Radiative transfer models (RTM) have been successfully used to simulate the effect of forest structural and biochemical characteristics, such as tree sizes and shapes, leaf area index (LAI), leaf angle distribution (LAD), on the canopy radiative budget. One particular use of RTM is the analysis of the reflected light by the canopy, which can be measured by remote sensing techniques. RTM allows a physically based interpretation of the reflectance quantity measured by satellite and can help disentangling the multiple source of variation of the reflectance signal. The DART model - Discrete Anisotropic Radiative Transfer - is one of the most complex three-dimensional RTM, since it uses an accurate mathematical approach of physical processes and a great realism of the landscapes under simulation. Its main simulation outputs are the reflectance of the scene (e.g. a forest stand) at particular spectral wavelength from bottom and top of the atmosphere, the simulation of satellite images, and the simulation of localized radiative budget. Despite the DART potential in analyzing biophysical parameters from remote sensing data, few studies report its application in forest plantations in Brazil, which can have a large number of important field measurements to parameterize the model. The main objective of this project is to evaluate if the DART RTM can help understand the satellite-measured canopy reflectance of Eucalyptus plantations and in particular if DART RTM can improve LAI estimation rather than use only empirical models, as spectral vegetation indices. DART model was parameterized using extensive in situ data obtained from a clonal test, part of the EucFlux project. The specific objectives were: i) parameterize the DART model at different growth stages and for different clonal materials of Eucalyptus plantations and compare simulated reflectance with high resolution satellite images acquired on the same site; ii) analyze the relationship between the Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Spectral Vegetation Indices (SVI) based on empirical relationships, and then use the DART model; iii) analyze the advantage and drawbacks of using a generic relationship or a clone-specific relationship between LAI and SVI, and find other criteria for grouping the genotypes in the same. In Chapter 2, we demonstrated the good performance of DART to simulate canopy reflectance of Eucalyptus forest plantations. The simulated reflectance was similar to those measured by very high resolution images from satellite, despite some discrepancies found in the near infrared region. Then, in Chapter 3, we showed that empirical relationships between LAI and SVI were able to give a reasonable precision for generic relationships; however, genotype-scale relationships gave even better results. The same methodology applied on a DART simulated dataset lead to the same conclusions. An intermediate possibility of grouping the genotypes regarding their litter or leaf optical properties gave intermediate performance. We finally concluded about the superiority of NDVI to estimate LAI using a genotype-specific calibration. Overall, DART simulated datasets created in this work enable to calibrate different LAI -SVI relationships in terms of genotypes, sensors and acquisition characteristics. / Modelos de transferência de radiação (MTR) têm sido utilizados com sucesso para simular o efeito das características estruturais e bioquímicas florestais, como tamanhos de árvores e formas, índice de área foliar (IAF), distribuição angular das folhas (DAF) e sobre o balanço de radiação. Um uso particular do MTR é a análise da radiação refletida pela copa, o que pode ser medido através de técnicas de sensoriamento remoto. O MTR pode permitir a interpretação física da quantidade de reflectância medido por satélite, e pode ajudar a diferenciar as múltiplas fontes de variação do sinal de reflectância. O modelo DART - Discrete Anisotropic Radiative Transfer - é um dos modelos tridimensionais de transferência de radiação mais complexos, uma vez que utiliza uma abordagem matemática precisa e um grande realismo na simulação das paisagens. Seus principais resultados de simulação são a reflectância da cena (por exemplo, um povoamento florestal) em