Maps of sky relative radiance and luminance distributions acquired with a monochromatic CCD camera

The purpose of this work is to characterize the sky relative radiance and luminance distributions from the analysis of sky images acquired using a monochromatic CCD wide angle lens camera. The proposed methodology is based on the reduction of the number of the gray levels from the original image, in order to sharpen the different regions of the sky hemisphere, resulting in low level gray scale maps. In these maps each gray level is related to an intensity level and each pixel is associated to a sky direction. An experimental system that is able to simultaneously supply images from the sky and solar irradiance data was developed using a commercial CCD camera. The sky relative radiance and luminance distributions for different sky conditions were also determined. The resultant maps agree with observations of the main characteristics of sky radiance and luminance distributions.     

New method for measuring an optical property of a sample treated by FWA

In this article, a new method for measuring a total spectral radiance factor of a FWA‐treated sample illuminated by a specific standard illuminant is introduced. The method replaces an unstable real fluorescent standard by a bi‐spectral luminescent radiance factor data, which works as a virtual fluorescent standard (VFS) by knowing spectral intensity distributions of illuminations applied to the sample. The method utilizes two illuminations I₁ and I₂ whose relative spectral intensity distributions are different from each other and synthesizes a virtual illumination presenting the identical fluorescent spectral radiance factor to that presented by the standard illuminant with the VFS of the specific bi‐spectral luminescent radiance factor by linearly combining I₁ and I₂ with the suitable weighting factors. The applicability of the method is examined in principle by comparing ISO brightness and CIE whiteness index of fluorescent standard paper as a test sample obtained by this new method to the assigned values. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 195–200, 2007     

Monitoring water quality in reservoirs with IRS-1A-LISS-I

An attempt has been made to quantify the relationship between the variation in IRS-IA-LISS-I (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite-1A Linear Imaging Self-Scanning System) radiance data and field measured change in secchi disc depth. Secchi disc depth was measured for 47 predetermined sampling locations on reservoir surface water. At extinction depth (secchi depth), water samples were collected from all the sampling locations. Suspended sediments of eight locations representing various reaches of the reservoir were selected for mineralogical, particle size and optical properties analysis. The LISS-I radiance value in band 1 (0.45–0.52µm) band 2 (0-52–0.59 µm) and band 3 (0.62–0.68 µm) were used in a regression analysis. The absorption infrared band 4 (0.77–0.86 µm) was not included in the analysis. In these, the dependable variable was secchi depth (SD) and the LISS-I-radiance data was the estimator variable. Forty-seven data sets of 20 October 1988 from Tawa reservoir surface water were used to obtain an estimator equation for SD. The verification of the estimator equation was tested by applying it to a data set of 21 measurements of 28 September 1988 for this reservoir. The coefficient of correlation between observed and estimated values for the 28 September 1988 data set wasr=0.92 for SD, indicating that the equation could accurately predict the water clarity (SD) for this reservoir on new occasions from IRS-IA-LISS-I spectral data. It is shown that mineral composition and optical properties of suspended sediments influence the reflected radiance of water quality. It is concluded that IRS-IA-LISS-I data provide a useful means of mapping water quality in reservoir.     

A hybrid rendering algorithm for textile objects

Although realistic textile rendering has been widely used in virtual garment and try-on systems, a robust method to simulate textile with a realistic appearance and high fidelity is yet to be established. We propose to use a novel hybrid geometric- and image-based rendering (GIBR) method to achieve photo realistic representation of textile products. The image-based technique, with its radiance synthesis algorithm, enables us to recover the reflectance properties of textile in an environment photo, and thus can render the appearance of textile material. The geometry-based technique, with its traditional illumination model of assigning illumination parameters extracted from the original scene (such as radiance and chroma dispatch), makes it possible to interactively manipulate 3D virtual objects in the “real” environment. Our realistic textile rendering method has advantages over the traditional ones in its easiness to implement and its wide range of applications.     

