FSF at RSPSoc

Exhibitor stands at RSPSoc2008

Dockside demonstration at RSPSoc 2008

The NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility hosted a series of field spectroscopy manufacturer demonstrations at this year's Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society Conference held at the Cornwall Campus of the University of Exeter near Falmouth

Well attended demonstrations of both terrestrial and marine/aquatic equipment generated great interest from both existing and potential new users

NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility assisted in the organisation of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society Conference (RSPSoc 2008) at the University of Exeter, Falmouth Campus in Cornwall, UK where Dr Tim Malthus chaired a series of manufacturer led demonstration sessions featuring state of the art field spectroscopy equipment recently acquired by the Facility. Most of these instruments will be available for loan from the Facility during. Over the course of the 3 day conference, 5 sessions were organised with manufacturer’s representatives from the UK and USA discussing their approach to field spectroscopy and demonstrating the use of their instruments and an open floor discussion between the FSF, manufacturers and users was encouraged.

The first demonstration, held on Monday morning, featured the field portable, high resolution Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) instrument, newly developed by MIDAC, of the USA, to FSF’s specification and requirements. The FSF FTIR is a quarter of the weight of existing units, and incorporates a rugged, high resolution interferometer measuring over 2-15um. The Tuesday demonstrations began by Dr Brian Curtiss of ASD Inc showcasing the latest ASD FieldSpec3 full wavelength spectroradiometer. This instrument is lighter and more portable than its predecessor and has a wireless control interface making fieldwork easier. A FieldSpec 3 has recently been purchased by FSF as a replacement for an aging spectroradiometer. However, the FSF FieldSpec3 has been configured to accept data from a broadband external irradiance sensor with the data stored in the spectral data file header enabling decision to be made on the quality of spectral data during post processing. Jay Zakrzewski of Headwall Photonics followed with a presentation of their hyperspectral imaging system suite, and a demonstration of the Micro-Hyperspec 400 - 1100nm imaging system. Another recent FSF acquisition, the HR-1024, was demonstrated by Tom Corl of SVC on Tuesday afternoon. The extremely portable HR-1024 weighs only 3.3kg and can be controlled from a wireless PDA user interface. The HR-1024 has been modified by the manufacturer, to FSF's specification, to except 8 external channels and store the data in the instrument's spectral file header and/or be viewed on demand. The external sensor suite is being developed by FSF and consists of six configurable narrow band irradiance sensors and a total/diffuse pyranometer. The combined HR-1024/external sensor suite will enable spectral irradiance measurements to be made simultaneously to spectral radiance or reflectance measurement and enable decisions to be made in the field as to whither measurements should be made and to model spectral irradiance and assess the quality of field spectroscopy measurements during post processing.

On the Wednesday morning the FSF hosted an aquatic applications session. This session showcased recently acquired instrumentation for measuring optical properties of natural waters, instruments for measuring in-water light fields and also freely available open-source software which can utilise this data for radiative transfer modelling of light within and above the water column. Dr. Tim Malthus introduced the session by giving an overview of the FSF and its capacity to support marine and freshwater research. Then, led by Dr. John Hedley (University of Exeter), FSF Staff and a representative from WETLabs, delegates partook in a field trip to the nearby Stithians Lake for a dockside demonstration of the underwater spectroscopy instrument suite. Dr. Hedley gave an overview of the theory of hydrological optics and the operation of the instrumentation, which consists of a WETLabs AC-S, an ECO-BB3 backscatter meter, a SeaBird CTD and three Satlantic HyperOCR sensors. This combination of sensors can be used to measure water column profiles of the Inherent Optical Properties (IOPs, i.e. the optical properties of the water itself) and for estimating Apparent Optical Properties (AOPs, properties relating to the current light field in the water). The demonstration generated much interest and a warm and sunny Cornish morning provided pleasant field conditions! A report is now available to download here showing data on the measurements taken during the demonstration, merging of the data sets and model closure - “model closure” being the agreement between modelled and actual in-water light fields as predicted by Dr. Hedley’s modelling software, which will be available in early 2009 from the software resources page on the FSF website.

Overall, the conference was a tremendous success, with many attendees giving positive feedback concerning the practical demonstration sessions, and many expressing interest in applying for FSF equipment loans in the future. Additionally, the RSPSoc Chairman, Dr Paul Aplin has since thanked the NERC FSF for its contribution in making the conference a success.

A flyer summarising the demonstrations is available here