determinado comprimento de onda espectral em relação ao topo e à base da atmosfera, a simulação de imagens de satélite e a simulação do balanço de radiação. Apesar do potencial do DART na análise de parâmetros biofísicos de paisagens florestais a partir de dados de sensoriamento remoto, existem poucos estudos sobre sua aplicação em povoamentos florestais no Brasil; que podem dispor de um elevado número de medições de campo importantes para a parametrização do modelo. O principal objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar se o DART pode ajudar a compreender o comportamento da reflectância do dossel das plantações de eucalipto oriunda de dados de imagens de satélite e, em particular, se DART pode melhorar a estimativa do IAF ao invés do uso somente de modelos empíricos como índices espectrais da vegetação. O DART foi parametrizado com extensos dados de campo adquiridos em um experimento com testes clonais do Projeto Eucflux. Os objetivos específicos foram: i) parametrizar o modelo DART em diferentes idades e com diferentes materiais genéticos de plantações de eucalipto e comparar a refletância simulada com imagens de satélite de alta resolução adquiridas no mesmo local; ii) analisar a relação entre o Índice de Área Foliar (IAF) e Índices Espectrais de Vegetação (IEV\'s) com base em relações empíricas, e, em seguida, usando o modelo DART; iii) analisar as vantagens e as limitações do uso de uma relação genérica ou uma relação específica do genótipo entre IAF e IV e encontrar outros critérios para agrupar os genótipos. No Capítulo 2 foi demonstrado bom desempenho do DART para simular a reflectância do dossel das florestas plantadas de eucalipto. As refletâncias simuladas foram semelhantes com as obtidas pelas imagens de satélite de alta resolução, apesar de algumas discrepâncias encontradas na região do infravermelho próximo. No Capítulo 3, foi mostrado que as relações empíricas entre os IEV\'s e os IAF\'s foram capazes de estimar com razoável precisão para as relações genéricas dos plantios. Contudo, as estimativas por genótipo deram resultados superiores. A mesma metodologia foi aplicada em um conjunto de dados simulados pelo DART com as mesmas conclusões. Uma possibilidade intermediária de agrupar os genótipos foi em função das propriedades ópticas da serapilheira ou das folhas, com desempenhos intermediários. Nós concluímos sobre a superioridade do NDVI para estimar o LAI usando uma calibração específica para cada genótipo. Em termos mais gerais, os dados simulados com o modelo DART utilizados neste trabalho permitiram calibrar diferentes relações IAF-IEV em função dos genótipos, sensores e características de aquisição.

A utilização de dados provenientes do sensoriamento remoto é alternativa para otimizar a utilização de insumos, dentre eles o nitrogênio. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo verificar a possibilidade de uso de um sensor hiperespectral em dossel na cultura da cana-de-açúcar, verificando sua capacidade em discriminar a resposta da cultura as diferentes doses de nitrogênio e estimar o teor foliar de nitrogênio, em três áreas experimentais. O trabalho foi dividido em três capítulos: O primeiro capitulo utiliza os dados hiperespectrais somente da variedade SP 81-3250, única comum em todas as áreas, de todas as datas de coleta das três áreas experimentais para verificar o potencial dos dados em diferenciar as doses de nitrogênio aplicado (0, 50, 100 e 150 kg.ha-1) e qual melhor época. Os dados espectrais foram avaliados pela estatística multivariada da análise discriminante, em que os centroides das diferentes doses foram submetidos a análise de variância. Os resultados obtidos foram que os meses de dezembro, janeiro e fevereiro discriminou todas as doses nas três áreas, o mesmo não ocorreu no mês de agosto. As bandas que apresentaram maiores significância foram na região do verde, red-edge e infravermelho próximo. No segundo capitulo foi avaliado a sensibilidade dos dados hiperespectrais em estimar a biomassa do ponteiro da cana-de-açúcar. Para isso foi utilizado somente os dados de Piracicaba. A análise espectral foi realizada aos 137, 169 e 193 Dias Após o Corte (DAC) e a avaliação biométrica foi realizada aos 345 DAC. Durante o corte de