Expanding Access to THEOS with
Free Educational Software
Sally E. Goldin & Kurt T. Rudahl
Geoinformatics Laboratory at KMUTT
King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi
Bangkok, Thailand
THEOS Data Users Meeting
13 February 2012
A New Era for Remote Sensing in Thailand
Abundant, affordable data
 Near-real-time information
 High resolution
 Under Thai control
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Agriculture
 Water management
 Forest conservation
 Urban planning
 Etc...
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Expanded User Base for RS Imagery
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Government agencies
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Local administrative bodies
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NGOs
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Educational organizations
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Commercial companies
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Communities and cooperatives
Many of these new users will know little about analyzing and
interpreting remote sensing data
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What do these new users need?
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Theoretical knowledge
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Principles of remote sensing
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Limitations of imagery
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Image processing algorithms
Practical skills
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Interpreting images
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Planning and executing analyses
Software tools
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This is our topic today
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Introducing OpenDragon
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Easy-to-use image analysis and raster modeling
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Multilingual user interface (including Thai)
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Detailed user manual and context-sensitive help
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Rich set of core analysis capabilities
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Imports THEOS data sets
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Programmer's Toolkit for extensibility
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Free!
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History of OpenDragon
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1984-1986 - Goldin & Rudahl, at Asian Institute of Technology, recognize the
need for affordable software for remote sensing education
1987 – Dragon V1.0 – first remote sensing image analysis package to run on
an off-the-shelf PC
2004 – KMUTT provides three years funding for OpenDragon project, to
make the software free for educational organizations in SE Asia. After project
ends, Goldin-Rudahl Systems, Inc. continues support.
2010 – Goldin-Rudahl Systems makes OpenDragon free for everyone,
announces plan to open the source code
Since then, the software has been downloaded by people in 85 countries
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OpenDragon was designed for teaching
Context-sensitive help explains
every parameter
No magic or wizards – approaches
analysis operations step by step
Scripting capability allows
instructors to automate more
complex operations
Fully internationalized, with
versions for many languages
Users new to remote sensing do
not have to struggle with English
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OpenDragon Capabilities
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Gray, composite and pseudocolor display, image
overlay, annotation, zoom, capture
Band arithmetic, vegetation indices, convolution,
principal components, masking
Geometric correction/registration
Supervised and unsupervised classification
including training, signature editing, MDM, max
likelihood, K-means clustering, slicing, error
analysis
Vector capture with image background,
rasterization, measurement, area histograms,
transect profiles, irregular subsetting, recoding
Interactive value display for pixels and regions
Buffering, aspect and slope calculation, multicriteria modeling
Image histogram, scatterplot, statistics, metadata
display and editing
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Import and export of raster and vector data
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Log capture to create scripts
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Programmer's Toolkit
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Provides header files and libraries to
allow users to add new capabilities to
OpenDragon
Written in standard C for use with free
compilers such as gcc
Read and write Dragon format images,
vectors, signature files, etc. Manage
meta data.
Excellent resource for education
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Shortcut to teaching geoinformatics software
development
Support for researchers developing new
algorithms
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Education using OpenDragon: Case Studies
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High school workshop on drought analysis
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2B-KMUTT – High school research project
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Graduate thesis work
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Professional education in geoinformatics programming
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High School Remote Sensing Workshop
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In October 2005, at the request of HRH Princess Maha Chakri
Sirindhorn and with the cooperation of GISTDA, the OpenDragon
project presented a three-day workshop for students from Mahidol
Wittayanusorn school.
The topic was remote sensing for drought monitoring
Experts on remote sensing technology, meteorology, and water
resources provide background lectures
Labs used OpenDragon for multitemporal analysis of images of
reservoirs around Thailand, from normal versus drought years
On the third day, students presented their results and conclusions
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OpenDragon High School Workshop
Normal Year
Drought Year
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2B-KMUTT Program
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Original Image
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Brightness
Component
Mathayom 5 students spend three
weeks at KMUTT during summer
break, working on research projects
with faculty
One young woman worked with us to
develop code for the Tassled Cap
transformation using the Programmer's
Toolkit
Although she knew nothing about
remote sensing before she came to
KMUTT and little about programming,
she successfully completed her project.
Greenness
Component
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Master's Thesis
Improving the Estimated Area of Rice Cultivation by Classification Techniques
by Ithiphol Ekahitanonda
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Compared standard maximum
likelihood classification with
multitemporal fuzzy-rule-based
classification
Best fuzzy rule set was developed using
Genetic Algorithms
Mr. Ithiphol wrote more than a dozen C
modules using the Programmer's Toolkit
to implement his novel algorithms
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Computer Programming for Geographers
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Course for graduate students in Geoinformatics – many already work in geospatiallyoriented positions
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Presented twice at Chiang Mai University, once at Burapha University
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Goal is to teach students enough programming that they can:
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Understand how geospatial data is represented and manipulated in a program
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Modify an existing program to customize its behavior
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Understand what is “under the hood” of geospatial software in order to critically evaluate
the answers that software provides
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Half lecture, half lab – Programmer's Toolkit used for raster exercises
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Hand-on work modifying real code builds students' confidence
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How can you get OpenDragon?
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Go to http://www.open-dragon.org/software_dl.html
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Fill in the contact form to register
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You will receive a serial number by email
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Return to the www.open-dragon.org site. Enter the serial number to
download the package, sample data, and the Programmer's Toolkit, if
you wish
OpenDragon currently runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista and
Windows 7. A port to Linux is planned for the future.
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Other Resources
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Learning Remote Sensing is a
textbook aimed at new users of R/S
imagery. It provides hands-on
exercises using downloadable data
sets
The book is available in both digital
and print formats.
Contact us at break or visit the
OpenDragon website for details
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OpenDragon is not for everyone
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OpenDragon can process images up to 1024x1024 in size.
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These capacity limits mean it is not appropriate for production image processing
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Dragon/ips® Professional is a more powerful commercial version capable of
processing full THEOS scenes
OpenDragon provides a way for new users to ease into the complex world of remote
sensing image processing
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OpenDragon speaks your language
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OpenDragon is free
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Questions?
Contact us for more information!
Sally Goldin & Kurt Rudahl
Geoinformatics Lab at KMUTT
seg@goldin-rudahl.com
www.open-dragon.org
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