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Ground Truth Image Database for Global Scale Research 
Yoshiaki Honda*, Koji Kajiwara* and Yoshiaki Kimura** 
*: CEReS (Center for Environmental Remote Sensing), Chiba University 
1-33 Yayoi, Inage-ku, Chiba 263, JAPAN 
FAX: +81-43-290-3857 E-mail: yhonda@rsirc.cr.chiba-u.ac.jp 
**: Konica co,. 1 Sakura, Hino, Tokyo 191, JAPAN 
Introduction 
From 1972, many people have talked about Global Environmental Problem. Many 
researchers have made many ground truth surveys. They have used their own surveying method. 
There are huge information about the Earth by ground truth. However, those information is too 
detailed for ordinal people. Even scientist in a kind of field can not understand information in other 
kind fields. Many surveyor took many pictures in their field survey. These pictures are one of the 
most understandable information in other fields. In this paper Image database system for global scale 
research is reported. 
1. Important Information 
Ordinal photographs can give us many 
information. For example, we can recognize 
landcover, vegetation condition and vegetation 
type etc., from pictures. If these pictures have 
location and time which pictures had been taken, 
these are very useful data for ground truth. But 
almost pictures have no information of taken 
  
Figure 1 Prototvne GPS camera 
291 
location. Existing of location information is 
depend on each surveyor. Because of no 
recording function of location in the ordinal 
camera. 
If location information can be seen in 
pictures, all these pictures can be used 
meaningful. However, Location and time 
information are not enough for ground truth. 
Ground truth picture should include taking 
direction and inclination. Therefore, 
important information for ground truth 
are image, location, date, direction and 
inclination. 
2. System 
Ground truth image data are managed 
by the ground truth image database. 
These image data is taken by GPS 
camera (produced by Konica). Figure 
1 shows a prototype GPS camera. 
Figure 2 shows GPS camera type 3. 
GPS camera can add location 
information in pictures. Figure 3 
shows result of GPS camera. The 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B7. Vienna 1996