ARVORES!

(pronounced arvorese, translated from Portuguese: Trees)

Amazon Rainforest Visualization/Classification by
Orbiting Radar Enabled through Supercomputing

Paul Siqueira, JPL Staff Scientist
Bruce Chapman, JPL Staff Scientist
Tony Freeman, JPL Group Supervisor

1. Mapping the entirety of the JERS-1 high/low resolution, high/low flood seasons onto the SGI Power Wall located at JPL, and to use the computation power of a distributed supercomputer network to explore new methods of classification and visualization of SAR data.
   
2. Implementation of an interferometric processor on the distributed computing network. SIR-C interferometric runs will be processed for the Amazon data and co-registered with the JERS-1 data for further visualization and classification.
   
   

• Distributed Computing network linked by Hippi and SGI Power Wall

• JERS-1 low flood/high flood comprehensive L-Band, HH pol. map of the Amazon rain forest.

• SIR-C quad-polarimetry of Amazon region. Specifically these will be chosen to coincide with interferometric data takes and the well studied regions surrounding Manaus.

• SIR-C interferometric data takes (142.8, 142.9, 135.4). Two are single pol, one is dual pol, at L-, C- and X-band frequencies.

Details:

JERS-1

• Two seasons of data, April (flood) and October (dry)

• 1500 Full resolution (12.5 m spacing), 8k x 8k images (64 Mbytes/image). Total memory per season: 96 Gbytes (or 67 Gbytes for a 30% per image overlap).

• 1500 Low resolution (100 m spacing), 1k x 1k images (1 Mbytes/image). Total memory per season: 1.5 Gbytes ( or 1 Gbyte for a 30% per image overlap).

• 1500 Low resolution (100m spacing), 1k x 1k texture maps (1 Mbytes/map). Total memory per season: 1.5 Gbytes (or 1 Gbyte for 30% per image overlap.)

• Japan is mosaicing 5 degree images. Mosaicing larger blocks might be difficult to align. Bruce will go to Japan in a few weeks and bring back some of the 5 degree mosaics.

SIR-C Interferometry

• Data from the Anavilhanas and Amazon-C passes have been ordered.

• Interferometric code needs to be ported from a workstation to the distributed computing network

Computing facilities

• SGI Power Wall. 100 inch diagonal projected viewing screen consisting of 2400 by 3200 pixels. Two SGI Power Onyx systems provide the computing power and 5 Gbytes of RAM.

• Hippi network

• Cray T3D, 256 node parallel computer

Coverage Map of the Amazon

Legend

Light pink	Low flood/high flood coverage map of JERS-1
Light blue	SIR-C interferometric data takes. Thin lines represent covered areas on the ground. Thick lines represent areas of particular interest to the study. These areas of interest include zones of deforestation, roads, farming and urban development.

Amazon region near Manaus


Road and farming development


Example of clear cutting