CE 701: Remote Sensing Technology

Lab Exercise 1
Introduction to ERDAS Imagine 2013 and Displaying
IRS and Landsat Images

Instructor-In Charge: Prof. E. P. Rao

Prepared by: Anita Chandrasekaran

(TA- PhD Research Scholar)

Introduction to ERDAS Imagine

ERDAS IMAGINE is widely used image processing software which incorprates geospatial
image processing and analysis, remote sensing and GIS capabilities into a powerful,
convenient package. It enables you to easily create value-added products such as 2D images,
orthophoto mosaics, land-cover classification, 3D flythrough movies, vectors derived from
imagery, and cartographic-quality map compositions from geospatial data.
Main Window

Toolbars:
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File: It has the usual options like new, open, print, save, save as, configuration,etc.
New:
Map view: Used for creating maps. Contains all map elements like grids, scale bar, legend,
North arrow
2d- view: Displays raster, vector, and/or annotation data in a 2-dimensional View window
3d-view: Renders 3-dimensional DEMs (Digital Elevaition Model), raster overlays, and
vector feature layers
Open:
There are many types of files that can be opened using ERDAS. Some of the important types
are:
AOI layer: If we know the exact boundaries of our study area, we can extract the area (Area
of Interest) from the large image and process it.
Raster Layer: All satellite images are raster images. That is they consist of grids
Vector Layer: A vector file consists of various points, lines and polygons.
Three layer arrangement: this will open 4 different 2d-views to show the combination of 3
layers in one window and the individual bands in each of the other 3 views.
Spatial link: When this is activated, it means all the 2 d view windows are linked to each
other. Any change in zoom or pan in one window will also be reflected in other windows.

Terra Model: It opens a Digital Elevation Model.

Home:
1. Contents: To show the hide the contents and retriever panels

2. Metadata: Metadata means data about the data. It will contain the information like
when the image was acquired, the calibration constants, sensor details etc for each
band.
General: It contains details like pixel size, the projection system, and basic
statistics of the data.
Projection: Contains the various parameters of the projection system used.
Histograms: They give the distribution of Digital Numbers or grey levels in
each band.
Pixel Data: It will give the value of digital number in each pixel.
3. Select: It helps in panning and zooming the image.
Select: Click to select items and to click on tools in the ribbon or select any
part of the Workspace.
Inquire: It is used to obtain individual pixel information

Lat- Long of the pixel

No. of bands
& which
band is
projected in
which colour

Actual
pixel
values

Look Up
Table
values

No of pixels in
the image that
have this pixel
value.

4. Measurement: Used to take measurements in the selected View. There are many
options: find positions of a point, polyline, rectangular area perimeter, ellipsoidal area
perimeter, polygon area perimeter,
5. Fit to frame: This is used to display the entire image in the 2d view.
6. Add views: In this, we can add more views to the workspace. There are options to
divide a view horizontally or vertically, displaying 2 or more views together, creating
a magnifier to view a small portion of the image.
7. Link views:
Spectral Linkis used to link the same types of data in all open Views to the
active View in order to make contrast and brightness enhancements to the
data. The data must be the same type, such as multispectral to multispectral,
or panchromatic to panchromatic.
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 Sync Views is used to synchronize the different views.

8. Equalize Scales Click to use the scale of the currently active View to zoom all
linked Views to the same zoom factor as the active View. Equalize Scales option
works for spatially linked Views (Link Views option) and for locked Views (Sync
Views option).
9. Align North To rotate the image so that geographic north is pointing vertically
upward on the screen, based on the current map projection system in use.
10. Swipe Click to open the Swipe/Blend/Flicker menu.
Swipe Click to view portions of the top and bottom images (layers) in a
View at the same time.
Blend Click to blend or fade two images or layers together
Flicker Click to quickly flip between the top and bottom layers in the View.
11. Basemap Click to open a basemap to place under your image to show its location in
reference to the Earths surface.
12. New Inset Viewer Click to use an Inset Viewer to magnify a portion of the
displayed data in an inset box. An Inset Viewer opens in the View. To zoom in and
out in the Inset Viewer, click inside the Inset box and scroll. The data in the Inset box
zooms in or out accordingly, and the Source box adjusts accordingly. You can also
pan inside the Inset box. The Inset Views are numbered sequentially as they are
opened, allowing you to have multiple Inset Viewers open at one time. Using In-View
Magnifier you can magnifiy the data in the inset.
13. Place Scale Bar :To place a scale bar in the active View. The scale bar always shows
the proper scale regardless of zoom level. [This option is helpful for displaying
annotation. For example, you may want to view an annotation layer in which the
items are black. These items would not be visible in a black View unless you changed
the styles of the items. Using this option, you can change the background to white and
these items will be visible.