dois metros de linha, realizado manualmente. A biomassa do ponteiro foi submetida ao teste de Shapiro-Wilk, análise de variância pelo Teste F e as médias quando significativas, comparadas pelo Teste de Tukey. Posteriormente foi realizada a análise de correlação de Pearson da biomassa do ponteiro e cada comprimento de onda. Análise mostrou que existe correlação positiva entre a biomassa do ponteiro e a reflectância do dossel aos 137 DAC e 169 DAC, porém aos 193 DAC não houve nenhum comprimento de onda com correlação significativa. O comprimento de onda de 685 nm aos 137 DAC obteve a maior correlação, de 0,33. No terceiro capitulo teve por objetivo selecionar variáveis a partir de dados hiperespectrais de dossel da cana-de-açúcar para geração de modelos para predição do Teor Foliar de Nitrogênio. Para isso foi utilizado os dados das três áreas experimentais, que receberam doses de 0, 50, 100 e 150 kg.ha-1 de nitrogênio. Para redução da dimensionalidade dos dados foi utilizada a metodologia sparse Partial Least Square (sPLS), posteriormente foi feito a combinação linear das variáveis selecionadas, por meio de Regressão Linear Múltipla por Stepwise (SMLR). O modelo geral teve valores de R² ajustado e RMSE respectivamente de 0,50 e 1,67 g kg-1. Os modelos gerados para Piracicaba, Jaú e Santa Maria obtiveram R² ajustado, respectivamente, de 0,31, 0,53 e 0,54. Sensores hiperespectrais de dossel podem ser utilizados para predição do TFN e monitoramento de aplicação de nitrogênio em cana-de-açúcar. / The use of data from remote sensing is an alternative to optimize the use of agricultural inputs, including nitrogen. The present study aimed to verify the possibility of using a hyperspectral sensor in sugarcane canopy, verifying its ability to discriminate crop response to different rates of nitrogen and estimating leaf nitrogen content in three experimental areas. The work is divided in three chapters: The first chapter uses hyperspectral data of the variety SP 81-3250, which is the only one present in all the areas for all dates of collection in three of experimental areas, to check the potential of the data and the best time to differentiate between rates of nitrogen (0, 50, 100 and 150 kg.ha-1). Spectral data were evaluated by multivariate discriminant analysis, wherein the centroids of the rates were submitted to an Analysis of Variance. The results showed that the all doses in three areas of study were discriminated for the months of December, January and February, but the same thing hasn\'t happened in the month of August. The bands that showed statistically significant power difference were found in the green, red, and near-infrared edge spectral regions. In the second chapter, the sensitivity of hyperspectral data was evaluated to estimate the sugarcane biomass (pointes) for the data from Piracicaba. Spectral analysis was performed at 137, 169 and 193 Days After Harvest (DAH) and evaluation of sugarcane yield was performed 345 DAH. Biomass was analyzed using The Shapiro-Wilk test of normality, F test (analysis of variance), respectively, and when significant, compared by the Tukey test. Biomass (pointer) and each wavelength were analyzed by Pearson\'s correlation analysis. The results showed that there is a positive correlation between biomass (pointer) and the canopy reflectance to 137 DAH and 169 DAH, however there was no wavelength with a significant correlation to 193 DAH. The best power relationship was obtained at 685 nm, at 137 days. The third chapter aimed to select variables from hyperspectral data of sugarcane canopy to generate models for prediction of Foliar Nitrogen Content, for three experimental areas that received nitrogen rates (0, 50, 100 and 150 kg.ha-1). Sparse Partial Least Square (sPLS) was used to reduce the dimensionality of the data. Subsequently, the linear combination of selected variables was done through Stepwise Multiple Linear Regression (SMLR). The RMSE and adjusted R-squared statistics were 0.50 and 1.67 g.kg-1, respectively. The models to Piracicaba, Jaú and Santa Maria presented adjusted R-squared 0.31, 0.53, and 0.54, respectively. Hyperspectral sensors for canopy can be used for prediction of the TFN and monitoring of nitrogen application in sugarcane.

