How low can it go: The Mountain Image Analysis Suite

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dc.contributor.authorFriesen, Hannah
dc.date.accessioned2026-04-27T15:07:25Z
dc.date.available2026-04-27T15:07:25Z
dc.date.issued2026
dc.description.abstractThe Mountain Image Analysis Suite (MIAS) is an open-source QGIS plugin developed to generate landcover viewsheds from oblique imagery, primarily applied to high elevation alpine landscape images through the Mountain Legacy Project. This study evaluates the efficacy of MIAS on low elevation, urban imagery using historic (1908) and contemporary (2022) repeat photograph pairs taken from Pkaals (Mt. Tolmie) towards PKOLS (formerly, Mt. Douglas) in Victoria, B.C. Four of the five MIAS processing steps were applied: [1] landcover classification, [2] virtual photograph production, [3] image alignment, and [4] viewshed creation. Results indicate that while MIAS shows promise for low elevation applications, further training is required for the deep learning models to accurately identify landcover without extensive manual correction. The existing deep learning model overproduced unclassified pixels while underrepresenting key landcover categories. Large foreground trees, temporal mismatches between imagery and DEM data, and classification scale incompatibilities posed additional challenges. Despite these limitations, MIAS demonstrates potential for quantifying landcover change in low elevations with further development, particularly for analyzing historic images predating aerial photography or on landscapes with variable topography.
dc.description.reviewstatusReviewed
dc.description.scholarlevelUndergraduate
dc.description.sponsorshipJamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/23732
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Victoria
dc.subjectGIS
dc.subjectQGIS
dc.subjectlandcover
dc.subjectMIAS
dc.subjectlow elevation
dc.subjectPKOLS
dc.subjectJamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA)
dc.subject.departmentSchool of Environmental Studies
dc.titleHow low can it go: The Mountain Image Analysis Suite
dc.typePoster

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