Manage data
1. Image catlog:The Image Catalog is a database for managing raster image information
and selecting files geographically
2. Coordinate calculator: The Coordinate Calculator enables you to convert ground
control coordinates from one map projection, spheroid, or datum to another.
3. Import data: This dialog allows you to convert raster and vector datasets from
external formats to internal formats directly usable by ERDAS IMAGINE.
4. Export data: This dialog allows you to convert raster and vector datasets from
internal formats directly usable by ERDAS IMAGINE to external formats suitable
for use by other software packages.
5. Feature exchange:It is used for extracting, transforming and loading feature formats
6. Pixels to ASCII:It converts pixel values to ASCII values
7. ASCII to Pixel: It converts ASCII table or matrix to pixels
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8. ASCII to Point Vector layer: Convert an ASCII file to vector file which can be used
in GIS softwares.
9. Rater to Shapefile: Convert classes and features in a raster layer to shapefile (vector)
10. Vector to Raster: Convert vector features to raster classes
11. Image: Contains tools to edit the metadata and compute various statistics based on the
image
12. Office tools: To export your image or map to Word/ Powerpoint or as jpeg.

Raster:Contains many processing tools for raster images like

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Radiometric corrections like noise correction, haze reduction

Spatial (various filters)
Pan/Sharpening (colour transformations)
Spectral(layer stacking, pct, rgb to ihs)
Mosaic: If your study area is large and is spread out in more than 1 scene, we have to
properly mosaic the 2 scenes to get a single image.
6. Subset/Chip: To subset your area of interest from the whole image
7. Geometric Calibration: RCP calibration, affine calibration, orthorectify without gcp
calibration with sensor n terrain.
8. Reproject: to project a georeferenced image into a new projection system
9. Classification: Grouping the data into various classes based on their Digital Numbers
Supervised: In this we define some training data for each class and algorithm
groups pixels similar to training data into respective classes. Useful when we
know the area well.
Unsupervised: In this we let the software decide on the classes on its own.
Useful when the area is unknown.
Imagine Objective:It is an algorithm that automates feature extraction
10. Hyperspectral: Has tools for analysis of hyperspectral data
11. Subpixel:When object of interest occupies less than whole pixel, the analysis is done
is sub pixel level.
12. Knowledge engineer: Classifcation based by user defined expert rules.
13. Change detection: To calculate the differences between 2 images within a specified
shapefile (per polygon changes) quantitative measurements are also possible.
14. Radar: for analysis of microwave data
15. Thematic: The Thematic tab contains tools for working with thematic, or pseudo color
images. It has many options like Enhancement (Filters), View (Resampling
method), Edit (options to change colour of the classified image), Utilities
(subsetting, masking, feature counting),Transform & Orthocorrect(reproject,
ortho corrections, resizing pixel)
16. Scientific: Contains transformations like Fourier transforms and other mathematical
functions
17. Multispectral: This tab contains tools for image enhancement and also contains
tools for and feature extraction tools for continuous raster data. These tools allow
you to view, edit, and save the lookup tables that are used to display the data. The
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tab appears on the menu bar when you load a true color image into a View. The
Multispectral tab is grouped into the following categories:
Enhancement : Contrast stretching, histogram equalization, Std. Dev. Stretch,
Brightness: Contrast: Photography enhancements, piecewise contrast, data scaling
Sharpness : Dynamically adjust the sharpness, filtering, edge detection,
smoothening
Bands :Spectral selector-select from list of band combination for specific sensor
also select the colour assigned to each band
View: Resampling methods, setting pixel transparency
Utilities: Subsetting, masking, profiling
Transform & OrthoCorrect
Edit: Many edit options. Refer the software for all options
18. Insert Map Element: Gives all the tools required for making a map like opening map
view, map grids, scale bare, legend, North arrow, adjusting font size, arranging all the
elements of a map
19. Format: Contains the same options as in edit tool
20. Table: Attribute tables for vector and annotation layers can be opened and edited
using tools in the Table tab. The Table tab is grouped into the following
categories:
View : Shows the attribute table for a image.
Drive : To navigate in a table.
Column : Select a column, deselect, add a new column
Row : Select a row, deselect, add a new row
Query : Arranging the table, manipulating the colours
Edit

VECTOR:
Contains commands to save a vector file, rename it, reproject it to a new projection, compute
zonal statistics (This dialog enables you to extract the zonal statistics of the background
image of a polygon coverage and save them as polygon attributes.), subsetting a shapefile,
recalculate the elevation (transform the height of a 3d shapefile from one data to another)

