In preparation of the micro-bolometer-based MIcro Satellite for Thermal Infrared GRound surface Imaging (MISTIGRI) mission, we study the error budget of the Temperature-Emissivity Separation (TES) method using several spectral configurations that differ in channel numbers, locations, and widths. The error budget quantifies the contribution of 1) the TES underlying assumption about emissivity spectral contrast, 2) the errors on atmospheric corrections, and 3) the instrumental noise. When dealing with atmospheric corrections, we consider errors in atmospheric temperature, water vapor content, and concentrations of CO 2 and O 3 . To that end, we design an end-to-end simulator of MISTIGRI measurements in order to simulate the radiative and biophysical quantities involved in the data processing. We conduct numerous simulations over a wide range of realistic setups that include cavity effect, i.e., radiance trapping within vegetation canopy. In the case of micro-bolometer-based sensing, the current study highlights that atmospheric and instrumental noises have similar impacts on the TES retrievals, with resulting errors twice as large as those due to the TES intrinsic assumption about spectral contrast, where the latter contributes to the TES error budget within the [0.005–0.009] interval for emissivity, and within the [0.3–0.4 K] interval for land surface temperature (LST). Also, we show that retrieval performance of surface temperature is very similar across all considered MISTIGRI spectral configurations, with RMSE variation within 0.2 K. Eventually, our study permits us to select a 4-channels spectral configuration as the most suited for the MISTIGRI instrument, notably because it enables a moderately better capture of the emissivity contrast than a 3-channels one.

ECOMOS is a multinational effort within the framework of an EDA Project Arrangement. Its aim is to provide a generally accepted and harmonized European computer model for computing nominal Target Acquisition (TA) ranges of optronic imagers operating in the Visible or thermal Infrared (IR). The project involves close co-operation of defense and security industry and public research institutes from five nations: France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden. ECOMOS will use and combine existing European tools, to build up a strong competitive position. In Europe, there are two well-accepted approaches for providing TA performance data: the German TRM (Thermal Range Model) model and the Netherlands TOD (Triangle Orientation Discrimination) method. ECOMOS will include both approaches. The TRM model predicts TA performance analytically, whereas the TOD prediction model utilizes the TOD test method, imaging simulation and a Human Visual System model in order to assess device performance. For the characterization of atmosphere and environment, ECOMOS uses the French model and software MATISSE (Modélisation Avancée de la Terre pour l'Imagerie et la Simulation des Scènes et de leur Environnement). The first software implementation of ECOMOS has been finalized in spring 2019. In this presentation, the key features implemented in the current version are elucidated. In addition, the final ECOMOS software structure as well as an overview of the user guidance within ECOMOS are shown.

ECOMOS is a multinational effort within the framework of an EDA Project Arrangement. Its aim is to provide a generally accepted and harmonized European computer model for computing nominal Target Acquisition (TA) ranges of optronic imagers operating in the Visible or thermal Infrared (IR). The project involves close co-operation of defence and security industry and public research institutes from France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden. ECOMOS uses and combines well-accepted existing European tools to build up a strong competitive position. This includes two TA models: the analytical TRM4 model and the image-based TOD model. In addition, it uses the atmosphere model MATISSE. In this paper, the central idea of ECOMOS is exposed. The overall software structure and the underlying models are shown and elucidated. The status of the project development is given as well as a short discussion of validation tests and an outlook on the future potential of simulation for sensor assessment.

MATISSE which acronym means Advanced Modeling of the Earth for Environment and Scenes Simulation is developed by ONERA since the mid 1990’s. The code main functionality is to compute spectral or integrated natural background radiance images. Natural backgrounds include the atmosphere, low and high altitude clouds, sea and land. It can also provide specific radiative atmospheric terms as path transmission, path radiances, sky radiances or local illumination around a target point. Spectral bandwidth ranges from 700 to 25000 cm-1 wavenumber (i.e. from 0.4 to 14 μm). As far as molecular absorption is concerned, MATISSE v2.0 is based on a correlated K (CK) model and needs a pre-generation of the k-distributions. This method is very precise but is time consuming and is done as an offline calculation. In answer to the increasing need of rapid radiative transfer codes, the future version of the MATISSE v3.0 will include a fast radiative transfer model at low and at medium spectral resolution. This work aims to develop a fast wide band CK model for the acceleration of radiative transfer calculation. As a first step, a statistical k-distributions fast generator was developed. It allows generating k-distributions from 700 to 25000 cm-1 with a spectral resolution of 1 cm-1 in less than 30 ms(*) for one altitude (that means about three orders of magnitude faster than before). Such speed allows generating k-distributions online. To validate the model, we have compared the obtained transmission spectra with reference spectra using a mix of 6 molecules (H2O, CO2, O3, N2O, CO, CH4) in homogenous atmosphere corresponding to different altitudes from 0 to 105 km. Reference spectra were calculated as the convolution of a spectrum obtained with a line by line model and a gate function of 1 cm-1 wide. An average difference of 3×10-3 % and a standard deviation of 3.3% were typically obtained. As a second step, this method of rapid k-distributions generation is now being coupled with a wideband radiative transfer model. In this paper, after a brief presentation of MATISSE and a description of the method, first results will be presented and discussed.

