Photo Interpretation: A New Beginning

      Photo Interpretation: A New Beginning - Featured image

      Mother Earth has for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed.

      She has been blessed with several different and numerous uncountable natural resources. These gifts which we've received as a birthright have been distributed and governed under by countries. The natural resources of a Country have slowly but ultimately have become essential physical assets and ‘how well’ or ‘how poorly’ they are consumed determines the economic well-being of the country. Natural Resources have become an important marker in deciding the economic balance of the country in the last few years. Materials such as Iron, Copper, Coal, oil etc. are few natural resources that a country may poses and to assure a continuous supply of these materials, new methods must be continuously found to seek out the wealth of the minerals that lie underground. Not so long ago natural resources could be located and evaluated by a very slow, costly and laborious work on the ground. Much in the same way that the Geologist examines rock specimens and in a way a soil scientist samples, examines and tests soils. But today it is a way different story. An aeroplane equipped with an aerial camera can provide aerial photographs by the use of which much of the costly time-consuming search for natural resources by ground methods is eliminated. These aerial photographs can come in very handy for a Geologist, a Forester, a Hydrologist or a Soil Scientist. By interpreting them they can expertise their surveys and hence gain a lot of information eliminating the long and hard task of carrying out fieldwork. The key point here is Interpretation.

      George Elliot, a famous novelist once said, “All Meanings, we know, depend on the Key of Interpretation”.

      Air Photo Interpretation is considered to be a science as well as an art because the image analyst has to interpret the information presented. The art of using aerial photographs to interpret geological features is called Photo geology. In air photo interpretation one has to learn how to associate shapes and patterns and other specifications with real features on the ground. For example, any definite shape bounded on all sides like a rectangle will indicate a human settlement. Another example would be the darker colour patches in an aerial photograph indicates water bodies while the lighter ones indicate land. The colour difference between the two features is very evident. There are certain important characteristics of the object that one must take into consideration while interpreting a photograph. These characteristics include shape, size, pattern, tone, texture and association.

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      Object Signature Characteristics

      The Object Signature characteristics have been depicted above in pictorial form. TONE refers to the brightness of the image or in simple words the colour of the object. Tone sets the fundamental base for the other characteristics to be distinguished. TEXTURE refers to the arrangement and frequency of tonal variation in particular areas of an image. PATTERN refers to the spatial arrangement of visibly discernible objects. Repetition of similar tones and textures will create a distinctive pattern. SHAPE refers to the general form, structure or outline of individual objects. SIZE of an object in an image functions as the scale and ASSOCIATION takes into account the relationship between other recognizable objects or features in the proximity of the target of interest. These key characteristics factors give a base to the interpretation of aerial photography.

      Photo Interpretation is not only accurate to the most extent but also helps in saving a lot of time and other resources. This kind of technology makes it much easier for many scientific fields to easily collect field data, a technology for the future. If actions speak louder than words then Photographs would be the loudest actions.

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