The IWMMM‐2 conference: Background, achievements and recommendations

Abstract

Japan. These participants, listed in Annex 1, were involved or interested in modeling the anisotropy of the radiation field, in multiangular measurements, or in the exploitation of these tools and data in their own applications.This 3-day meeting addressed three main objectives: (1) to establish the state of the art in direct and inverse modeling techniques, including those proposed for the operational exploitation of earlier instruments * Corresponding author. 1 Downloaded by [University of Tennessee, Knoxville] at 03:21 07 June 2016 2 M. M. VERSTRAETE AND B. PINTY(e.g., geostationary satellites and the POLDER) and recently launched platforms (e.g., EOS Terra), (2) to review current and near-future multiangular air-and space-borne missions, as well as the latest developments in field and laboratory instruments, and (3) to demonstrate the usefulness of quasi-simultaneous multiangular and multispectral measurements, when exploited with appropriate models, through either an improved accuracy and reliability of the results or the generation of new geophysical products. The agenda of the conference is provided in Annex 2, and additional information on the activities of the ENAMORS project are available on the Internet at http://www.enamors.org/. CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGSThe number and diversity of contributions to this international conference called for a concomitant flexibility in publishing the proceedings. As a result, arrangements were taken to publish two special issues of well-known journals interested in remote sensing and its applications. These are Remote Sensing Reviews and the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. The present RSR special issue contains a selection of papers derived from the posters presented at the conference, as well as a couple of papers commissioned for this particular special issue.The following contributions are logically organized around the main themes of the IWMMM-2 conference, namely the acquisition of bidirectional measurements from laboratory, field, airborne and spaceborne instruments, the mathematical representation of the anisotropy of the reflectance field as well as the development of efficient inversion procedures, and the exploitation of these tools and data in practical applications. Specifically, the first paper by Martonchik et al. (2000) reviews the definition and nomenclature of reflectance concepts. This provides a useful background to read and understand the subsequent contributions. It is followed by a couple of papers, by Rothkirch et al. (2000) and Meister et al. (2000a) describing recent results obtained with the European Goniometer (EGO) of the Space Applications Institute in Ispra, Italy. This is an indoor laboratory set up to provide accurate measurements of directional and spectral properties of small targets (scale length between about 10 and 100 cm). Another laboratory system, developed in Grenoble, France, is described by Bonnefoy et al. (2000): this installation is designed to support the interpretation of reflectance data from planetary surfaces. ...

Review of forestry oriented multi-angular remote sensing techniques

“…As already concluded by Verstraete and Pinty (2001), researchers in the field of multi-angular remote sensing are constantly facing the problem of "bridging the gap between theoretical studies of anisotropy and practical applications to exploit these features". With some of the presented studies it is shown that significant process has been made over the last years and a great variety of possible applications for multiangular remote sensing is apparent.…”