I'm searching for map sources that will provide me with reliable terrain type data for the given GIS location: Longitude 121.213 and Latitude 32.2343, terrain type is 'Forest' or 'Urban' or 'Water'.
I am currently looking at some ways to process sat/aerial imagery from Google Maps to create this type of data, but this approach is very unreliable since colouring/saturation/hue/contrast of images received from Google Maps is not constant. Very often, within same city, several different image qualities & colour settings will appear, some city areas will appear overall brownish, some greenish (as if white-balance was not set correctly when pictures were taken), and some will appear with natural colours. Creating data from these images often results in wrong terrain type detected.
So what I am looking for is map source that can give this type of information with acceptable reliability (I would consider 65% as acceptable reliability). Precision can be for wider areas, like 5x5 kilometers is just fine.
Can anyone help, give me advice or share some useful links?
Hello, try with MODIS, it has hyperspectral data, which allowing classify easily Water, vegetation and bare soil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderate-Resolution_Imaging_Spectroradiometer
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Images/category.php?cat_id=96
@Christian Correa
Thanks for your links. I've checked byt I can't seem to find any public API to access MODIS data, like Google Maps has :(
Will keep looking around MODIS online see if I can find something.
Great thanks for your help!
Hello,
Maybe this link will be useful for you:
http://serc.carleton.edu/eet/measure_sat2/part_1.html
Good luck!
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