光谱响应差异对高精度交叉定标的影响——以FY-3A/MERSI与EOS/MODIS为研究实例

分析了MERSI与MODIS间光谱响应差异对测量表观反射比的影响。正演模拟结果显示,在极区冰雪情况下,MERSI与MODIS测量得到的表观反射比之间的相对差异是关于MODIS所测表观发射比的二次函数。MERSI的前4个通道与对应的MODIS通道之间的相对差异在0~0.8%,0~2%,0.5%~2.5%,-1.8%~-0.8%之间。将正演模拟得到的对光谱响应差异的修正关系应用到具体的SNO测量后,MERSI前3个通道的表观反射比与修正后MODIS的表观反射比之间的相对差异减小到了3%以内。MERSI的1、2通道在红外波段也有响应,这部分响应在极区冰雪条件下对表观反射率的影响在0.5%左右,基本可以忽略。     

Importance sampling for volumetric illumination of flames

Physically based rendering of scenes with volumetric illumination of flames remains a challenging problem due to the complexity of their heterogeneous radiative properties. Current bidirectional importance sampling strategies have been focusing on emissive light sources without anisotropic extinction. In this paper, we present an efficient importance sampling method for volumetric light sources with anisotropic extinction. According to the radiative properties of flames, we separate the computation of anisotropic extinction from the evaluation of illumination inside flames and utilize cluster-based hierarchies to rapidly estimate them. To exploit the coherence of radiative voxels, we also propose a new similarity metric to aggregate voxels into clusters. For each pixel to be shaded, we use these clusters to rapidly approximate the importance function of voxels, and draw final illumination samples from clusters. Our results show that this approach substantially reduces the variance of images when rendering scenes with flames.     

Radiance temperatures (at 658 and 898 nm) of niobium at its melting point

Radiance temperatures (at 658 and 898 nm) of niobium at its melting point were measured by a pulse-heating technique. A current pulse of subsecond duration was imparted to a niobium strip and the initial part of the melting plateau was measured by high-speed pyrometry. Experiments were performed with two techniques and the results do not indicate any dependence of radiance temperature (at the melting point) on initial surface or system operational conditions. The average radiance temperature at the melting point of niobium is 2420 K at 658 nm and 2288 K at 898 nm, with a standard deviation of 0.4 K at 658 nm and 0.3–0.6 K at 898 nm (depending on the technique used). The total uncertainty in radiance temperature is estimated to be not more than ±6 K. The results are in good agreement with earlier measurements at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA) and confirm that both radiance temperature and normal spectral emissivity (of niobium at its melting point) decrease with increasing wavelength in the region 500–900 nm.Paper presented at the Third Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, September 17–18, 1992, Graz, Austria.     

Analysis and numerical study of a hybrid BGM-3DVAR data assimilation scheme using satellite radiance data for heavy rain forecasts

A fine heavy rain forecast plays an important role in the accurate flood forecast, the urban rainstorm waterlogging and the secondary hydrological disaster preventions. To improve the heavy rain forecast skills, a hybrid Breeding Growing Mode (BGM)-three-dimensional variational (3DVAR) Data Assimilation (DA) scheme is designed on running the Advanced Research WRF (ARW WRF) model using the Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit A (AMSU-A) satellite radiance data. Results show that: the BGM ensemble prediction method can provide an effective background field and a flow dependent background error covariance for the BGM-3DVAR scheme. The BGM-3DVAR scheme adds some effective mesoscale information with similar scales as the heavy rain clusters to the initial field in the heavy rain area, which improves the heavy rain forecast significantly, while the 3DVAR scheme adds information with relatively larger scales than the heavy rain clusters to the initial field outside of the heavy rain area, which does not help the heavy rain forecast improvement. Sensitive experiments demonstrate that the flow dependent background error covariance and the ensemble mean background field are both the key factors for adding effective mesoscale information to the heavy rain area, and they are both essential for improving the heavy rain forecasts.     

State Primary Standards in the Area of Radiometry of Ultraviolet Radiation

The present article describes the system used for assurance of the uniformity of measurements of the characteristics of ultraviolet radiation in the wavelength band 0.03–0.40 μm for radiation sources and receivers based on the State Primary Standards of the unit of spectral density of radiance as well as the unit of radiant flux and unit of irradiance. __________ Translated from Izmeritel'naya Tekhnika, No. 11, pp. 17–20, November, 2005.     

蓝宝石光纤高温传感技术研究

本文报导了蓝宝石单晶光纤高温传感器的研制工作．对蓝宝石单晶光纤高温传感头的热辐射特性进行了理论分析和实验研究，并在此基础上研制成双波长蓝宝石单晶光纤高温仪，仪器的测温范围８００～１７００℃，测温精度０．２％（１０００℃），分辨率１℃，可应用于科研和工业生产中某些特殊环境下的温度测量．