





(Tested on Android 2.1 and Nexus One phones. Note that the app requires unobstructed images of the sky. Download also available from Android Marketplace with the name 'Visibility'.)

Airborne particulate matter is a serious threat to both our health and the environment. It is also the primary cause for visibility degradation in urban metropolitan areas. We are working towards an optical technique to measure air visibility (and hence an estimate of some kinds of air pollution) using cameras and other sensors available on smartphones.

Our idea is that using a simple application for the Android phone, users take pictures of the sky. Each picture is tagged with location, orientation, and time data and transferred to a backend server. Visibility is estimated by first calibrating these image radiometrically and then comparing the intensity with an established model of sky luminance.

Details of the algorithms can be found in this document.

You can help us improve our app by contributing data. If you have an Android phone, please download the .apk file above. The map below shows images from the people who have downloaded and used the application.

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People

For questions about this project please contact Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme (gaurav[AT]usc[DOT]edu)