About the software and development team
ImageMeasurement was developed in 2004 for the initial purpose of measuring the width of riparian corridors from Very Large Scale Aerial (VLSA) imagery captured in northern Nevada as part of a Lahonton Cutthroat Trout habitat improvement effort. While GIS packages on the market facilitated measurements such as these from aerial imagery, such imagery had to first be orthorectified. Since the Nevada project produced thousands of discontinuous image scenes only a few meters wide, orthorectification for all frames was not feasible. ImageMeasurement facilitated linear and area measurements from images where the resolution was the only known parameter, and continues to be used in this way for measuring a variety of resources, including streams, rivers, bare ground patches, weed patches and plant canopy area.

The first version of SamplePoint was put into use in 2004, automating the Digital Grid Overlay process of manual vegetation cover analysis used by Terry Booth's research staff since 2002. SamplePoint has been the most widely-used of the software programs, downloaded by thousands of users from 80 countries (map below) since 2006. Most users measure vegetative cover with SamplePoint, but the software is versatile enough to measure % cover of any visible object from nadir imagery.
 

SampleFreq was developed in 2011 as a sister program to SamplePoint. It is used to measure plant frequency rather than cover, and has been validated by standardized multi-user testing.

D.T. Booth Rangeland Scientist (Retired) USDA Agricultural Research Service Rangeland Resources Research Unit Cheyenne, WY

Bob Berryman Computer Programmer Berryman Consulting Boulder, CO

Sam Cox Natural Resource Specialist USDI Bureau of Land Management Wyoming State Office Cheyenne, WY

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