O Brasil é um país expressivo na produção de alimentos, assim para melhorar a eficiência da agricultura se faz necessário seu planejamento. O solo é a base para a agricultura sendo relevante nas questões de segurança alimentar e qualidade ambiental. Dados obtidos por sensoriamento remoto podem auxiliar no levantamento, mapeamento e manejo do solo, que são estratégicos para uma agricultura planejada. As técnicas de espectroscopia de refletância são mais rápidas, menos onerosas e menos poluentes quando comparado aos métodos tradicionais de análise de solos. Um banco de dados com informações de espectros de solo é denominado Biblioteca Espectral (BE). Por meio de uma BE é possível caracterizar classes de solo e estimar atributos. As BEs além de contribuir para o levantamento, mapeamento, manejo de solos e ainda pode auxiliar na agricultura de precisão, modelagem de atributos do solo, monitoramento de solos contaminados, comunicação entre pedólogos e conservação dos solos. Existem Bibliotecas Espectrais de Solos (BES) a nível mundial com amostras de continentes, tais como a Austrália, Europa, Ásia, África e Américas, porém poucas amostras Brasileiras representativas. Sendo assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é elaborar uma primeira versão da BE de solos do Brasil (BESB), caracterizar os espectros das classes de solos e quantificar atributos do solo (argila e areia). O banco recebeu amostras de 17 colaboradores e instituições de diversos estados brasileiros, que incluem: Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Maranhão, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Paraíba, Pará, Roraima, Amazonas e Distrito Federal. No total 19.537 curvas espectrais de solo provenientes de tradagens e perfis foram caracterizados, essas amostras são de várias classes de solos do Brasil. Perfis de solo e seus horizontes representativos tiveram seus espectros caracterizados em curvas multi-espectrais em profundidade. Foi gerado um modelo de quantificação dos atributos baseado na regressão dos mínimos quadrados parciais (PLSR). Os resultados obtidos para os modelos de quantificação foram utilizados para calibração da fração argila (calibração R2 = 0,82; RMSE = 46,75 g/kg, validaçãp R2 = 0,83 ; RMSE = 46,75 g/kg; RPD = 4,57) e areia (calibração R2 = 0,81; RMSE = 60,9 g/kg, validação R2 = 0,79, RMSE = 60,85 g/kg; RPD = 4,16). Foi possível distinguir diferentes classes de solos através da Análise dos Componentes Principais (ACP), como Organossolos, Latossolos, Argissolos e Nitossolos. A elaboração da BESB permite estabelecer padrões espectrais dos solos e auxilia nos avanços das técnicas de quantificação de atributos. / Brazil is a significant country in food production and to improve efficiency of agriculture is necessary to be planned. Soil is the basis for agriculture, which is relevant for food safety and environmental issues. Mapping and soil management are strategies for planned agriculture and can be assisted by remote sensing. Spectroscopy techniques are faster, less honorable and less polluting when compared to traditional methods. Soils Spectral Library (SSL) composes a diverse and varied database with soil spectra information. Through SSL soil types can be characterize and soil attributes estimated. SSL besides contribute to the soil survey, mapping and soil management it can support precision agriculture, soil attribute modeling, soil contaminated monitoring, communication between the soil scientists and soil conservation. There are SSL worldwide with soil samples from continents, such as Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, but there are few Brazilian samples representative. Thus, the objectives of this study were first to create a Brazilian Soil Spectral Library (BSSB), second to characterize soil spectra of BESB soil classes and finally to quantify soil properties (clay and sand). The BSSL bank received samples from 17 collaborators and institutions from various Brazilian states, including Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Maranhão, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Paraíba, Pará, Roraima, Amazonas and Distrito Federal. The Spectral Library has 19,537 soil samples from auger and profiles. Spectra of several Brazilian soil classes were characterized. Soil profiles and their horizons had their representative spectra characterized with multi-depth analysis. Quantification model of soil attributes was based on partial least squares regression (PLSR). Prediction models were obtained to quantify clay (calibration R2 = 0,82; RMSE = 46,75 g/kg, validaçãp R2 = 0,83 ; RMSE = 46,75 g/kg; RPD = 4,57) and sand (calibration R2 = 0,81; RMSE = 60,9 g/kg, validação R2 = 0,79, RMSE = 60,85 g/kg; RPD = 4,16). In addition, we distinguish different soil classes by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Organossolos, Latossolos, Argissolos and Nitossolos were well separated. BESB assembly assisted to establish spectral patterns of land and it could improve advancing attributes techniques measurement.

