Sensing Things Remotely
Mapping technology is a very fast growing industry using 3D maps, satellite imagery, and many different instruments and sensors that measure all kinds of things. We call this Remote Sensing. These sensors can measure heat, light, radiation wavelengths and much more. Much of what we use in today's mapping techniques are made possible by remote sensing.
I used to work with an instrument (in the picture above) that was used for analyzing the health of different kinds of vegetation. I analyzed white pine (Pinus strobus) for the most part, in an attempt to gather data on air quality in the New England region. The instrument is called the VIRIS (Visible InfRed Intelligent Spectrometer). Basically, it measured water content in the pine needles and graphed it to look like the graph below:
I also used the instrument down in the Yucatan, Mexico. It is never easy bringing anything called a VIRIS across any border and I don't recommend it. The instrument also requires total darkness, except for the light source which is very hot (basically recreating the sun). And when it is stiflingly hot, like in the Yucatan, it is not very pleasant to work around. Below is a picture of us working in a scorpion infested shed.
And no, I wasn't kidding about the scorpions (beer cap for size purposes only, this is science! Right?)...
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