it being recognised that such values are likely to vary from
application to application,
Having evaluated possible approaches to this problem,
the Agency is now planning a preliminary study phase invol-
ving the issue of a number of small study contracts relating
to the objective evaluation of spatial resolution and radio-
metric sensitivity requirements in relation to the Optical
Imaging Instrument for the Land Applications Mission.
The general methodology to be adopted in the studies is
as follows :
(1) Select basic data set(s) of relevance to the application(s)*
under study (Airborne MSS data).
(2) Simulate a number of sets of data from each basic set,
relating to various levels of spatial resolution, and
radiometric sensitivity. (Such simulated sets will
normally represent DEGRADATIONS with respect to the basic
set(s)).
Note : In performing this simulation/degradation, it will
first be necessary to remove the effect of the
large across-track scan angle from the MSS data
(geometric and atmospheric).
(3) Process the various sets of simulated data using prefer-
ably unsupervised algorithms relevant to the various
applications under consideration in order to note the
effects of changes in input data on the results output
by the algorithms (e.g. variation in crop measurement
accuracy as a function of spatial resolution of the data).
(4) Analyse results from (3) above in order to
a) obtain preliminary estimates of 'application specific'
requirements vis-à-vis spatial resolution and radio-
metric sensitivity;
b) identify refinements/extensions to the study methodo-
logy of this preliminary phase;
C) produce recommendations re. follow-on study phases
(including possible extension to microwave instru-
ments).
(x) In this preliminary phase, the applications considered
(within the context of the Land Applications Mission) will
be; :
2®Area measurement for agricultural crops and forestry;
- Inventory and change detection for land use.
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