L'agriculture en milieu contrôlé, et notamment la culture sous serre, est une des réponses possibles aux besoins alimentaires d'une population mondiale en constante croissance. Elle permet aussi d'optimiser les terres cultivables et d'éviter les pesticides néfastes à l'Homme. Afin de s'affranchir des cycles des saisons et d'avoir une production annuelle continue, l'éclairage artificiel a été introduit dans les serres. L'éclairage horticole a suivi l'évolution des technologies d'éclairage pour arriver aujourd'hui jusqu'à la LED. Cet éclairage donne certes des résultats corrects mais il peut être amélioré tant au niveau de la quantité que de la qualité spectrale de lumière. De ce point de vue, les LEDs présentent deux grands avantages : la possibilité de recomposer un spectre idéal à partir de différentes longueurs d'ondes et de moduler l'intensité de la lumière. Ainsi, elles permettent de fournir un éclairage adapté aux besoins de la plante et ce, en fonction du stade de sa croissance. L'objectif de ce travail de thèse est de proposer un système d'éclairage optimal pour la croissance des plantes en milieu contrôlé. A partir du rendement photosynthétique moyen des plantes, nous avons donc établi des modèles de systèmes d'éclairage à LEDs optimisés pour les plantes. Ces modèles sont basés sur la combinaison de plusieurs LEDs monochromes obtenues à partir de la décomposition de la courbe RQE par des fonctions de Pearson VII. Nous avons appliqué ces résultats théoriques à la culture d'une algue bleue-verte : la Spiruline Platensis. Le choix de cette plante-bactérie repose sur plusieurs critères : cycle de culture court, applications en cosmétique, en médecine et forte valeur nutritionnelle. Ainsi, nous avons pu étudier l'influence de paramètres de culture tels que l'intensité lumineuse, la photopériode, la température sur sa croissance. Par ailleurs, nous avons mis en œuvre deux méthodes basées sur la réflectance optique pour quantifier la biomasse produite par la spiruline. / Agriculture in a controlled environment, and in particular greenhouse cultivation, is one of the responses to the food needs of a growing population. It also makes it possible to optimize the surface of arable land and avoid pesticide and fertilizer releases harmful to man. In order to free of the cycles of the seasons and annual production, artificial lighting was introduced greenhouses since decades. Horticultural lighting followed the evolution of lighting technologies to arrive today up to LED. This lighting gives correct results, but it can be improved both in terms of quantity and spectral quality of light. From this point of view, LEDs have two main advantages : the possibility of recompose an ideal spectrum from different wavelengths and modulate the intensity of the light. Thus, they provide adapted lighting to the needs of the plant and this, in depending on the stage of its growth. The objective of this thesis is to propose an optimal lighting system for the growth of plants in a controlled environment. From the yield photosynthesis of plants, we established models of LED lighting systems optimized. These models are based on the combination of several monochrome LEDs obtained from the decomposition of the curve RQE by Pearson VII functions. We applied these theoretical results to the cultivation of a blue-green algae, the Spirulina Platensis. The choice of this plant-bacterium is based on several criteria : short crop cycle, applications in cosmetics, medicine and high nutritional value. Thus, we were able to study the influence of culture parameters such as light intensity, photoperiod, temperature on its growth. In addition, we have implemented two methods based on optical reflectance to quantify the biomass produced by spirulina.

