What Is Change Detection Analytics from Geosys?
September 3, 2020 Providing imagery for interpretation by retail agronomists and advisers can provide strong value by making field changes more apparent. But it still requires a vigilant, trained eye to determine when something is changing in a field early enough to take effective action.
To help agronomists to better manage the mountain of imagery data available through the season, satellite data provider Geosys has developed what it calls Change Detection analytics to automatically identify when something is happening that needs to be checked out.
The analytics were tested in 2019 with 25,000 fields before launching Change Detection 1.0, which is based on three components of change using NDVI values:
- Trend: Did the field experience the same change? Did all pixels change the same amount?
- Type: Is the field variability the same? Are the good spots still good and the bad spots still bad?
- Intensity: Is the overall NDVI distribution the same? Does the histogram of the NDVI values overlap?
Instead of flipping through a library of maps, Change Detection 1.0 tells the user which two maps to review for a given field and provides a Change Index Score from zero to 10 so users can understand the level of change.
Agree Decision Ag, the precision ag division of Emmetts in Australia, has been using the Croptical tool from Geosys since 2018. They integrated the Field Focus alert system which provides a Change Index Score for each field subscribed in their system.
“It’s a brilliant tool,” says Laura Bruce, Precision Agronomist for Agree. “It prioritizes the data by farmer so I can quickly gather the insights our customers need to make the best decisions. It allows me to easily see what’s happening and where I need to focus my attention.”
Geosys continues to adapt and expand this offering with input from customers using the analytics in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and South Africa.
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