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02/03/01 Dear All, I am a postgraduate student studying for a Masters in GIS at Nottingham University. For my dissertation I intend to evaluate the potential for urban morphological characteristics to be extracted from a high spatial resolution (4m) remotely sensed IKONOS image (obtained by the University) for an urban area in Yemen. Included within these characteristics would be land cover classes, density measures, the delineation of the urban-peri urban fringe and the configuration of the urban space within the settlement (using a space syntax methodology). IKONOS imagery provides a highly detailed picture of the shape of both buildings and other surface features and may potentially serve as a good supplement to traditional maps. Examples of the quality of IKONOS imagery may be found at www.spaceimaging.com. Last year I employed Space Syntax methodologies to the study of the urban form in the Scottish town of Ayr for my undergraduate dissertation at Edinburgh University. Something that struck me at the time was the potential for remotely sensed images to be used in the place of more traditional maps during the break up of settlements into convex spaces and the construction of the axial map. Remotely sensed images having the advantages of being more up to date than maps and being available for urban areas which are either not already mapped or where maps are available their scale limits detailed analysis. From a research point of view part of my Masters dissertation would focus on the extent to which open urban space could be deliminated from buildings and secondary boundaries on a high resolution IKONOS image in part of Yemen. This would performing a classification of the image using a range of image processing and feature extraction algorithms to find the best way of seperating the buildings and secondary boundaries from the open urban space. Followed by the construction of an axial map and its syntactic analysis using the Axwomen tool available for ArcView GIS. If anyone has any information on the extent to which remotely sensed images (or even aerial photographs) have been used in the place of map products for carrying out a Space Syntax analysis of urban areas I would be most grateful Thanks in advance, James _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.