Public Lab Wiki documentation



Multispectral imaging

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The Public Lab near infrared imaging project is an open source community effort to modify consumer cameras to capture near infrared imagery for a range of purposes, including plant health. All open or accessible near infrared imaging hardware and software efforts are welcome here!

Join in by:

  • Reading about goals and asking great questions
  • Converting a camera using one of our starter kits
  • Trying (and critiquing) our community-made how-to guides
  • Posting your own how-to guides and mods
  • Building on others’ work; hack and remix the kits to refine and expand them
  • (proposed?) Submit your improvements for inclusion in an upcoming starter kit release or add-on
  • (proposed?) Serve on a Research Review Group for a 3 month period

Activities

This is a list of community-generated guides for specific applications using your near-infrared imaging setup (either a camera you converted yourself with a filter pack, a ready-made near-infrared camera, or double camera setup). Some may be more reproduced -- or reproducible -- than others. Try them out to build your skills, and help improve them by leaving comments. Together, we can repeat and refine the activities into experiments.

Purpose Category Status Author Time Difficulty Replications
Video tutorial: Creating false-color NDVI with aerial wetlands imagery - - @warren - - 0 replications: Try it »
Tracking Plant Health Using Visible and Infrared Light -- Initial Experiences at an Arts High School - - @Travis - - 0 replications: Try it »
Pole NDVI of deer grazing experiment - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Conversion of 4k sport camera for NDVI analysis with UAVs - - @azaelb - - 1 replications: Try it »
NIR and water - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Graze anatomy experiment - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Computer Vision/LED Plant Measurement System - - @MaggPi - - 0 replications: Try it »
Root crops - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Lycopene - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Mobius NDVI - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Halo: Red vs. Blue - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Holiday Beverage Whodunit - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Getting started with the Infragram Point and Shoot - - @abdul 1hr medium 0 replications: Try it »
Video tutorial: Creating infrared composites of aerial wetlands imagery - - @warren - - 0 replications: Try it »
HORNWORMS - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Mobius IR conversion - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Getting started with infrared photography on Infragram.org - - @warren - - 3 replications: Try it »
Install a filter or change the lens in a Mobius Action Cam - - @warren - - 0 replications: Try it »
Use Image Sequencer for NDVI plant analysis with 2 images - - @warren - - 0 replications: Try it »
Creating Multispectral Imagery for California Beaches - - @MicheleTobias - - 0 replications: Try it »
New Developments in Multi-Spectral Drone Imaging in the Ultraviolet Band - - @ektopyrotic - - 0 replications: Try it »
Aspen Leaf Miner - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Mobius non-fish-eye lens conversion - - @patcoyle - - 0 replications: Try it »
Prototype: filter map tiles in real-time in a browser with ImageSequencer (NDVI Landsat) - - @warren - - 0 replications: Try it »
Use Image Sequencer for NDVI plant analysis with a modified mini sport camera observe review-me @warren 15m easy 0 replications: Try it »
Infrablue Haze - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Spruce tips - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Oaktober - - @cfastie - - 0 replications: Try it »
Using multispectral imagery to derive bathymetry - - @warren - - 0 replications: Try it »

Activities should include a materials list, costs and a step-by-step guide to construction with photos. Learn what makes a good activity here.

Add your guide here Request a guide

Guides should include a materials list and a step-by-step construction guide with photo documentation. See an example.


Hardware Mods

Have you added to your starter kit, improved it, or redesigned it? Show others how to take it to the next level by posting a build guide here:


Add your hardware modification here Request a hardware modification

Upgrades should include a parts list and a step-by-step construction guide with photo documentation. See an example.


Builds

There’s a lot going on in open source near-infrared imaging -- if you’ve developed another open source design you’d like to show others how to construct, post it here!

