great clumps of leaves, which exhibit a tendency to a
basal rotation to expose the broad face to the light and.
with dark shadows inbetween the clumps and finally the
structure of the leaf itself would explain the high
absorbtion in the infra red spectral band. The general
form of the croun fits the conditions found by Roller
(1973) quoted by Couell (1974) to lead to high infra red
absorbtion, while the internal structure of the leaf would
fit the conditions specified by Heller (1970) to produce the
same effect.
The Interpretation Process.
In using the analytical potential of the GE 100 it was
essential to combine the knowledge of the ground environment,
the foresters' experience and the skill of the GE 100
operator, to recognise and enhance the subtle differences
which had meaning. It must be emphasised that the full
flexibility of the machine was used, many small changes in
the image structure were made by minor adjustments, which
were not recorded because the objective was to find Araucaria
nôt to test the machine. This called for team work of a high
order.
In processing the images, movement was always from the "known"
to the "unknoun", and success was achieved through this
methodology. Images were revealed on the screen in which
those variations which coincided with Araucaria distribution
were emphasised. This was basically a"stretching","rationing"
and "colour adding" process. Eventually, combinations of
Band 5 and 7 were found to produce patterns in the forest
areas and these concurred with the distribution of
Araucaria in a test area. The procedure was then reversed,
and the analytical procedure was applied to another
Computer Compatible Tape using the same parametric