Projects

Plaknit is my thesis log for processing PlanetScope mosaics at scale—this page now centers on the workstreams, documentation, and talks that grow out of that repo.

Plaknit thesis log

Every commit in plaknit captures how I'm building the Satellite Anthrax Surveillance thesis—from PlanetScope ordering and QA to the automation that makes those mosaics repeatable.

  • PlanetScope focus - documenting how UDM-masked strips become seamless mosaics for the Texas Anthrax Triangle.
  • Automation notes - tracking CLI + Python API decisions so the GDAL/OTB workflow scales from laptops to HPC schedulers.
  • Analysis checkpoints - storing normalized-difference recipes and Random Forest experiments alongside the datasets they describe.

Toolkit workstreams

PlanetScope mosaic engine

GDAL-powered masking cleans each strip with its corresponding UDM raster before Orfeo Toolbox mosaics everything together using RAM hints tuned for multi-hundred scene jobs.

Spectral analysis helpers

Lightweight plaknit.analysis utilities compute normalized-difference indices straight from raster files or NumPy arrays, so I can benchmark vegetation stress without spinning up new notebooks.

Random Forest risk modeling

The plaknit.classify module handles training and inference against Planet stacks, keeping polygons, model binaries, and raster outputs in sync for disease-surveillance mapping.

Docs + teaching assets

The MkDocs site and supporting labs double as my own field manual—what I teach is what runs plaknit.

  • Installation & CLI walkthrough - step-by-step setup plus command reference. Read the guide
  • API reference - detailed docs for plaknit.mosaic, plaknit.analysis, and plaknit.classify. Browse functions
  • Example notebook - reproducible walkthrough of masking, mosaicking, and index generation. Open on GitHub
  • Remote sensing labs - UTK coursework (Pix4D QC, Earth Engine indices, classification drills) that feeds directly into plaknit QA habits. View a sample lab

Conference talks

I share plaknit progress and thesis findings with the geospatial community to pressure-test the workflow and invite collaborators.

  • AAG Disease Ecologies Session (March 2025, Detroit) - Landscape or Founder Effect? Examining Bacillus anthracis lineages in the Texas Anthrax Triangle.
  • ASPRS Mid-South (April 2025, Oak Ridge) — High-Resolution Land Cover and Phenological Analysis of Anthrax Outbreak Landscapes.
  • TN View Annual Webinar (September 2025) — Hog-Spot Analysis: Monitoring the Fiends of the Smokies.
  • UTK Geo-Symposium (January 2025) — Narrowly Avoided the Past: Remembering Nathan Bedford Forrest at Parker's Crossroads Battlefield.

Let's collaborate

If you want to adapt plaknit to a new landscape or need a workshop on PlanetScope processing, I would love to talk through it.