Um novo conceito agro tecnológico em cultivo protegido foi a utilização de malhas coloridas, que permitem combinar a proteção física com a seleção de determinadas faixas do espectro da radiação solar para promover respostas fisiológicas desejadas reguladas pela luz. Dessa forma, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar a influência de malhas coloridas, azul, vermelha e preta (controle), no desenvolvimento de duas espécies de helicônias cultivadas em vaso: Heliconia H-01 e Helicônia ortrotricha Eclipse Total. Foram analisadas, para ambas as espécies, características agronômicas como altura e número de folhas finais da planta, quantidade de brotos; quantidade de estômatos por milímetro quadrado e análise espectral de folhas. A Helicônia H-01 não apresentou diferença significativa em relação ao número de folhas finais nos três tratamentos, porém as plantas cultivadas sob telado azul e vermelho apresentaram maiores alturas em relação ao controle. O telado azul apresentou maior número de brotos totais, mas não diferiu estatisticamente do controle no número de brotos lançados durante o tempo, sendo que o telado vermelho apresentou plantas com menor número de brotos. A maior quantidade de estômatos por mm2 foi encontrada nas plantas do telado vermelho, onde azul e controle não diferiram entre si. A análise de reflectância mostrou diferenças significativas na região visível, faixa de absorção da luz incidente pelos pigmentos fotossintetizantes. A H. ortrotricha não apresentou diferença significativa em relação ao número final de folhas, mas no telado azul apresentou a maior altura, seguido do vermelho e depois do controle. Não houve diferença significativa na quantidade de brotos lançado ao longo do tempo, mas o telado vermelho apresentou maior quantidade de brotos finais. Os tratamentos não apresentaram diferença significativa na quantidade de estômatos por mm2. Houve diferença significativa na curva espectral das folhas, principalmente na região do visível. / A new agro technology concept in greenhouse was the use of colored shade nets, which allow to combine the physical protection with the selection of spectral wavelengths of solar radiation to promote physiological responses regulated by light. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of colored shade nets, blue, red and black, in the development of two species of heliconias grown in pots: Heliconia H-01 and Heliconia ortrotricha Total Eclipse. The agronomic characteristics were studied for both species as plants height and number of leaves at the end of the experiment; number of shoots; number of stomata per square millimeter and spectral reflectance of leaves. There were no differences on the number of leaves between the treatments, but blue and red nets exhibited higher plants. Plants of blue net showed a greater number of shoots, and there were not statistically different from black net in the number of shoots during the study, and the red net plants showed fewer shoots than the other colored shade nets. The greater number of stomata per square millimeter was found in plants grown in red net, and blue and black nets did not showed significant differences. The spectral reflectance of H. H01 leaves showed significant differences in the absorption of visible wavelengths by the photosynthetic pigments. H. ortrotricha showed no significant difference on the number of leaves, but the plants of the blue net were highest and black net the lowest. There was no significant difference on the number of new shoots during the study, but the red net exhibited a greater number of shoots in the end of the study. All the treatments showed no significant difference in the number of stomata per square millimeter. There were significant differences in the spectral reflectance of leaves, mainly in the visible wavelengths.

We developed an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) polarimeter, which employs laser-generated high-order harmonics as the light source. This relatively high-flux, directional EUV source has available wavelengths between 10 nm and 47 nm with easily rotatable linear polarization. The polarimeter has allowed us to characterize the optical constants of materials that may be useful for EUV optics. The instrument has a versatile positioning system and a spectral resolution of about 180, and we have demonstrated that reflectance as low as 0.1% can be measured repeatably at EUV wavelengths. We investigate the high harmonic source used for polarimetry measurements by documenting the spatial evolution of the generating laser in a semi-infinite helium-filled gas cell under conditions suitable for harmonic generation. The laser is observed to focus, diverge, and refocus, accompanied by a flattop beam profile and extended harmonic phase matching. We numerically simulate the propagation to investigate these experimental results. We find that harmonic energy comes from the forward portion of the laser pulse, whereas the latter portion gives rise to the incidental double laser focusing. Good phase matching for the harmonics arises in large measure from a balance between the linear phase delay of the neutral atoms and the Gouy shift, which is elongated and nearly linearized when an aperture is partially closed on the beam. We compare reflectance data taken with the polarimeter instrument with expected results from well-characterized samples and find that they agree. To improve repeatability and reduce the effects of systematic measurement errors we have measured the ratio of p- to s-polarized reflectance and shown that optical constants can be extracted from this data as efficiently as from absolute reflectance measurements. These ratio measurements allow more accurate recovery of optical constants than our absolute reflectance measurements for our well-characterized samples. We use the polarimeter instrument and the ratio reflectance technique to determine the optical constants of copper, uranium, and their natural oxides from 10-47 nm. For copper, this measurement resolves previously conflicting data sets, where disagreement on optical-constant values arises from failure to keep samples from oxidizing before measurement. Uranium has been proposed as a high-reflectance material in the EUV for several years, however difficulties with oxidation have prevented its careful characterization previous to this work. We find that measured optical constants for uranium do not agree well with previously accepted theoretical calculations.

