NIH Image and Satellite Imagery

If you are not familiar with NIH Image, here is a brief introduction to NIH Image with related links to more information. Otherwise dive right into the following activities:

• Measuring Area Select parts of an image to measure the area of the ozone depletion above Antarctica.
• How Big Is Antarctica? An alternative measurement technique used to measure ice cover surrounding Antarctica.
• Animate It! Create an animation from images spanning a 12-month period.

Many of the activities that we develop at the Gulf of Maine Aquarium rely on measuring areas in satellite images and examining changes over time. We find NIH Image to be extremely useful in classroom applications of image processing. The program was written by the National Institutes of Health and is in the public domain. While NIH Image was designed for viewing images through a microscope, the program can be readily adapted for use with a wide variety of images.

The most recent copies of the program and the print documentation are available at the NIH Image WWW site. The NIH Web page has several versions of NIH Image available depending on the computer you use and the descriptions are all available on their Web site. Once you click on the appropriate link you will be given the option of where to place the file on your computer. You will also need a software program like StuffIt Expander to decompress the file. StuffIt is available from many WWW sites, including Washington University.

The satellite images supporting these activities are available via links to current data where appropriate. These activities are a starting point for working with NIH Image. If you have access to a scanner, scanning in colormaps of the area and working with the maps and scale tools on the computer offer another introduction to working with computers on image processing.