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June 2000
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Digital Remote Sensing
Prithvish Nag and M. Kudrat
1998, Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi
Rs. 900, 320 Pages
At the time, when India has made significant forays into almost every discipline of earth sciences with the support of remote sensing technology and the developments are placing Indian endeavour in a pioneering position of eminence in the world, this book has appeared as an appropriate document to herald the benefits of all efforts made in development of remote sensing. The objective of the book is to introduce remote sensing technology to the application scientists in India. The idea is to provide a comprehensive picture of the scenario of remote sensing in India.
The book contains thirteen chapters in all. The chapters are arranged serially under the following subheadings: Introduction, Electromagnetic Radiation, Imaging Systems, Visual Interpretation, Hardware and Software Options, Pre-processing and Rectification, Enhancement Techniques, Spatial Filtering, Band Combination, Classification Techniques, Geographical Information System, Application Trends and Conclusion.
In the introduction part, a brief outline of the book has been given along with the very basic concept of remote sensing technology in context of India. The purpose of the book is to revise the rapid changes in remote sensing scenario, computers and software capabilities. The second, third and fourth chapters are essential for any application scientists using either visual interpretation and/or digital remote sensing techniques. The chapter on hardware and software is basically introduction to digital processing of data including geometric corrections. The chapters dealing with pre-processing and rectification, enhancements, filtering techniques, band combination and classification are essential for any reader as these contain some basic methods of digital remote sensing. The integration of remote sensing data with conventional information sets which is most important in Indian situation, has been focussed in the chapter on GIS. The versatility of remote sensing data has been highlighted in the chapter on application where attempts have been made to work out hybrid models consisting of all sorts of data as well as internal mechanism for checking and corrections. The concluding part and the appendices of the book have provided the opportunity to the application scientists and engineers of India to look into the options available to them.
Although the book has not been written in a text book format, but the academicians or students may find some of their course contents in this book. The jargons, acronyms, abbreviations which are inevitable in such a technology-based book, have been simplified through the use of lucid language and repeating the meanings of technical words.
As mentioned by the authors in the Preface of the book, the time of publication of the book has been reduced as much as possible. Therefore, some of the latest development aspects are missing which is almost unavoidable in such technology-based books. Another difficulty, which might be felt by the new users or beginners in the field of digital remote sensing, is consulting more books on mathematics, statistics and physics for more details about some aspects. It is a very rare aspect of the book that the limitations have been mentioned by the authors themselves in the very beginning of the book. As a corollary to the simplicity in approach, the book as a whole appears as a cultural ambassador to the development and progress of remote sensing in the field of remote sensing which can help the technology to be more acceptable among the decision makers in their own set-up.
GIS Development Staff
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