan. Applicants may also be requested to present your work at a FSF users seminar to be held at a future date.

Note. NERC FSF recommends and in some cases requires that users insure equipment for 'all risks' the duration of the loan, duration of the loan being from receipt of the equipment at the delivery address until it is received back at FSF.

FSF to participate in the EUROSPEC field spectroscopy and 'scaling' summer school in at the University of Palermo, Sicily (Posted 24/04/2013) FSF will again delivered the highly regarded Introduction to Field Spectroscopy course during the EuroSpec Summer School to be held this year at the University of Palermo, Sicily from 15th to 20th July. The theme of this year is 'scaling' and a state-of-the-art rotary-wing UAV will be used for field spectroscopy measurements. More details of the Summer School and advice on how to apply can be found here.

FSF Post Processing Matlab Toolbox updated (Updated August. 2012) The Facility's Matlab post processing Toolbox version 1.3.6 has been released and is now fully functional under Matlab 2012a. The FSF Matlab Toolbox can be added to the Matlab Toolbox path and functions useful for post processing field spectroscopy measurements, made using a wide range of commonly used field spectroradiometers, are available. The Matlab Help functions and a FSF Toolbox User Guide can then also be found from within the Matlab Help dialogue. The Toolbox includes filter functions to convolve high spectral resolution field acquired spectra with the spectral response functions of a number of satellite sensors. These filter functions have been compiled from the data published by Stevens, M. Matlthus, T. (2003) Inter calibration of vegetation indices from different sensor systems, IJRS. 88 2003 412-422. A link to download the Toolbox can be found here. From the FSF User Group web page you can download macros, programmes and scripts to aid the extraction, processing and analysis of field spectrometer measurements. If you have any open-source field spectroscopy utilities that you have developed and would like to make available to the community please contact Alasdair Mac Arthur at FSF and we will try to develop this resource further. Click here to go to the FSF User Group web page.

Microtops software for retreval of AOT available for download. (Updated July. 2012) Microtops Inverse, developed by Vitchko Tsanev and Tamsin Mather, is designed to allow the retrieval of columnar aerosol optical thickness, concentrated in plumes, from Microtops II measurements. Plumes can result from volcanoes, fires or industrial plants. The Facility's Microtops instruments have been used to study plumes resulting from an eruptions of Mt Etna in 2006 and the 2005 Buncefield Oil Depot fire. For more information and to download the software please 'click' here

New software resources written by Dr J. Hedley is available. (Updated July 2012) The PlanarRad software package for calculating radiative transfer in plane-parallel shallow-water environments was developed by Dr John Hedley at the University of Exeter and is now available. Click here to access the PlanarRad web pages. A report summarising the results obtained during the demonstration at RSPSoc 2009 conference is available to download. In addition, WLTool, a software routine to extract and merge data acquired by the Facility's AC-S and HyperOCR suite of instruments is now also available. Please click here to access the WLTool web pages.

A request from FSF (Updated July 2012) The Field Spectroscopy Facility's instruments are owned by NERC and NERC fully funds the 2 FTE posts required to staff FSF. To justify continued funding the Facility is required annually produce evidence of the support it gives to the UK research community and the scientific benefit to the UK that is derived from that support. NERC regard publications as the prime indicator of science supported by FSF. Publications, therefore, are the primary means by which the value of the Facility to the scientific community is judged. Any investigator in receipt of a NERC FSF loan is required to supply bibliographic references and if possible copies of all publications (including PhD theses, non refereed publications,conference presentations and proceedings and any other publicity relating to their work) which discusses or describe results obtained through the use of Facility equipment. It is a NERC requirement that support given by NERC and FSF be acknowledged in all such publication. In addition, when substantial and detailed advice is given by FSF staff, when FSF post processing templates and when FSF calibration services are used this assistance should also be acknowledged or cited as appropriate in any subsequent publications.

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