Crop and Soil Sciences > Research > Office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources
Office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources
The Office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) is a center within the Environmental Resources Research Institute (ERRI). The Institute provides a framework within the University for intercollege research on air, land, and water resources.
ORSER has been participating in projects involving the use of remotely sensed data and other types of geographically-referenced data since 1970. Investigators involved in these projects have been from the fields of agronomy, anthropology, civil engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, forestry, geography, geology, geophysics, hydrology, meteorology, plant pathology, pattern recognition, planning and soil science. A problem-oriented, rather than a discipline-oriented, approach is taken in the completion of tasks in order that associates from various disciplines may work together toward a common goal.
Gary W. Petersen and Wayne L. Myers, Co-Directors of ORSER are members of the University faculty who also hold joint faculty appointments with the Environmental Resources Research Institute. Principal Investigators and associated graduate students receive support from the individual projects they have initiated. Both University and project funds contribute toward the financial support of a Systems Analyst, several Research Assistants, student technicians, and secretarial and business support staff.
The mission of ORSER has been to provide a focal point within the University for research and other activities related to remote sensing and geographic information processing in Earth resources studies.
ORSER provides software resources in a distributed computing environment with multiple platforms at the workstation and microcomputer level. The hub of this computing environment is a Local Area Network composed of six Sun SPARCstations. Two Sun SPARCstation 10s and four SPARCstation 20s each contain a minimum 32 MB main memory running ARC/INFO, ERDAS Imagine, LAS, GRASS and S-plus. Total disk space on ORSER's network exceeds 90 GBytes. Four different tape drives provide data exchange capbilities on a wide variety of media, and connection to INTERNET provides data sharing capabilities worldwide.
Four of the PC's are configured as hosts for the ERDAS, pcARC/INFO, IDRISI and/or ATLAS GIS software. These PCs have high-resolution color monitors, high speed hard disk storage devices, and IOMEGA Bernoulli Boxes which provide dual 44 MB and 150 MB removable data cartridges. Additional peripherals include two Calcomp Drawing Board III digitizing tablets for data capture. Hardcopy capabilities are provided by a HP 650C E-size ink-jet plotter and an HP 4M Plus postscript printer. A Veratec electrostatic plotter is also available via a network connection.
Via the Proteon Gateway, users on the ORSER Network can access the IBM mainframe computer at the PSU Center for Academic Computing, and exchange data and electronic mail with any computer on campus which is attached to the fiber-optic backbone. Facilities currently or soon-to-be accessible include computers in the Colleges of Agricutural Sciences, Earth and Mineral Sciences, and Engineering, all of which have investigators cooperating with ORSER. This Gateway also provides a link to the statewide Penn State PRONET System and to the Internet.
In addition to etensive digital processing capabilities, ORSER maintains a complete photointerpretation laboratory for image interpretation. Available equipment includes two Bausch and Lomb Zoom Stereoscopes (Zoom 70 and Zoom 95) with light tables, a Bausch and Lomb Zoom Transfer Scope for map compilation, and a variety of stereoscopes for image analysis.
The ORSER network maintains, on line, recent Thematic Mapper data for the entire state for at least two dates, as well as an extensive library of GIS data layers including soils, digital elevation data, roads, streams, political boundaries, information on state and federal lands, and many other layers of data available for use by researchers.
ORSER maintains an archive of aerial photography as well as an extensive library of satellite images (both hardcopy and digital data) from around the world. In support of ongoing research, ORSER maintains a map collection and reference library.
Questions concerning ORSER can be sent to:
Gary W. Petersen(gwp2@psu.edu)
Wayne L. Myers(wlm@psu.edu)