Discipline: Computer Sciences and Information Management
Subcategory: Geosciences and Earth Sciences
Bernard Aldrich Jr. - Jackson State University
Co-Author(s): John Paden and Kyle Purdon, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) has collected hundreds of terabytes of radar depth sounder data over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. This data has multiple purposes in the field of glaciology, including the measurement of ice bottom elevation that is used in the input-output method for estimating the mass balance and in ice sheet models. To do this, the ice surface and ice bottom need to be tracked in the radar echograms. An algorithm that is written in Python provides an accurate and efficient tool for tracking the ice surface and the ice bottom and will be translated and imported into native MATLAB code so that it can be used with CReSIS’s image browser and picker tool which is MATLAB based. This Python algorithm is based on a global snake method with simple cost functions. With the implementation of this function in MATLAB, tracking and picking the surface and the ground under the ice will make for a faster process than manually tracking the surface. The MATLAB implementation is incomplete and unable to track the surface and ground of the ice. Further work will be to improve on the implementation where the echogram will show fully on the screen. Also, improvement on the snake tool will allow for more accurate results. These actions will be taken in the future. (Key Terms: Interpolation, MATLAB, Python, ice, remote sensing, cost function, optimization, iterative algorithm, radar, level measurement.)
Not SubmittedFunder Acknowledgement(s): This project could not have been implemented without the help of the CReSIS program and the director, Darryl Monteau. Also, Christian Panton previously created the Python code. Finally, the CReSIS Data Portal allowed for the use of CReSIS flight line data from Antarctica and Greenland. This research is funded by the grants Office of Naval Research - ONR - URE/OMS N00008-1-0832, National Science Foundation - NSF REU ANT-0944255, and Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets - CReSIS - NSF FY 2005-108CM1.
Faculty Advisor: John Paden, paden@ku.edu