Albedo: A Reflectance App
by Thomas Leeuw
🗂️ Tools
Version 1.4
📅 Updated April 1, 2016
Albedo is an app designed to measure the albedo (or reflectance) of a surface.
Features Albedo: A Reflectance App
Albedo is an app designed to measure the albedo (or reflectance) of a surface.
Albedo is simply defined as the ratio of light reflected from a surface to the light incident upon the surface.
The albedo of a surface can be easily interpreted as the percent of incident light reflected by the surface (e.g.
Albedo of fresh snow ~ 90%; Albedo of asphalt ~ 10%).
The Albedo app is able to measure both the broadband albedo (across the entire visible spectrum) and the spectral albedo in the red, green, and blue color channels of camera.IMPORTANT: Albedo requires the use of an 18% photographers gray card as a reference.
Gray cards are widely available at photography shops and online.
Visit the supporting website for more information on gray cards.Albedo has an easy to use interface that guides users through the collection of two images: a gray card image and an image of any surface.
After the images are collected they can be analyzed immediately.
In the analysis of the images, the Albedo app calculates the albedo of the surface in the RGB color channels of the camera.
The data is instantly saved and can be accessed again via the Albedo app or downloaded onto a computer from Albedos data folder.
How it works:Albedo uses the camera as simple light sensor (photometer).
Relative light intensity can be measured by normalizing the camera pixel values by the exposure.
Therefore, the three color channels of the camera (RGB: Red, Green, Blue) provide a measure of light intensity in three regions of the visible spectrum.
The light intensity reflected from the surface is measured when the user captures an image of the surface.
This is normalized by the ambient illumination using the gray card image.
The final product is a nearly illumination independent measure of the surface albedo.
Surface albedo is an important parameter used by environmental scientist to understand how different surfaces and substances interact with light.
Albedo is commonly used in climatology, astronomy, and geoengineering.
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What Our Users Say
Don't just take our word for it. Here's what our users have to say about our Android app.
"Lowkey mid had to download for school and its mid"
e boy69
"Albedo-ing a lot of testing with this!"
Nathan Dane
"Bad"
Logan W
"This seems really cool. I love science generally, but I really get hung up on things that have to do with energy transfer (everything from solar heat through electrical systems.) I learn it over and over and still never get it to stick. I never really thought about it, but an app like this kinda helps for some reason. Sort of thinking about reflection of light off objects in different circumstances gets me to at least have an analogy. I'm weird. Can't use it atm. No grey card. Morebut outof room"
klear6
"Great app and it works well!"
Yem Ehikhamenor
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