Ground-based spectral imaging devices offer an important supplement to satellite imagery. Hand-held, ground-based sensors allow rapid, inexpensive measurements that are not affected by the earth’s atmosphere. They also provide a basis for high altitude spectral indices. We quantified the spectral reflectance characteristics of hard red spring wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Westbred 936) in research plots subjected to either nitrogen or water stress in a two year study. Both types of stress reduced ground cover, which was evaluated by digital photography and compared with ten spectral reflectance indices. On plots with a similar soil background, simple indices such as the normalized difference vegetation index, ratio vegetation index, and difference vegetation index were equal to or superior to more complex vegetation indices for predicting ground cover. Yield was estimated by integrating the normalized difference vegetation index over the growing season. The coefficient of determination (r2) between integrated normalized difference vegetation index and final yield was 0.86. Unfortunately, none of these indices were able to differentiate between the intensity of green leaf color and ground cover fraction, and thus could not distinguish nitrogen from water stress. We developed a reflective index that can differentiate nitrogen and water stress over a wide range of ground cover. The index is based on the ratio of the green and red variants of the normalized difference vegetation index. The new index was able to distinguish nitrogen and water stress from satellite data using wavelengths less than 1000 nm. This index should be broadly applicable over a wide range of plant types and environments.

<p>The thesis presents an investigation of the potential of measuring plant condition from hyperspectral reflectance data. To do this, some linear methods for embedding the high dimensional hyperspectral data and to perform regression to a plant condition space have been compared. A preprocessing step that aims at normalized illumination intensity in the hyperspectral images has been conducted and some different methods for this purpose have also been compared.A large scale experiment has been conducted where tobacco plants have been grown and treated differently with respect to watering and nutrition. The treatment of the plants has served as ground truth for the plant condition. Four sets of plants have been grown one week apart and the plants have been measured at different ages up to the age of about five weeks. The thesis concludes that there is a relationship between plant treatment and their leaves' spectral reflectance, but the treatment has to be somewhat extreme for enabling a useful treatment approximation from the spectrum. CCA has been the proposed method for calculation of the hyperspectral basis that is used to embed the hyperspectral data to the plant condition (treatment) space. A preprocessing method that uses a weighted normalization of the spectrums for illumination intensity normalization is concluded to be the most powerful of the compared methods.</p>

by Andrew Loris Kurkjian. / Originally published as thesis (Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Ph.D., 1982). / Bibliography: p. 186-189. / Supported in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency monitored by ONR under Contract N00014-81-K-0742 NR-049-506 Supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant ECS80-07102

We argue that one of the early goals of color vision is to distinguish one kind of material from another. Accordingly, we show that when a pair of image regions is such that one region has greater intensity at one wavelength than at another wavelength, and the second region has the opposite property, then the two regions are likely to have arisen from distinct materials in the scene. We call this material change circumstance the 'opposite slope sign condition.' With this criterion as a foundation, we construct a representation of spectral information that facilitates the recognition of material changes. Our theory has implications for both psychology and neurophysiology. In particular, Hering's notion of opponent colors and psychologically unique primaries, and Land's results in two-color projection can be interpreted as different aspects of the visual system's goal of categorizing materials. Also, the theory provides two basic interpretations of the function of double-opponent color cells described by neurophysiologists.