CE_RS&GIS_Lect_2_2021/2022 Energy-Matter Interaction & Digital Images Page 1 of 6

Energy-Matter Interaction

• Electromagnetic radiation incident on the surface of a body is partly 1) reflected, or 2)

absorbed or 3) transmitted depending on radiation 1) wavelength, 2) material, and 3)
surface conditions of the body.
• The type of reflectance depends on: 1) the surface's roughness, and 2) the wavelength of
incident radiation reaching the surface.

Radiation-Matter Interactions
• Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) that hits upon the matter is called Incident Radiation.

• When the EMR encounters the atmosphere, land surface, or ocean surface, one of three
reactions occurs: 1) Reflected off the object, 2) Absorbed by the object, or 3) Transmitted
through the object.

Factors affect the Reaction

• Proportion of energy that is transmitted, reflected, or absorbed depends upon:
1) Composition and physical properties of the medium; 2) Wavelength or frequency of
incident radiation; 3) Angle at which incident radiation strikes a surface.
• In RS, it is largely concerned with reflected radiation of sun. Reflected radiation causes our
eyes to see colors.

Transmission (Transmitted Energy)

• Incident radiation passes through matter; Radiation penetrates certain surface media, such
as water, glass, air, etc.
• Refraction occurs when the media are of different densities, and the speed of EMR is
different in each.
Reflection (Reflected Energy)
• Incident radiation is reflected and scattered from the surface of the substance at different
angles.
• There are two types of reflection, while there is no change
in velocity or wavelength in both of them:
1. Specular Reflection: Caused by smooth surfaces; the
angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence.
No change in velocity or wavelength.
• Diffuse (Scattering Reflection): Occurs when surfaces
rough, such as white paper or powders; No change in velocity or wavelength.

Civil Engineering Department, Tishk International University. Prof. Dr. Ayad M. Fadhil (ayad.alquraishi@tiu.edu.iq)
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Absorption (Absorbed Energy)

• The medium takes in incident radiation through
electron or molecular reactions within the medium
encountered.

EMR-Atmosphere Interactions

• EMR travels through vacuum space without

modification; The atmosphere may affect the speed
of radiation, wavelength, intensity, and its spectral distribution. Absorbed and re-radiated
at longer wavelengths (causes air temperature to rise).

Atmospheric Windows

• Some wavelengths cannot be used in RS that atmosphere absorbs all these wavelengths.

• Water molecules, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and ozone in atmosphere block solar radiation.

• Wavelength ranges that pass atmosphere are called atmospheric windows. RS was
conducted in wavelengths within atmospheric windows. Outside of these windows, there
is simply no radiation from the sun to detect due to the atmosphere has blocked it.
Atmospheric windows become less transparent when air is moist (high humidity); Clouds
absorb most of longwave radiation emitted from Earth's surface;

Atmospheric Scattering

• Scattering process disperses radiation in all

directions. Important scattering agents include;
gaseous molecules, suspended particulates
(aerosols), and clouds.
• Three types of atmospheric scattering are important
in remote sensing.
• They are 1- Rayleigh (molecular) Scattering, 2-
Mie (non-molecular) Scattering, and 3- non-
selective scattering.
1. Rayleigh (Molecular) Scattering
• Primarily caused by oxygen and nitrogen molecules (diameters at least 0.1 times
smaller than affected wavelengths); Most influential at altitudes above 4.5km;
• Blue sky - clear sky appears blue in daylight; blue wavelengths reach our eyes.

Civil Engineering Department, Tishk International University. Prof. Dr. Ayad M. Fadhil (ayad.alquraishi@tiu.edu.iq)
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2. Mie (non-molecular) Scattering

• Occurs if sufficient particles in atmosphere with a
mean diameter 0.1 to 10 times larger than
wavelength under consideration. It happened in <
4.5km of the atmosphere.
• Caused by water vapor, tiny particles of smoke, dust,
volcanic smoke, salt crystals released from the
evaporation of sea spray.
3. Nonselective Sattering
• Occurs if the lower atmosphere contains a sufficient number of suspended aerosols
(diameters 10X> the wavelengths under consideration.
• Water droplets and ice crystals that compose clouds and fogs;
• Clouds appear brilliant white because colorless water droplets and
ice crystals scatter all wavelengths equally well.

EMR - Surface Interactions

• Natural and man-made (cultural) features of Earth's surface interact with solar radiation
differently. On average, 50% of incident shortwave radiation on top of the atmosphere
reaches and interacts with Earth's surface features. 50% incident at surface = 4% reflected
directly + 46% absorbed.

Albedo (Spectral Reflectance):

• Albedo is the ratio between reflected radiation to

incident radiation. It is a measure of the reflectivity of
the Earth's surface.

Albedo=Reflected radiation / Incident radiation

• Earth's Albedo: Earth made visible from space only by its albedo. Earth's brightest features
- clouds, snow, and ice surfaces; darkest - water bodies.
• Objects with high albedo are good reflectors but poor absorbers.

