PC base education system for global change monitoring
Sukit Viseshsin,
Yoshiaki Honda,
Shunji Murai
Institutte of Industrial Science,
University of Tokyo
7-22, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo106, Japan
Tel : 03-402 6231 Ext. 2560
Telex: 02427317 KOSMUR J
Fax: 813-479-2762
Abstract
Nowadays, earth environment problem is widely interested. Since it is a global scale, it is better to monitor on the whole earth for evaluating or analyzing. However, the analyzing needs a very huge database, therefore, the expensive computer is needed.
Concerning the personal computer which is cheaper and faster than before, the personal computer should to play more role in teaching or educating in the earth environment problem.. This paper deals with the personal computer base database for global change monitoring. this database consists of GVI, Climate, topology and soil data which are prepared for the GIS system. Because for the limitation of the memory capacity of a personal computer, a magneto optical disk system and data compression are introduced. The final goal of this study is to develop a PC base system for evaluating of the potential productivity of vegetation.
Introduction
The global change of the climate is one of the most important problems for the human society, and this change can be detected from the condition of the earth's vegetation. This condition can be interpreted from GVI (Global Vegetation Index) which is produced form NOAA'S (United States National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) AVHRR sensor ( Advanced Very High Resolution Radiation). Therefore, the seasonal GVI change pattern can be used as a tool to generate vegetation map. In combination with the other data (climate, topology, etc.) GVI is also used as a tool to monitor a change from month to month on the same area or between area and area.
Since the promotion and education on the earth environment problem is needed, personal computer is the best tool to be used because of its price. However, the monitoring on the global scale needs a huge database. The objective of this paper is to introduce a system for the global change monitoring based on a personal computer. This system is prepared to be a GIS for evaluating of the potential productivity of vegetation in the future study.
Personal computer hardware configuration
Fig. 1 shows the hardware configuration of the personal computer used for this system. The main processor is a NEC PCd-9801VM which consists of 16 - bit microprocessor as CPU, mathematical co-processor, 640 KB main memory, 256 KB graphic memory , 40 MB hard disk drive, dual 5" floppy disk drives, analog color display, mouse and a magneto optical disk ( capacity 3000MB per side).
Fig. 1 Hardware Configuration
