The Frequent Image Frames Enhanced Digital Orthorectified Mapping (FIFEDOM) Camera for Acquiring Multiangular Reflectance From the Land Surface

The Frequent Image Frames Enhanced Digital Orthorectified Mapping (FIFEDOM) camera was designed to provide a cost-effective remote-sensing method for accurate acquisition of forest information, such as spatial distributions of individual tree species and tree structures for forest monitoring and management. Compared with existing regular digital cameras, the FIFEDOM camera has several unique features as follows: (1) it can collect data not only in the visible bands (550 and 670 nm) but also in the near-infrared band (800 nm); (2) it has a frame rate of up to 3 frames/s with a frame size of 3500 times 2300; and (3) it has a wide angular field view with 150deg along track and 78.8deg across track. Its high frame rate and wide angular field view allow it to obtain a sequence of images that oversample ground target areas. The multiangle database and bidirectional reflectance signatures of forest canopies can be generated from the oversampled image data, which can be used to identify forest species and estimate tree structures. In addition, the multiframe highly overlapped FIFEDOM data can also be used to generate a very dense, high-quality, and reliable digital surface model. Effective methods for radiometric and geometric calibration of the FIFEDOM camera were developed in this paper. A data-acquisition campaign was carried out in 2004 over the Algoma boreal forest, Ontario, Canada. The FIFEDOM data were validated using the data acquired by the Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager instrument, which was flown together with the FIFEDOM camera.