Objects with low albedo are poor reflectors but good absorbers.
Energy Conservation Principle
• Radiation Budget Equation:

E I (λ ) = E R (λ ) + E A (λ ) + ET (λ )

Civil Engineering Department, Tishk International University. Prof. Dr. Ayad M. Fadhil (ayad.alquraishi@tiu.edu.iq)
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E I (λ ) : incident radiation that strikes an object, E R (λ ) : reflected radiation, E A (λ ) :

absorbed radiation, ET (λ ) : transmitted radiation

• Transparent materials have little or no absorption and scattering.

• Clear glass - high transmission, low reflection and absorption.
• Fresh snow - high reflectance, low transmission and absorption.

Thus, the fraction of light that is absorbed is

Forest albedo = 0.05-0.10

Snow albedo = 0.80-0.85

Digital Images
• Electromagnetic energy may be detected as:

1) Photographically that use chemical reactions on the surface

of light-sensitive film to detect and record energy variations.

2) Electronically / digital (subdividing the image into small equal-

sized and shaped areas, called picture elements or pixels, and
representing the brightness of each area with a numeric value
or digital number).

Electronic Sensors
• They generate an electrical signal that corresponds to the
radiation variations in the original scene. Electronic Sensor signals are recorded onto a
electronic medium, and such a pictorial presentation of electronic data is not a photograph,

Civil Engineering Department, Tishk International University. Prof. Dr. Ayad M. Fadhil (ayad.alquraishi@tiu.edu.iq)
CE_RS&GIS_Lect_2_2021/2022 Energy-Matter Interaction & Digital Images Page 5 of 6

but it is an image.
▪ Photographs can not be used on satellites, so that led to using digital images.

Nature of Digital Image

▪ A digital remote sensing image composed of picture elements (pixels) located at the
intersection of each row (i) and column (j) in each K bands of imagery.
▪ Associated with each pixel is a number is known as Digital Number (DN) or Brightness
Value (BV), which depicts the average radiance of a small area in a scene.
▪ A smaller DN value indicates low average radiance from the area, and vice versa.
▪ A digital image (Raster) is 2-D array of pixels. Each pixel has a (digital number) DN value.
▪ Each pixel, has coordinates of (x, y) in the discrete space representing a continuous
sampling of the earth surface.
▪ Image pixel values represent the sampling of the surface radiance.
▪ In a multispectral image (several bands), a pixel has more than one DN value corresponds
to a spectral band.
Data Format
• Header file is accompanying geo-referenced raster file, contains information about pixel
size, coordinates, map projection. It also called metadata file.
• A grayscale color consists of one layer displays a color scale from black to white.
• A true color image consists of 3 layers for 3 bands: true color=RGB321, False color= is
RGB432.
Gray scale
▪ Most raw unprocessed satellite imagery is stored in a gray scale
format. A gray scale is a color scale that ranges from black to
white, with varying intermediate shades of gray. A commonly
gray scale is a 256-shade gray scale, where a value of 0
represents a pure black color, and 255 represents pure white.
Contrast
• It is the difference in relative brightness between an item and its surroundings as seen
in an image. A particular feature is easily detected in an image has high contrast.
However, when the contrast is low, an item might go undetected in an image.

Multispectral image: It is an image has several bands; each one has its own wavelength.
Color Composites
• A color composite is created by combining 3 raster layers (bands).
• One image is displayed in shades of Red,one in shades of Green and one in shades of Blue.

Civil Engineering Department, Tishk International University. Prof. Dr. Ayad M. Fadhil (ayad.alquraishi@tiu.edu.iq)
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• Putting the 3 bands together in one color composite can give a better visual impression
of the reality on the ground, than displaying one band at a time. There are three types of
color composites: 1) Natural color composites, RGB321, 2) Pseudo natural color
composites, RGB432 and 3) False color composites, RGB741.
Image Resolution
• Image resolution describes the details in an image holds. Higher resolution means more
image details. There are 4 types of image resolution.
1- Spatial Resolution:
• Spatial resolution is best described by the size of an image pixel. A spatial resolution
increase corresponds to an increase in the ability to one feature discrimination.
2- Spectral Resolution:
• It is the size and number of wavelengths (bands) and intervals of spectrum that a system
is able to detect.
3- Radiometric Resolution:
• It is a detector’s ability to distinguish differences in the strength of emitted or reflected
EMR. A higher radiometric resolution allows for the distinction between subtle
differences in signal strength.
4- Temporal Resolution:
• It refers to the frequency of data collection. Data collected on different dates allows for a
comparison of surface features through time.
Image Histogram
The frequency of occurrence of individual or binned brightness values in an image.

Why do we care about histograms?

• Histograms provide a lot of information on images such as presence or absence of
features, distribution etc.
• Histograms help evaluate images statistically.
• Histograms are used in individual image enhancements.
• Histograms are used in image classification.

Civil Engineering Department, Tishk International University. Prof. Dr. Ayad M. Fadhil (ayad.alquraishi@tiu.edu.iq)