Flashcards

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True-color composite on Landsat TM — band-to-color-gun mapping?

likely airborne

Band Combination 3-2-1 on Landsat TM:

  • 🟥 R display gun ← Band 3 (Red)
  • 🟩 G display gun ← Band 2 (Green)
  • 🟦 B display gun ← Band 1 (Blue)

Each band feeds the matching color gun → image looks roughly natural.

⚠️ On Landsat 8/9 OLI (numbering shifted by 1 because coastal/aerosol = Band 1): - 🟥 R ← Band 4 (Red) - 🟩 G ← Band 3 (Green) - 🟦 B ← Band 2 (Blue)

💡

True color = 3-2-1 countdown (on TM). Each band matches its real color. OLI just shifts everything up by 1.

Photo scale formula for an aerial photograph?

likely airborne

Photo scale is just focal length divided by flying height.

  • Big focal length, low altitude → zoomed in, small ground area, lots of detail.
  • Small focal length, high altitude → wide view, big ground area, less detail.

Same trade-off as your phone camera — wide-angle covers more, telephoto zooms in. Aerial cameras are the same physics, just a few thousand feet up.

🔬 Science / formula

📐 S = f / H

  • 🔍 f = camera focal length
  • ⬇️ H = flying height above the terrain

Three ways to express scale: - 🗣️ Verbal: “1 cm = 1 km” - 🔢 Ratio (RF): 1:100 000 - 📏 Graphic bar: drawn on the map

⚠️ Larger denominator = smaller scale. A 1:100 000 map shows less detail than 1:10 000.

Vertical vs oblique aerial photography — the 3° rule?

likely airborne
  • 📷 Vertical — optical axis within 3° of straight down
    • Less geometric distortion (uniform scale)
    • Used for: planimetric maps, topographic maps, orthophotos, DEMs
  • 🎥 Oblique — optical axis > 3° from vertical
    • More distortion (foreground big, background small)
    • Covers a larger area in one frame, shows terrain relief

Mnemonic: nadir is dead-center, oblique is at an angle.

False-color (CIR) composite on Landsat TM — band-to-color-gun mapping?

likely airborne

Band Combination 4-3-2 (color-infrared, CIR) on Landsat TM:

  • 🟥 R display gun ← Band 4 (NIR) → 🌳 vegetation glows red
  • 🟩 G display gun ← Band 3 (Red)
  • 🟦 B display gun ← Band 2 (Green)

Each band feeds the next display gun up — one color shifted.

⚠️ On Landsat 8/9 OLI: R=B5, G=B4, B=B3.

🔎 Field check: if vegetation looks bright red, you’re looking at CIR.

💡

False color = 4-3-2 (one higher than true color). NIR → Red gun = vegetation glows BRIGHT RED. If veg is red in your image, it's CIR.