MATISSE-V3.0 will include a new radiative transfer core based on a wide band CK model. To accelerate the k-distributions generation step, a new code was developed and allows this generation three orders of magnitude faster than before.

A new simulator devoted to urban environment is presented. Its aims at generating the synthetic scene viewed by an infrared sensor after solving the direct heat transfer problem at the surface level. The software SOLENE (CERMA, Nantes) was coupled with two tools for realising this task: SUSHI (Simulation in Urban Scene of Heat dIffusion) and MOHICANS. SUSHI purpose is to compute the external surface temperature of a building based on a 1D or a 2D heat transfer model. The 2D model is used in specific parts of the walls for simulating the impact of the thermal bridges on the façade temperature. Then, MOHICANS yields the infrared at-sensor radiance taking account reflections and atmosphere radiative contributions. A joined ground and airborne experiment has been done to validate this simulator. The results of this validation are presented showing a good adequacy between simulated and measured values for both temperature and infrared radiance.

The validation of the sea surface infrared optical properties multiresolution model developed at ONERA is investigated by comparison with measurements. The images were obtained during the MIRAMER campaign that took place in May 2008 in the Mediterranean Sea. The sea radiance model and optical properties are expressed and the experimental setup of the campaign is briefly presented. We focus on solar glint measurements collected the 22(th) of May at 5 h 59mn 50s in the MWIR bandwidth on-board the R/V ATALANTE at grazing observational angle. A sensitivity analysis of glitter radiance on atmospheric and aerosol profiles in the vicinity of the measured contextual parameters is presented. Modelled and measured images are compared and results are delved further by comparisons of histograms, averaged vertical and horizontal profiles. Errors are under those potentially due to calibration. Finally, a sensitivity analysis upon uncertainties on contextual parameters involved in sea radiance computation is made.

MATISSE (Advanced Modeling of the Earth for Environment and Scenes Simulation) is an infrared background scene generator developed for computing natural background spectral radiance images. The code also provides atmospheric radiatives quantities along lines of sight. Spectral bandwidth ranges from 0.4 to 14 μm. Natural backgrounds include atmosphere, sea, land and high and low altitude clouds. The new version MATISSE-v2.0, released this year, has been designed to treat spatial multi resolution in the generated images in order to be able to reach metric spatial variability in pixels footprints. Moreover, MATISSE-v2.0 includes a new sea surface radiance model (water waves and surface optical properties) which depends on wind speed, wind direction and fetch value. Preliminary validations using radiometric measurements have been conducted concerning sea radiances and give promising results. In order to go further in the validation process of MATISSE-v2.0, comparisons with MODIS satellite images have been led. The results of comparing the simulated MATISSE images radiances with the MODIS observations show that the code is performing well. This paper gives a description of MATISSE-v2.0 new functionalities and focus on first results on comparison between MATISSE/MODIS images radiances.

We improve the validation of the sea surface infrared optical properties multiresolution model implemented in MATISSE-v2.0, in the 1D case, by comparison with a reference model using a sub-millimeter discretization of the surface. A set of numerical tests is made for various wind speeds, resolutions and realizations of the sea surface. The tests show a good agreement between the results except for grazing angles, where the influence of inner and mutual multiple reflections and adjacent shadowing has still to be investigated.

MATISSE which acronym means Advanced Modeling of the Earth for Environment and Scenes Simulation is an infrared background scene generator developed by Onera since the mid 1990'. MATISSE main goal is to compute radiance images of natural backgrounds and radiative quantities such as local illumination, spectral transmission, and spectral radiance along lines of sight.The new version MATISSE-v2.0 has been completed during the first quarter of 2010 and the public version is going to be released in few weeks. This latest version uses a multi resolution spatial scheme in order to treat the natural backgrounds with spatial footprint from kilometre sizes (satellite viewing) down to metric sizes. Up to now, this spatial scheme has been used in order to generate infrared images of sea surface. The new sea surface model (water waves and surface optical properties) has been partially validated by using a specific Mediterranean campaign. MATISSE-v2.0 is also accompanied with a new set of GUI (graphical user interface) in order to help the user in defining its computational case. The code is also designed in order to be interfaced with other applications.Our presentation will be devoted to a description of MATISSE-v2.0 new features, with examples of sea surface scenes exemplifying the new code functionalities.

