III.

Spectral Reflectance Curves

Model Answers

1. What is the λ range (from min to max, in nm) of all measurements?

- From λmin = 325.76 nm to λmax= 2508.36 nm
2. Why are radiance values (columns C & E) always smaller than irradiance values
(column B)?
- Because part of the incident radiation is absorbed by the material and part is
transmitted through it. The third part is reflected from the material and
radiated back to the sensor (= radiance values). Absorbed and transmitted
radiation are both non-negative, moreover, the absorbed part is positive.
Hence, reflected radiance is smaller than the irradiance.
3. What is common to all curves?
- Low reflectance in the blue range, high in NIR, dips around 1400 nm and
1900 nm (this is due to water absorption).
4. Interpret the obtained RMSE values. Which materials result into
largest/smallest RMSE? Is it possible to discriminate the olive and any of the
gypsum materials using RMSE?
- RMSE between g1 and g2 is the lowest (RMSE=8.6), followed by g2 vs. olive
(RMSE=16.0) and the largest value is obtained for g1 vs. olive (RMSE=19.7).
Interpretation: on average, spectral curves of the two gypsum materials are
the closest with the average difference of ≈ 8.6%. The difference between
both gypsum materials and olive is substantially larger, about by a factor of
two (≈16% and ≈ 20%). On the basis of this observation we may conclude
that RMSE of spectral reflectance curves allows to discriminate gypsum and
olive trees.
5. Is the difference between the spectral curves constant (similar to the RMSE for
these materials) for all wavelength values or does it exhibit strong variation?
- The difference exhibits strong variation with respect to the wavelength.
- The min value is close to zero. The max value is substantially larger (by a
factor 1.5 or more) than the RMSE for the same pair of materials.
6. Identify at what wavelength the difference between the reflectance curves is
maximal and how large is the difference. Identify at what wavelength the
difference between the reflectance curves is minimal and how large is the
difference. Best ignore the noisy data around 1800-1950 nm and near 2500 nm.
- If we ignore the noisy data (1800-1950 nm and near 2500 nm), the following
data are obtained (approximate numbers):
g1 vs. g2 min=0% (1300 and 1400 nm), max =14% (1500 nm)
g1 vs. olive: min=0% (2000 nm), max=32% (700 nm)
g2 vs. olive: min=8% (760 nm), max=27% (1700 nm)

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7. Does the maximal difference coincide with a spectral band from OLI?
- No, the maximal difference occurs 700 and 1700 nm, being outside the
spectral bands of OLI (this depends on the accuracy of your estimation in
question 9). That does not mean OLI is a bad sensor. For example, Red band
offers substantial difference (being larger than the RMSE) between the
reflectance values of olive and gypsum. Not all bands of OLI are equally
relevant for the discrimination of olive and gypsum, with the SWIR2 band
being the worst suited for that purpose.
8. What can you observe in the loaded raster image? (You can zoom in and out of
the image)
- The raster image appears to be mostly gray. Specifically, different intensities
of grayness (from black to white). No other color is observed.
9. What do you think accounts for the differences in the resulting grayscale images
(band 1 vs band 5)?
- Bands 1 and 5 possess different wavelengths. Certain features reflects the
wavelengths in bands 1 and 5 differently thus varied appearance between
the grayscale images.
10. Aside from the color, what major changes have you observed? What do you think
is the significance of using different color maps rather than just the default
grayscale image?
- The pixels where displayed into certain colors depending upon where its
values fall within a certain value range. In this case, the lowest value range is
blue while the highest value range is red. This can be useful in contrasting
features that have high differences in pixel values.
11. How did the visualization of different surface features change?
- Apparently, the initial display before the bands in the RGB channels were
changed was a different variation of a false color composite. After changing
the bands to bands 4, 3 and 2 for the Red, Green and Blue channels,
respectively, the image displayed in the map view shows the true color of the
satellite image.
12. Comparing the 5-4-3 band composition and 4-3-2, which region(s) is/are
distinct? What is the relationship between the intensity of the color and the
feature?
- The most distinct region is the vegetation areas. Vegetation reflects the near-
infrared wavelength the highest compared with the other wavelengths. This
is the reason why it appears to be very red in the false color composite as it
has relatively high intensity in the Red channel. Although the clouds appear
to be the same in both band compositions, it is distinct in a manner that it
reflects most, if not all of the radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum.

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13. Describe each land surface type using their spectral plots. Which classes have
similar spectral plots? If yes, what are these classes? What does the buffer on
each line corresponding to a land surface type indicate?
- Bare soil has relatively low pixel values in bands 1 to 4 but it has a slight
increase in bands 5 to 7. A similar observation can also be said for the land
surface type Built-up. On the other hand, Water mostly reflects bands 1 and
2, but with a quite low intensity, then its trend continuously decreases from
bands 3 to 7. The type Vegetation has a rather peculiar behavior on the
different bands. It slightly decreases from bands 1 to 4 then peaks, not to
mention with a significantly high intensity, at band 5, and decreases abruptly
at band 6 and furthermore towards band 7. Among the four land surface
types, both bare soil and built-up have similar trends all throughout the 8
different bands or wavelengths. The buffer as seen in the spectral plots refers
to the highest and lowest pixel values (intensities) found within an ROI in
each of the bands.