Chapter 6. Python and Remote Sensing
In this chapter, we will discuss remote sensing. This field grows more exciting everyday as more satellites are launched and the distribution of data becomes easier. The high availability of satellite and aerial images as well as interesting new types of sensors launching each year is changing the role that remote sensing plays in understanding our world.
In this field, Python is quite capable. However, in this chapter, we will rely more on the Python bindings to the C libraries than we have in the previous chapters, where the focus was more on using pure Python. The only reason for this change is the size and complexity of remotely-sensed data. In remote sensing, we step through each pixel in an image and perform some form of query or mathematical process. An image can be thought of as a large numerical array. In remote sensing, these arrays can be quite large to the order of tens of megabytes to several gigabytes. While Python is fast, only...
