Plot to Plane: Working with NASA and NEON Airborne and Field Datasets

NASA’s airborne science program and the NSF-funded National Ecological Observatory Network’s (NEON’s) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) offer complementary remote sensing datasets ideal for carrying out large-scale ecological research. Both facilities operate similar airborne imaging spectrometers to collect visible to shortwave infrared (VSWIR) hyperspectral data, supporting regional ecosystem studies.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC) archives data from NASA-funded ecological campaigns focusing on diverse environments such as river deltas and wetlands, the arctic, and tropics across multiple continents (North and Central America, South Africa). NEON’s AOP gathers high-resolution hyperspectral imagery, lidar, and RGB photography at 81 U.S. sites, offering repeat data spanning 2-10 years, with collections starting in 2013.

This workshop introduces NEON and NASA airborne and field datasets through live-coding exercises presented as Python Jupyter Notebook tutorials, demonstrating data access, exploration, and analysis. Participants will learn to apply these datasets to answer ecological research questions, gaining insights into regional and landscape areas of interest.

This workshop is hosted by National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), NASA Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC) with support from the NASA Openscapes project.

Hands-on exercises will be executed from a Jupyter Hub on the Openscapes 2i2c cloud instance.

Agenda

Time Description Leads/Instructors
8:00 AM Introduction: NEON and NASA Airborne and Field Data Bridget Hass and Michele Thornton
8:05 AM Overview of NEON Airborne Observation Platform Bridget Hass
8:30 AM NEON Notebooks: Reflectance Visualization and Classification Bridget Hass
9:30 AM Break
9:35 AM Overview of Recent NASA Airborne Missions (SHIFT, BioSCape, AVUELO) Michele Thornton
10:00 AM NASA Notebooks: Discovery and Analysis of VegPlot and AVIRIS Instrument Data Michele Thornton
10:55 AM Discussion and Wrap Up All

Contact Info

NEON AOP

Organization National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP)1
Website https://neonscience.org/
Contact https://www.neonscience.org/about/contact-us

1NEON is a project fully funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by Battelle.

ORNL DAAC

Organization NASA Earthdata Data Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC)
Website https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/centers/ornl-daac
Contact NASA Earthdata Forum: https://forum.earthdata.nasa.gov, ORNL DAAC -