The Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), Forest Inventory and Monitoring Environmetrics developed a software system for accuracy assessment of remotely sensed thematic maps and other GIS themes that include categorical variables (e.g., forest type maps, habitat quality categories, management action suitability). ACAS, standing for Accuracy Assessment was developed for Linux, a UNIX-like public domain operating system (OS) prior. Work under this T&D project was to make the existing application written in C++ and TCL/TK available through the FS intranet. There exists both a design language for scripting the analysis, and a data language for providing input to drive it. Outputs from the current program are contingency tables of conditional and unconditional probabilities, statistics, bar charts, and stacked bar charts. The program was built to accommodate 2 classes of users: those who develop analysis models, and those who will use the models to develop assessments.

Working with Rocky Mountian Research Station, Remote Sensing Application Center, and San Dimas T&DC, ACAS was re-compiled to run on a current Linux kernel. Tests were done to evaluate the effectiveness of accessing ACAS across the web. Software documentation and user instructions are being developed. When this doucumentation is complete, instructions for accessing ACAS through the web will be available for beta testers. Users will be able to upload data from their PC to ACAS and then download the reports. Providing ACAS via the web will provide for easier maintainenace and software upgrades in the future.