We improve the validation of the sea surface infrared optical properties multiresolution model implemented in MATISSE-v2.0, in the 1D case, by comparison with a reference model using a sub-millimeter discretization of the surface. A set of numerical tests is made for various wind speeds, resolutions and realizations of the sea surface. The tests show a good agreement between the results except for grazing angles, where the influence of inner and mutual multiple reflections and adjacent shadowing has still to be investigated.

The validation of the multiresolution model of sea surface infrared optical properties developed at ONERA is investigated in the one-dimensional case by comparison with a reference model, using a submillimeter discretization of the surface. Having expressed the optical properties, we detail the characteristics of each model. A set of numerical tests is made for various wind speeds, resolutions, and realizations of the sea surface. The tests show a good agreement between the results except for grazing angles, where the impact of multiple reflections and the effects of adjacent rough surfaces on shadow have to be investigated.

The SE-WORKBENCH workshop, also called CHORALE (French acceptation for "simulated Optronic Acoustic Radar battlefield") is used by the French DGA (MoD) and several other Defense organizations and companies all around the World to perform multi-sensors simulations. CHORALE enables the user to create virtual and realistic multi spectral 3D scenes that may contain several types of target, and then generate the physical signal received by a sensor, typically an IR sensor. The SE-WORKBENCH can be used either as a collection of software modules through dedicated GUIs or as an API made of a large number of specialized toolkits. The SE-WORKBENCH is made of several functional block: one for geometrically and physically modeling the terrain and the targets, one for building the simulation scenario and one for rendering the synthetic environment, both in real and non real time. Among the modules that the modeling block is composed of, SE-ATMOSPHERE is used to simulate the atmospheric conditions of a Synthetic Environment and then to integrate the impact of these conditions on a scene. This software product generates an exploitable physical atmosphere by the SE WORKBENCH tools generating spectral images. It relies on several external radiative transfer models such as MODTRAN V4.2 in the current version. MATISSE [4,5] is a background scene generator developed for the computation of natural background spectral radiance images and useful atmospheric radiative quantities (radiance and transmission along a line of sight, local illumination, solar irradiance ...). Backgrounds include atmosphere, low and high altitude clouds, sea and land. A particular characteristic of the code is its ability to take into account atmospheric spatial variability (temperatures, mixing ratio, etc) along each line of sight. An Application Programming Interface (API) is included to facilitate its use in conjunction with external codes. MATISSE is currently considered as a new external radiative transfer model to be integrated in SE-ATMOSPHERE as a complement to MODTRAN. Compared to the latter which is used as a whole MATISSE can be used step by step and modularly as an API: this can avoid to pre compute large atmospheric parameters tables as it is done currently with MODTRAN. The use of MATISSE will also enable a real coupling between the ray tracing process of the SEWORKBENCH and the radiative transfer model of MATISSE. This will lead to the improvement of the link between a general atmospheric model and a specific 3D terrain. The paper will demonstrate the advantages for the SE WORKEBNCH of using MATISSE as a new atmospheric code, but also for computing the radiative properties of the sea surface.

MATISSE is a background scene generator developed for the computation of natural background spectral radiance images and useful atmospheric radiatives quantities (radiance and transmission along a line of sight, local illumination, solar irradiance ...). The spectral bandwidth ranges from 0.4 to 14 μm. Natural backgrounds include atmosphere (taking into account spatial variability), low and high altitude clouds, sea and land. The current version MATISSE-v1.5 can be run on SUN and IBM workstations as well as on PC under Windows and Linux environment. An IHM developed under Java environment is also implemented. MATISSE-v2.0 recovers all the MATISSE-v1.5 functionalities, and includes a new sea surface radiance model depending on wind speed, wind direction and the fetch value. The release of this new version in planned for April 2009. This paper gives a description of MATISSE-v1.5 and MATISSE-v2.0 and shows preliminary comparison results between generated images and measured images during the MIRAMER campaign, which hold in May 2008 in the Mediterranean Sea.

The MIRAMER field campaign took place in the Mediterranean Sea during May 2008, both ground-based and on board an oceanographic ship. Radiometric datasets along with the associated environmental measurements have been collected in various environmental and observation conditions. It is dedicated to the validation of the sea surface optical properties model implemented in the MATISSE-v2.0 code. This analytical sea surface optical properties model in the infrared band is described. It allows the introduction of multiresolution in the simulated field-of-view answering the need in computed images including any observational configurations. It is valid for fully-developed seas, includes shadowing and hiding functions but not breaking and foam nor multiple reflections. First comparisons between simulations and measurements are presented in this paper.

