Abstract: The talk focuses on current trends in urban remote sensing, and discusses the importance of spectral and object-oriented classification methods for mapping urban features from multispectral and hyperspectral remotely sensed data. By giving examples from 2 projects undertaken in Sydney, Australia and New York, USA, importance aspects of remote sensing applications for urban environments are presented. Decomposing the image pixel is the main goal in urban remote sensing. However, extracting features from urban environment is challenging due to the heterogeneity of urban features and limited spectral separability of certain urban features such as building roofs, roads, open spaces. The importance of combining spectral and object-oriented classification is highlighted in this presentation. An overview of object-oriented classification is also presented.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Dr. Bhaskaran has a PhD (2003) in remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from the School of Geomatic Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Dr. Bhaskaran's research interests are in spatial analysis, image analysis, modeling, data integration and decision support systems. Dr. Bhaskaran has over 10 years of experience in teaching GIS and remote sensing at the post graduate, graduate and undergraduate levels in Australia. Dr. Bhaskaran has developed new course materials on 'Web Based GIS', tutorials in GIS and remote sensing and delivered several workshops to students and staff from the Industry including the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Dr. Bhaskaran has also designed projects in geospatial technology for schools in Australia and has been the examiner of online courses. Dr. Bhaskaran has over 12 years of research experience in developing GIS and remote sensing applications for a wide range of applications. Since 1999, Dr. Bhaskaran has collaborated with various government and commercial agencies in geospatial projects. He has managed several international geospatial projects and mentored and supervised many researchers and honors students. Dr. Bhaskaran has been awarded over $500,000.00 of grant funding and has also received the Australian Research Council Award for Linkage and Infrastructure (ARC-LIEF). By analyzing and integrating hyperspectral remote sensing and GIS data, Dr. Bhaskaran developed a unique model to map vulnerability from Hail Storms in Sydney. This project and publication in the 'International Journal of Remote Sensing' is widely cited by peers all over the world. Dr. Bhaskaran has won several awards in research throughout his career. Dr. Bhaskaran has published over 40 research papers in peer reviewed journals and proceedings of conferences. In 2001 his paper 'Sub-Pixel analysis of the Urban Environment' was nominated as one of the best papers at the prestigious IEEE/IGARSS symposium. Dr. Bhaskaran is an invited member of peer-review panel on several international journals. He was an invited joint editor for a special issue on 'Hyperspectral Remote Sensing' that featured in the International Journal of Geoinformatics. In 2005, Dr. Bhaskaran was invited as a 'Visiting Scientist' to the prestigious 'ITC' institute in Netherlands. Dr. Bhaskaran is currently co-authoring a book on hyperspectral applications to be published by Springer-Verlag, Holland. Dr. Bhaskaran has served on various spatial sciences committees both at the regional and national levels notably the Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI) and the Queensland fire and biodiversity consortium. He has served as the member of the 13th Australasian Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Conference (ARSPC) and was the Deputy Chair of the Program Committee. Dr. Bhaskaran has received certificates and commendations for his outstanding contribution to spatial sciences. Dr. Bhaskaran is currently collaborating with GeoEye for conducting research on mapping urban features from high spatial resolution satellite data over New York City. He is developing algorithms using both spectral and spatial attributes for automated mapping of urban features. Currently, Dr. Bhaskaran teaches and conducts research in Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing at the department of Environmental, Geographic and Geological Sciences, Lehman College, City University of New York. Dr. Bhaskaran is an Australian citizen but resides now in US as a permanent resident.