Geology:Environmental:Coal Mine:Inspection:Gorgas,Alabama

[Bill Harris]

This thread is for discussion for Geology:Environmental:Coal Mine:Inspection:Gorgas,Alabama

The working thread is located here.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=687365

--Bill

[Tom Harper]

Bill,

Nice presentation.

I've never used color channels. After reading your post, I pulled up a file in photoshop and looked at the channels. Interesting - I could see the trails better by dropping the blue channel. I'll get out the phone book sized manuals later, but for now can you give a quick intro on how you enhanced and mixed the channels.

Tom

[kd7ost]

Agreed, That's a nice presentation and a great way to show details not visible in the initial photo. What software did you use for doing that?

Dan

[quailbird]

Very nice! When I get a chance I'm going to do a story on Coal pits. The town I live in, Rich Hill, is called the town that coal made. It had 7 mines going at one time and dozens of pits all around here. Thanks for sharing, I hope I can deliver something half as good as yours.

[Bill Harris]

I'm thinking that I simply increased the R G and B Levels and/or Saturation and dialed back the gamma, but I wasn't able to reproduce this enhancement. Let me develop a reproducible enhancement method.

My image editing program is Paint Shop Pro.

I was staff hydrologist at the Alabama coal regulatory agency for a few years and found that aerials could be useful in evaluating water problems. At the time os the February Massacre I was working on a proposal for our Federal counterpart for and aerial photo inspection program, but that got backburnered til the drama plays itself out. Hard to keep a low profile under the nose of the Federales...

Since I do have a retirement income I plan to continue with the inspection program as a freebie and write it off as an R&D expense. March, April and May have really zipped by.

I'd like to see other mining-related AP.

--Bill

[kd7ost]

Do you recall what camera you used for the pictures? Your manipulation of the colors makes me think that different camera's (or rather CCD or CMOS sensors) probably have different levels of ability to see colors outside the visible spectrum. Maybe in those cases some cameras would allow for better image details in the way you enhance them. It would be interesting to make some comparisons between different cameras but I realize that’s not a practical thing for a single AP pilot to do very much. Too many different cameras involved.

Still I wonder if a given manufacturer of a given sensor can pick up more multi spectral light if the filtering was removed.

Dan

[Bill Harris]

The camera used was the Aiptek PenCam, a simple 1.3Mp CMOS camera. Digital colr photography is one of these things that works a lot better than it ought to. This link to HowStuffWorks is a quick-and-dirty on how the Bayer filter array works:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera4.htm

The silicon (CCD/CMOS) sensor in digital cameras is actually quite sensitive to the InfraRed end of the spectrum and some cameras have a separate IR-blocking filter to remove that end of the spectrum. In theory, you could have a digital IR camera, which could be useful in AP.

--Bill

[kd7ost]

It makes me wonder if lower resolution camera's would be better for this than the newer high res camera's. I can't help but think that a 1/4 inch sensor with fewer pick up elements would not only have larger elements, but be able to gather more light ddue to shear size of the individual sensors in the array. By the time you put millions of sensors in the same sized 1/4 inch sensor, you certainly gain resolution but lose light gathering capabilities. Kind of like the human eyeball with rods and cones. Hmmmm.

Any thoughts on this? We might do better to use lower resolution cameras with supperior light gathering than step up to the many MP camera's. IR and night viewing cameras don't have the same resolution by a long stretch as the color day use cameras.

Dan

[camship]

On the subject of color and geology/geographical imaging you might be surprised how well a Sony Super HAD CCD in B&W can show various features not visible in visible light.

Mr. Harris is correct. Many if not all newer digital cameras are very sensitive in the IR spectrum. The makers put IR filters on them to correct color.

Virtually any of them can be modified for IR work. Some are more conveinient than others with the ability to use attachable lens filters being very important. Once you remove the IR cut filter you will need to put it back for normal daylight imaging.

With various levels of IR pass filters/Visible light block filters a number of different elements quite literally flourese under certian conditions. Features below the foilage often times come out as if you just stripped all the vegitation off.

A good example is that when this technology was first "discovered" everyone went nuts using their new X-RAY imagers. Yes Virginia, there are cameras that can see through your clothes! And your hand bag too so put away the black book, it's readable in your purse!

http://www.kaya-optics.com/products/experiments.shtml
http://www.kaya-optics.com/products/how_it_works.shtml

So once you get past the sophmoric stage of your new toolset it is quite useful for a number of duties in the sky, besides peering through comely lasses bathing attire along the beach......... :eek: shameful!

Camship

BTW, are the coal mine fires still burning in Leeds?