Volume 5, Number 2     March/April 1997

  Technology Transfer

Remote Sensing Helps Make Home Buying Easier

ASA AND A MISSISSIPPI REALTOR are working together to find a better way for prospective home buyers to find a new house. Coast Delta Realty owner Jon Ritten of Diamondhead, Mississippi, was interested in a computerized way for showing buyers many different aspects of property without actually having to leave the office. To do this, he called on the Commercial Remote Sensing Program (CRSP) at NASA's Stennis Space Center for its expertise in remote sensing. CRSP is an element of NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth.

A Global Positioning System is set up in Diamondhead, Mississippi, so that a very detailed digital mapping system can be developed.

Remote sensing uses sensors that are either based on the ground or mounted on aircraft and spacecraft to view the Earth. Ground-based remote sensing systems look out over the horizon, while air- and space-based systems look down on the Earth's surface. Pictures or imagery acquired from these systems are combined with related information to produce up-to-the-minute maps, track weather events, measure terrain, map forests and wetlands, find agricultural problems and create databases of urban infrastructure.

Ritten and CRSP developed a very detailed digital mapping system of the Diamondhead area, showing numerous characteristics of developed and undeveloped property. Ritten provided CRSP with the common real estate questions and concerns, and NASA used remote sensing to help provide the answers.

"Working with NASA, I thought I would be dealing with folks who wouldn't understand what I was trying to do, and I certainly wouldn't understand the technology," said Ritten. "I was very surprised that our communication and interface was very simple. CRSP personnel have taken the technology down to a level that, as a layman, I can understand. It's been a very easy process for me."

"The connection between satellite remote sensing and real estate is natural," said Richard Campanella, a remote sensing/geographic information systems specialist with Lockheed Martin at Stennis. "People looking for real estate—prospective home buyers—become geographers. So an airborne or satellite image is a natural way to communicate geographic information."

CRSP collected remotely sensed imagery over Diamondhead, primarily using airborne sensors, and put it into a computer mapping system. The imagery was then referenced to the geographic location in Diamondhead and interpreted by CRSP to identify specific geographic information, such as potential flood areas, percent of shade on the lot, setback distance between the street and the house, visibility from a particular house, areas of interest in a neighborhood, and sites of houses, stores, developments and retail areas.

"I think with the information products this technology will offer, it is going to allow the industry to provide more services to their clients and perhaps cut down on the necessary efforts by the sales representatives to meet the needs of their clients," said Cliff Holle, another Lockheed Martin remote sensing/geographic information systems specialist.

The remote sensing information obtained also has many other applications outside of the real estate industry. Insurance underwriters, engineering firms, local/municipal government, investors and emergency planners may use this same information to determine risk, build a road, create a base map, site a shopping mall or plan an evacuation route.

For more information, contact Bruce Davis at Stennis Space Center.
Call 601/688-2042,Fax 601/688-7455, E-mail: crsphome@ssc.nasa.gov
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