TERRAIN
1. Terrain preparation tool: Use the Terrain Prep Tool to combine existing DTMs
into one DTM, divide a DTM into several DTMs, or create a raster surface from a
DTM.
2. Anaglyph: Sometimes seeing an image in 3D makes it much easier to interpret the
data and to pick out the details, such as the comparative height of neighboring
peaks and where the valleys run. The Anaglyph Generation tool provides a simple
means of producing a color anaglyph simulation of the terrain in 3D using a DEM
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and an image. This anaglyph is created by computing a trigonometric distortion

(or shift) on the imagery displayed in one of the color bands.
3. Recalcuate elevation: It recalculates the elevation of a point after changing the
data like from MSL to WGS84
4. Viewshed: Viewshed layers display visible and hidden areas within a set range, or
can break down areas within that range into different heights above sea or ground
level.
5. Route intervisibility: Similar to viewshed but this works along a polyline showing
the seen and unseen areas
6. Slope:Creates an image showing slope of each pixel of DEM surface
7. Aspect:Creates an image showing aspect of each pixel
8. Painted relief:Algorithm to generate the sun angle shaded representation of a
DEM with colour variation for different heights
9. Shaded relief: Similar to painted relief only difference colour need not depict
height values but land use
10. Level Slice: Divide the image into equal slices
11. Raster contour: Create a new layer showing contour lines (lines of equal
elevation) calculated from an input elevation file.
12. Image drape: Creates perspective views of image draped over DEMs views from
user defined positions
13. DEM Tools:Contains various tools for analysis of DEMs

TOOLBOX
1. Model Maker:Creates algorithm to assemble flowcharts of various processes
2. SteroAnalyst:Starts application to collect 3d information from stero pairs
3. Maps:Helps in composing a map
4. Virtual GIS:Helps in recording of 3d scenes for 3d viewing

GOOGLE EARTH: Connect to Google earth

Displaying a satellite image and studying its metadata

A satellite image is always associated with an image and a metadata file. The image file
contains pixel information and metadata describe the important characteristics of image
files, such as the longitude and latitude, coordinate system, projection method, sensor
mode, orbit number. All metadata are extracted from the image files or header file. Based
on the image metadata, users can determine whether the remote sensing images satisfy
their requirements.
Metadata is essential for processes like georeferencing the image, atmospheric correction.

Exercise:
The objective of this exercise to open a satellite image and its metadata file. Then to study the
various parameters in metadata.
LANDSAT 7 image
Landsat images are freely available for download. The data is Level-1 processed with the
following parameters

GeoTIFF output format

Cubic Convolution (CC) resampling method
30-meter (TM, ETM+) and 60-meter (MSS) pixel size (reflective bands)
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) map projection (Polar Stereographic
projection for scenes with a center latitude greater than or equal to -63.0 degrees)
World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 datum
MAP (North-up) image orientation

1. Open ERDAS Imagine 2014. The opening window will have a 2D View window and a
contents panel. If the 2D view window is not there, got to File
New
2D
view.
2. Then in the contents panel, right click on 2D view #1 and from the drop down list select
Open Raster Layer.
3. Navigate to the folder containing Landsat data and select one band of Landsat image.
The folder consists of 8 bands on Landsat 7 and the metadata file (.mtl).
4. After opening the image in ERDAS, go to Metadata
View/Edit Image Metadata.
5. Go through each of values in the Window and Answer the questions given in the end of
the exercise.
IRS- LISS III
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Sometimes, we come across data types with ERDAS cannot directly open. In such cases,
the data has to be converted to .img format, which is ERDAS in built format. In this
case, the LISS III data is in generic binary format, which cannot be directly opened,
hence it has to be imported separately.
When the Import dialog box appears, do the following:
Set the input format to Generic Binary
Locate the Input file in the source directory.
As soon as you locate the input file, the system will automatically file in the Output file
with a *.img format. Make sure it will output to the appropriate directory.
When you are ready to import the image, select [OK]. Another menu will probably popup.
Fill in the details using the info from CDINFO file with Wordpad.
The click [OK] again to finish importing.
All the necessary information related to import the imagery can be found in the file
named CDINFO.
CDINFO file looks as below:

After entering the necessary values, click OK. Then open the .img file.
The metadata file for this image is named LEADER. Open this in Wordpad and Note
down the lat-long for the 4 corners and center pixel of the image. This information is
essential for georeferencing the image, which shall be done in the next class.

Assignment 1:

1. Write down the following information for the Landsat 7 image

a. The Julian day of the Image
b. Minimum radiance value of Band 4
c. Maximum radiance value of Band 7
d. Solar elevation Angle
e. Minimum pixel value
f. Solar Zenith Angle
2. Note the lat. long for the 4 corners and middle pixel of IRS- LISS III image.

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