Sample ASTER Digital Terrain Feature (DTF) Product, NASA/EP-ESIP

MRJ Technology Solutions, Inc. was designated a NASA Type 3 Working Proto-type
Earth Science Information Partner (WP-ESIP) to investigate the application of
the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer (ASTER) data
for producing enhanced terrain products. ASTER is an instrument scheduled to
fly on-board the NASA Earth Observation System (EOS) satellite EOS AM-1. The
ASTER data set was simulated from airborne flights of the Airborne Visible and
Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and the Thermal Infrared Multispectral
Scanner (TIMS). MRJ's Digital Terrain Features (DTF) product is a combination
of vector and raster GIS layers which describe terrain features.

The Death Valley data set is a simulation of ASTER Level 1B data in units of
radiance using the nominal instrument gain settings. It is arranged in three
smaller data sets, one for each subsystem (Visible Near Infrared (VNIR),
ShortWave Infrared (SWIR), Thermal Infrared (TIR).) The data set was created
from spectrally resampled AVIRIS images and TIMS images, that were then
co-registered, and spatially resampled to the appropriate ASTER pixel sizes for
each subsystem (15m - VNIR, 30m - SWIR, and 90m -TIR). The SWIR and TIR data
sets were then sized up using pixel replication to have the same number of
samples and lines as the VNIR data set. The area covered by the data is 12 x 51
km. The data set was registered to USGS 1:100,000 Digitial Line Graph (DLG)
vector data.

The data set consists of land cover classification within Death Valley, digital
elevation from 7.5 minute USGS Digital Elevation Model (DEM), slope and relief
from the digital elevation, transportation and hydrography vector layers from
the USGS 1:1,000,000 DLG.