Victor Epitropou

Environmental data extraction from multimedia resources

Extraction and analysis of environmental information is very important, since it strongly affects everyday life. Nowadays there are already many free services providing environmental information in several formats including multimedia (e.g. map images). Although such presentation formats might be very informative for humans, they complicate the automatic extraction and processing of the underlying data. A characteristic example is the air quality and pollen forecasts, which are usually encoded in image maps, while the initial (numerical) pollutant concentrations remain unavailable. This work proposes a framework for the semi-automatic extraction of such information based on a template configuration tool, on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques and on methodologies for data reconstruction from images. The system is tested with a different air quality and pollen forecast heatmaps demonstrating promising results.

A New Environmental Image Processing Method for Chemical Weather Forecasts in Europe

It is common practice to present environmental information of spatial nature (like atmospheric quality patterns) in the form of pre-processed images. The current paper deals with the harmonization, comparison and reuse of Chemical Weather (CW) forecasts in the form of pre-processed images of varying quality and informational content, without having access to the original data. In order to compare, combine and reuse such environmental data, an innovative method for the inverse reconstruction of environmental data from images, was developed. The method is based on a new, neural adaptive data interpolation algorithm, and is tested on CW images coming from various European providers. Results indicate a very good performance that renders this method as appropriate to be used in various image-processing problems that require data reconstruction, retrieval and reuse.

Extraction of Environmental Data from On-Line Environmental Information Sources

Analysis of environmental information is considered of utmost importance for humans, since environmental conditions are strongly related to health issues and to a variety of everyday activities. Despite the fact that there are already many free on-line services providing environmental information, there are several cases, in which the presentation format complicates the extraction and processing of such data. A very characteristic example is the air quality forecasts, which are usually encoded in image maps of heterogeneous formats, while the initial (numerical) pollutant concentrations, calculated and predicted by a relevant model, remain unavailable. This work addresses the task of semi-automatic extraction of such information based on a template configuration tool, on methodologies for data reconstruction from images, as well as on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques. The framework is tested with a number of air quality forecast heatmaps demonstrating satisfactory results.

A European Chemical Weather Forecasting Portal

The European Chemical Weather Forecasting Portal (ECWFP) has been developed within the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) ES0602 action, “Towards a European Network on Chemical Weather Forecasting and Information Systems”. The portal provides access to the predictions of a substantial number of chemical weather forecasting systems and may be used to find out which services are available for specific (1) areas, (2) time periods and (3) pollutants. The portal serves as a “one stop shop” of chemical weather modeling services and associated information, and is currently expanding its functionalities to allow for a harmonized presentation and inter-comparison of the various available forecasts, as well as for the computation of model ensemble predictions.

Environmental data extraction from heatmaps using the AirMerge system

The AirMerge platform was designed and constructed to increase the availability and improve the interoperability of heatmap-based environmental data on the Internet. This platform allows data from multiple heterogeneous chemical weather data sources to be continuously collected and archived in a unified repository; all the data in this repository have a common data format and access scheme. In this paper, we address the technical structure and applicability of the AirMerge platform. The platform facilitates personalized information services, and can be used as an environmental information node for other web-based information systems. The results demonstrate the feasibility of this approach and its potential for being applied also in other areas, in which image-based environmental information retrieval will be needed.