Georeferencing satellite imagery

The technical process would depend on which type of GIS software you are using.

If you are using ArcView 3.x then the process would be

http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=16622

If you are using ArcView 8.x

http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=22893

If you are using MapInfo then

http://testdrive.mapinfo.com/TECHSUPP/MIPROD.NSF/5c41496d5951a49c852562b5004f3a44/df43d0946872aa828525668000793da3?OpenDocument

I hope this helps

First off, what kind of image is it?  Did you get any georeferencing information with it.  Some files come with World files (basically text files) that store that info.  Many of them come with that information embedded into the file itself.  For instance Mr. Sid images used to come with a separate world file, but the newer ones come all in one package.

Regards,

Bill

  Yes BillPowell is correct.........
Most of the satellite images are already georeferenced. A world file is a text file......
A quote from some website

> The world file for a JPEG, BMP, TIFF, and RLC file has the same file name as the image and a "w" appended to the >extension. If your operating system does not support long file names, the first and third characters of the original >extension are used and a "w" is appended.

>For example, image1.tiff would have a world file named image1.tiffw, or for the 8.3 file naming convention, image2.tif >would have a world file named image2.tfw. Note: The world files must be in ASCII text format and stored in the same >directory or folder as the image file. A typical world file for these types of images may look like:
>
> 20.154 <the dimension of a pixel in map units in the x direction>
> 0.000 <rotation term for row>
> 0.000 <rotation term for column>
> -20.154 <the dimension of a pixel in map units in the y direction>
> 424178 <the x coordinate of the center of pixel 1,1 (upper-left pixel)>
> 4313415 <the y coordinate of the center of pixel 1,1 (upper-left pixel)>

So if you are lucky then you will find this file with your image.

If this is not the case then this information is embedded into the header of the Satellite image......
If you open this image with any GIS package like ArcView, Mapobjects etc. or ERViewer(Recommended) then you will be able to see the coordinates while you move the cursor. They might not be necessaray in Lat/Long format (most of Satellite images are in UTM coordinate system).

If both of these are not true then you will have to georefence it by yourself by calculating ( Pixels <--> Lat/Long )
relationship. For this method you need Lat/Long of at least 3 known points on the Satellite image. If you need more info about this you can post another comment.
But still my recommendation is that it will be already Georeferenced  and you should open it in ERViewer.....


 

imarshad

The Image is a raw image that comes from the satellite, and I wanted to georeference it by myself by calculating
 (pixels to lat/long) relation, but I dont know how to do this, any help

Which Image Processing / GIS software do you have? such like PCI, ENVI, Erdas Imagine, Idrisi, GRASS, ARC:INFO, Geomedia (Intergraph), ...?

I have a ENVI

A tutorial on this is available at:

http://www.ltid.inpe.br/tutorial/tut3.htm

First check which reference info you have: GPS readings for known points, topographic maps or another registered image.

imarshad
I have three pixels with information, so I am told, I also have a some information populated in the header by the data provider.

The Image is a raw image that comes from the satellite, and I wanted to georeference it by myself by calculating
 (pixels to lat/long) relation, but I dont know how to do this, any help

I have already written an application to calibrate (or georeference) a raster image using the WorldFile format as explained above. Let me know if you're interested cause I can e-mail it to you. It was written in Visual Basic 6. I can send you the source code as well.

fabricio@webmail.co.za

Imran,

I realize this solution is a bit old and hopefully you are still monitoring the forum. Your solution above is exactly what I'm looking for but could you elaborate a little as to how you originally start with a point and a lat/long on your image?

It seems that if that is incorrect so will you point that is mapped on the image.

Since this thread is so old has there been improvements in how this is accomplished? I'm looking to do this with imagery from Google Earth for personal use.

Thanks.

NG,