Calculating the NDVI From Multispectral Camera Images Using MATLAB, Part 1

This exercise is intended to help students to understand how to capture NDVI Red+NIR images using a MAPIR Survey2 NDVI Red+NIR camera, to import the images into MATLAB and to calculate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index.

The NDVI is an index to map live green vegetation. The index is based on the ratio of the difference of the red and infrared radiances. The pigments of plants strongly absorb visible light (400–700 nm) for the use in photosynthesis, whereas it reflects near-infrared light (700–1100 nm). The MAPIR Survey2 NDVI Camera measures Red (660 nm) and Infrared (850 nm) to calculate the NDVI. The exercise explains how to acquire images with the camera, to import and process the images with MATLAB, and to calculate the NDVI to identify vegetation in an image with MATLAB.