An analytical model of sea optical properties has been developed in order to generate sea surface images, as seen by an infrared sensor. This model is based on a statistical approach and integrates the spatial variability of a wind-roughened sea surface whose variability ranges from a 1-m to a kilometer scale. It also takes into account submetric variability. A two-scale approach has been applied by superimposing small scale variability (smaller than the pixel footprint) to larger ones. Introducing multiresolution in the sensor field of view allows the requirement of any observational configuration, including nadir as well as grazing view geometry. The physical background of the methods has been tested against theoretical considerations. We also obtained a good agreement with dataset collections at our disposal and taken from the literature, such that a bias shows up at grazing angles, mainly explained by not taking into account multiple reflections. Applied to the generation of synthetic sea surface radiance images, our model leads to good quality ocean scenes, whatever the contextual conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to take into account the spatial variability of a wind-roughened sea surface from 1-meter to large scale including sub-metric variability. An analytical model of infrared sea surface optical properties based on a statistical approach is proposed. We introduce a new two-scale model consisting in superimposing the small scale variability (smaller than the pixel footprint) to the large scale one. The analytical expressions given in literature are extended to account for any slope mean vector-value and covariance matrix, and the statistical properties are determined for the resolution required by the observational configuration.Verifications of the physical validity of this new approach are presented. They globally show a good agreement. A bias is observed at grazing angles, mainly explained by the fact that the multiple reflections are ignored.Our model has also been implemented for the generation of synthetic sea surface radiance images, showing its ability to produce good quality ocean scenes in various contextual conditions.

We are interested in the infrared radiative modelling of wind-roughened Gaussian sea for surface length from one meter to several kilometers. For the considered spectral bandwidth, the relations beween geometrical optics and global optical properties are already known for centered Gaussian sea surface. In our case, for resolutions under sea correlation length, processes have non-zero mean value and literature's expressions are incomplete. Thus, we extend them to account for any surface length. Hiding and shadowing are included. Only single reflections are treated. The numerical method requires the mean vector-valued and covariance matrix of slopes processes for any resolution. To estimate those parameters, a new two-scale method is introduced, combining statistical approach with geometrical surface generation : the "variable step method". Finally, illustrations show our ability to produce good quality ocean scenes in various contextual conditions.

This paper presents the MATISSE-v1.4 code whose main functionality is to compute spectral or integrated natural background radiance images. The spectral bandwidth extends from 765 to 3300 cm-1 (3 to 13 μm) with a 5 cm-1 resolution. Natural backgrounds include the atmosphere, low and high altitude clouds, sea and land. The most particular functionality of the code is to take into account atmospheric spatial variability quantities (temperatures, mixing ratio, etc) along each line of sight of the image. In addition to image generation capacity, the code computes atmospheric radiance and transmission along a line of sight with the same spectral characteristics as in imaging mode. In this case atmospheric refraction effects and radiation from high or low altitude clouds can be taken into account. A high spectral resolution mode is also available to propagate radiation from a high temperature medium in the same atmospheric state as that used for the image generation. Finally, an Application Programming Interface (API) is included to facilitate its use in conjunction with external codes. This paper describes the range of functionalities of MATISSE-v1.4 whose release is planned for April 2006. Future developments are also presented.

In this paper we present MATISSE 1.1 a new background scene generator, whose goal is to compute spectral or integrated radiance images of natural background, as well as the transmission of a hot gas signature. The spectral bandwidth for this version of the code is from 750 to 3300 cm-1 (3 to 13 μm) with a 5 cm-1 resolution. Gaseous absorption is computed by a Correlated K model. The spatial variability of atmospheric quantities (temperatures and mixing ratios, among others) is taken into account, using variable profiles along the line of sight. Natural backgrounds include the atmospheric background, low altitude clouds and the Earth ground. The radiation models used are designed for observation at low spatial resolution of clouds and soils, so a texture model was developed to increase the high spatial resolution rendering in the metric range. Intermediate outputs of the code deliver radiance and transmission restricted to a single line of sight, in which case atmospheric refraction effects are taken into account. Along this line of sight the transmission can also be computed using a line-by-line model, which is useful to propagate the radiation emitted by a hot gas source (fires, aircraft or missile plume). MATISSE 1.1 was released in June 2002, so this paper is devoted to a presentation of the first results obtained with the code and some validation tests.