The National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS) is an American subjective scale used for rating the quality of

imagery Imagery is visual symbolism, or figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions, especially in a literary work, but also in other activities such as psychotherapy. Forms There are five major types of sensory ima ...

acquired from various types of

imaging Imaging is the representation or reproduction of an object's form; especially a visual representation (i.e., the formation of an image). Imaging technology is the application of materials and methods to create, preserve, or duplicate images. ...

systems. The NIIRS defines different levels of image quality/interpretability based on the types of tasks an analyst can perform with images of a given NIIRS rating. The idea is that imagery analysts should be able to perform more demanding interpretation tasks as the quality of the imagery increases. It is published as part of the

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who wo ...

Intelligence Resource Program. The NIIRS consists of 10 levels, from 0 (worst quality) to 9 (best quality). Because different types of imagery support different types of interpretation tasks, individual NIIRS has been developed for four major imaging types: Visible,

Radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

Infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

, and

Multispectral Multispectral imaging captures image data within specific wavelength ranges across the electromagnetic spectrum. The wavelengths may be separated by filters or detected with the use of instruments that are sensitive to particular wavelengths, ...

NIIRS Scale

References

External links

NIIRS Imagery examples Estimation of NIIRS, for High Resolution Satellite Images, Using the Simplified GIQE (pdf)An exploration of NIIRS, image quality, and machine learning by John M. Irvine, Steven A. Israel
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