The Utilization of the Old Technology in the High
Resolution Satellite Image Management
Varisara Yasamuth, Mrs.
Plan and Policy Analyst 6 th
Institute of Narcotic Crops Survey and Monitoring
Northern Narcotics Control Office
Office of the Narcotics Control Board, Thailand
Tel 66-53-211796-7 ext 140 Fax 66-53-211808
E-mail: varikeng@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, the technology of remote sensing satellite is more advanced especially the
pixel resolution. Many countries invent more of global observation satellites which their
capacities of pixels are more clearly like almost touching the earth’s skin. The satellite which
be called “high resolution satellite” might have the pixel resolution which begin from 5 meters
down to less than 1 meter. The utilization and application of high resolution satellite images are
more increased in many of the government bureaus. However, the high capacity of pixel
resolution makes the high cost of expenses. Meanwhile, the technology of inventing the image
processing software is developed for supporting the utilization of the high resolution satellite
image. The similar effect of the high quality of pixel resolution satellite is the expensiveness of
the software. The most important thing is that most of the government sections which work on
this mission have limited budget to catch up with these new products and technologies.
In this situation, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) by Narcotics Crops Survey
and Monitoring Institute (NCSMI) try to use the old image processing software which has the
limit of image processing functions and the experience concerned to create and improve the
quality of high resolution satellite data for the specific mission, as the narcotic crop survey and
following the drug situation in the target area. The result is well satisfied and can be used in the
real situation. One more benefit of this result is that the real users especially the users who have
no or little experience in image interpretation and the area background could easily learn and get
the approach from the high resolution satellite image data. However, the old software of high
resolution satellite image data still has some limits of image processing option in high resolution
satellite data.
