Patent ID: 7593835
Filing Date: 2009-09-22
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A method for identifying a material located on the Earth's surface from an image of the material captured by an airborne or satellite sensor, comprising: capturing an image of the material with an airborne or satellite sensor; defining one or more atmospheric conditions associated with the image under which radiation transport parameters, including atmospheric transmittance and radiance, will be determined; providing atomic and molecular transition data for a given spectral range and the atmospheric conditions; selecting a spectral region to be considered; dividing the spectral region into a number of spectral bins that determine the spectral resolution, each bin having a width of less than 1.0 cm calculating atomic and molecular species line center absorption from at least the equivalent width of the atomic and molecular transitions centered within each spectral bin; calculating line tail absorption within each spectral bin from atomic and molecular transitions not centered within the bin; determining atomic and molecular species spectral transmittances for each spectral bin, the spectral transmittance having a value which is a function of at least the calculated line center absorptions and the calculated line tail absorptions; and applying the determined spectral transmittances to the image to identify the material.