Study on thermal infrared emission directionality over crop canopies with TIR camera imagery

In order to investigate directionality of thermal infrared emission from cr op canopies, a wide-angle thermal video camera (INFRAMETRICS) equipped with an 80 degrees FOV lens was mounted on a small aircraft and used to acquire thermal imagery along several different flight traces. Accordingly, multi- angle directional brightness temperatures were acquired at different view a ngles for individual pixel. The flight experiment was carried out from Janu ary 1997 to October 1997 over a 5 kmx5 km flat agricultural area, located n ear Avignon, southeastern France. This paper presents results from analyses performed using these data includ ing instrument calibration, radiometric correction, atmospheric correction, temperature temporal adjustment, geometric matching and registration of im ages. Results are presented for different thermal infrared emission pattern s of different surface types including bare soil, wheat, maize and sunflowe r at different growth stages.