  • Rasberry Pi NoIR
  • X
  • XX

Choosing a tool / Starter Kits

The question to start with is whether you can capture all the channels you need for your research question with a single converted camera or whether you should use a dual camera rig with one converted camera and one unconverted. That choice plays out in terms of what filter (blue or red) to use for converting your camera.

Public Lab’s Kits initiative offers several starter kits, one with the basic components and instructions for converting your own digital camera to capture near-infrared imagery and a second option -- a readymade lightweight near-infrared camera. The point of the kits is to lower the barrier to capturing your own near-infrared imagery.

  • The Infragram filter pack is our least expensive way to get started with near-infrared imaging, but it does require an afternoon and some technical work to perform the camera conversion yourself. ... etc etc etc

Visit the Infragram DIY filter pack

  • The Infragram point and shoot is a Mobius camera that we worked with a factory to modify. ... etc etc etc

Visit the Infragram Point&Shoot page


Processing near-infrared imagery

Once you take a multispectral photograph with a modified camera, you must post-process it, compositing the infrared and visible data to generate a new image which (if it works) displays healthy, photosynthetically active areas as bright regions. In-depth articles on the technique by Chris Fastie can be found here:


Software

How to process your images: we're working on an easy process to generate composite, infrared + visible images that will reveal new details of plant health and photosynthesis. There are several approaches:


Comparison to standard tools

Infrared imagery for agricultural and ecological assessment is usually captured from satellites and planes, and the information is used mainly by large farms, vineyards, and academic research projects. For example, see this illustrated PDF, page 210 from a commercial imagery provider who has been studying the usefulness of infrared imagery and has quotes from farmers who make use of it. There are public sources of infrared photography for the US available through the Department of Agriculture -- NAIP and Vegscape -- but this imagery is not collected when, as often, or at useable scale for individuals who are managing small plots.


Frequently Asked Questions

Ask a question about multispectral-imaging Get notified of new questions and help out

Title Author Updated Likes Comments
Infrared camera @eduardo_gamosa over 1 year ago 0
Run infragram offiline (whitout online analysis) @elucasfreitas over 1 year ago 2
Why Red filter results are blurry compared to Blue filters? @shahdharam7 over 2 years ago 2
Can NOIR camera distinguise different types of leaf? @shahdharam7 over 2 years ago 3
Why the color of Infragram picture is different from what I take with my Raspberry Pi using Picamera API @iman almost 3 years ago 4
NDVI with a 2 camera setup @karunv over 3 years ago 2
Can I use a clear case with the Infragram pi camera? @mimiss almost 4 years ago 0
Is there a way to convert an infrared video footage to NDVI? @sam14 almost 4 years ago 2
Can I use the infragram.org for my thesis? Thanks! @tooooopher05 about 4 years ago 4
How can I make IR photos derived from various cutoff useful for creating NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) images? @lev29 about 4 years ago 7
Feasibility-check: NDVI analysis of moss @zomb23 over 4 years ago 3
How to design a camera for calculating ENDVI. @nickyshen0306 over 4 years ago 5
Infragram Point and shoot photos: white balance not working @Muneeswaran over 5 years ago 0
Is it possible to calculate average NDVI in a picture using infragram's sand box? @Hala73 almost 6 years ago 6
Problem with filter for Raspberry Pi NoIR Camera @sjmanosalvas almost 6 years ago 1
Spectral Range of Lens? @RexToother almost 6 years ago 3
600 year old cedar tree - Infragram @Randall about 6 years ago 6
Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI) @rway about 6 years ago 0
Can we use a color calibration reference card to calculate absolute values for DIY NDVI? @warren over 6 years ago 1
"Test images" for multispectral image processing @warren over 6 years ago 6
Can I use any red filter for capturing NIR light? @sujayj about 7 years ago 2
I would like to know why near infared imaging works, and what it does. @kiramac about 7 years ago 1
Video Infragram @jfd over 7 years ago 5
Identify Plastic Material Using Infrared Imaging @shaikhgous over 7 years ago 1