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International Journal of Remote

Sensing
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tres20

Remote sensing with IDRISI Taiga: a

beginner's guide, by Timothy A. Warner
and David J.
David R. Green

University of Aberdeen , Aberdeen, UK

Published online: 19 Sep 2011.

To cite this article: David R. Green (2011) Remote sensing with IDRISI Taiga: a beginner's guide, by
Timothy A. Warner and David J., International Journal of Remote Sensing, 32:22, 7901-7902, DOI:
10.1080/01431161.2010.516721
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2010.516721

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International Journal of Remote Sensing

Vol. 32, No. 22, 20 November 2011, 79017902

Book review

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Remote sensing with IDRISI Taiga: a beginners guide, by Timothy A. Warner and David J.
Campagna, Geocarto International Centre, Hong Kong, 2009, 298 pp., $50 (US), CD ROM
included (ISBN 978-962-8226-27-6).
The Idrisi software from Clark Labs (www.clarklabs.org) is well known in the world of remote
sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS). Taiga, the latest release of Idrisi, is a powerful suite of software to input, store, manipulate, analyse and visualize both vector and raster
data sets. More recently it has been enhanced by the inclusion of the Land Change Modeler.
For the educator and practitioner, one advantage of the Idrisi software is that it is relatively
low-cost, and is accompanied by comprehensive online documentation including a user guide,
and tutorials with data sets that can be used to learn about the various tools, techniques and
applications of the software. There are also several United Nations Institute for Training and
Research (UNITAR) workbooks, data sets, and a database application, Cartalinx, available.
So why is there a need for this new beginners guide to remote sensing with Idrisi? This new
guide is a combination of an introductory textbook on remote sensing and one on digital image
processing with a number of worked examples to help explore the functionality of the Idrisi
software for the processing of digital images. In many ways this guide goes beyond the built-in
tutorials that come with the software, focusing specifically on the image processing, analysis and
visualization capabilities of Idrisi Taiga, as well as demonstrating the integration of geographical
data with worked examples.
The book comprises nine chapters, an afterword, a list of references and appendices pointing the reader to sources of both free data sets and data to purchase. It is logically organized,
attractively produced, and the inclusion of the practical exercise instructions within coloured
text boxes makes it very easy to follow, as a guide for a taught class or for self-instruction. The
short list of reference sources provides pointers to additional information on aspects of remote
sensing and image processing covered in more detail by other textbooks on the subject. The
structure of the text is similar to most other textbooks on remote sensing and digital image processing. The book starts with an introductory chapter on the basics of Idrisi Taiga, and the next
chapter explores the display of data. This is followed by a chapter on aspects of data preparation before examining image enhancement, simple and advanced classification techniques, and,
finally, change detection. At each stage the book includes colour illustrations of the software
interface as well as a detailed explanation of the task results. The latter is particularly useful
and important to help a student satisfactorily complete an exercise.
This is a lengthy and quite dense book, and there is plenty of information in it to make this
a self-contained volume for instructional purposes. As a text suitable for short courses there is
probably a little too much material here to work with without being selective, something that
does not always work well in practice. However, as a textbook for a longer course that combines
the basics of theory with practice it is ideal. The text is packed with useful information and
includes a CD ROM with the digital data sets for each of the tutorial exercises. The latter is
very welcome as it is really essential for any software-based tutorials to have some real data sets
available. A novel feature associated with the book, and one that could be useful in the future, is
the link to the blog. When I accessed this there was not a lot on the blog yet, other than a query
about why image segmentation was not included in the books coverage! The answer to this
question is, I suspect, that it is simply not possible to include everything in a single volume! But
the future potential of the blog will be evident to many people who purchase this volume, as it

International Journal of Remote Sensing

ISSN 0143-1161 print/ISSN 1366-5901 online
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2010.516721

7902

Book review

Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 04:52 27 May 2014

potentially offers a direct way to communicate with the authors and others to address questions
and problems associated with using Idrisi Taiga for image-processing applications.
Overall this is a very well written and produced book by two well-known authors and experts
in their field. It is a useful resource and one that provides a good level of support for the reader
and practitioner alike. One minor concern might be the specificity of the software version for
which this book is applicable. Given the relatively frequent updates of the Idrisi software this
might make it difficult to keep the book up to date, or make it so useful when there is a new
release of the software. As a text it is also quite reasonably priced at $50 (US) and should
easily find an audience with both educators (even in secondary or high school education) and
the practitioner. In many ways this book also helps to remind people that Idrisi is not just
GIS software but an integrated software package that contains a very powerful suite of digital
image-processing software as well.
Professor David R. Green
University of Aberdeen, UK
d.r.green@abdn.ac.uk
2011 David R. Green