Spatial Analysis Facilities

Summary

The Desert Research Institute is a recognized leader in combining Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing to address biological, ecological and hydrological problems both nationally and internationally. DRI is using aerospace remote sensing and GIS to map, analyze and characterize earth surface processes, and to compare spatial variability in land cover, ecosystem health, and hydrology.

Laboratory

The spatial analysis facilities at DRI are equipped with a wide range of hardware and software tools for addressing these applications. Hardware includes a distributed network of Sun, SGI, and NT workstations, as well as numerous disk subsystems with over 250 gbytes of storage. A wide range of commercial software packages are being run under site licenses, including ERDAS Imagine, GRASS, ER-Mapper, PCI, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, Harvard Graphics, Systat, S+, Sigma-plot and others. DRI maintains a system-wide license of ESRI GIS software packages, including the new ArcGIS scalable GIS software, Arc/Info for workstation and PC-NT, ArcView and its extensions, ArcCAD, ArcPress, and other ESRI products and databases. DRI also maintains a system-wide license of RSI image processing and programming software packages, including ENVI, RiverTools, IDL, Noesys, VIP.

Scientific Details

The system network includes the following array of support peripherals:

Input devices include:

Numerous 32x, 48x, and 60x read/write CD-ROM drives
Exabyte 5 Gbyte 8mm tape drives (8)
Altek 36" by 48" backlit manual digitizing tablet
Eikonix 850 high-resolution color digitizing camera
Video-frame-grabbing camera unit
Numerous document color document scanners
High resolution slide scanner
Read/write DVDs

Output devices include:

High resolution LFR film recorder
Tektronix 2500 Color Printers
E-size HP 1055CM DesignJet Plotter
E-size HP 755 DesignJet Plotter
E-size Calcomp Plotter

In addition, a Full Range Field Spectrometer, and a Beckman UV-5240 spectrophotometer are available for performing detailed spectral analysis of field samples. The Laboratory also maintains an archive of 800 image data sets from over 30 different imaging systems covering Nevada and selected study areas from four continents.