
Learn to set up Python with Miniconda and Jupyter, master data types, control flow, and libraries, handle files, and apply NumPy, SciPy, visualization, and geospatial AI to real-world case studies.
There are various ways to install and run Python along with its tools and libraries. In this learning series, we will be using "Miniconda" to install and run Python. Miniconda is a smaller version of Anaconda that comes with Python, conda, and a few pre-installed packages, including pip.
To get started, visit the Miniconda website: https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html and download the appropriate version for your computer. For example, I will be downloading "Miniconda 3 Windows 64-bit" for my computer.
Learn to create and activate conda environments within Anaconda, manage the base environment, and install packages like numpy and seaborn using conda install.
Learn to run Python from command line, use the interactive shell, and run scripts saved as .py. Create programs with print, save with notepad, and execute to see hello world.
Explore control flow in Python by using conditional statements, loops, and function calls to drive program behavior, with examples of if-else, while loops, and comparisons.
Learn how to define and name a function in Python, pass arguments, and reuse the same function across calls.
Learn to work with modules in Python by creating packages from related modules, saving and importing models, and using built-in and installer package imports.
Learn Python file handling with the open function, using modes for reading, appending, writing, and creating files, including opening and closing a sample data file.
Learn how to manage directories in Python by using the os module to change the current working directory and list files in the home directory.
Import a crop health csv in pandas, inspect for missing values and outliers, fill gaps with means, clip ndVi to -1 and 1, and convert health to binary.
Apply NumPy for scientific computing by creating arrays, computing max, min, mean, and median, and analyzing correlations with random data.
Advance scientific computing with SciPy by describing data and performing interpolation and integration. Handle data formats MATLAB nets and IDF, import and generate X and Y data, and evaluate p-values.
Explore descriptive statistics in Python by computing mean, median, variance, standard deviation, and percentiles; analyze correlations, covariance, and linear regression using pandas and SciPy.
Learn to compute zonal statistics in Python by summarizing raster data within shapefile boundaries, producing metrics like mean, max, min, and standard deviation per zone.
Learn plotting in python with matplotlib and seaborn to create time series and two-variable plots, read data from github, and customize labels, titles, colors, and figure sizes in jupyter.
Explore creating heatmaps, scatterplots, 3D plots, and joint plots with seaborn in Python, including data cleaning, subplots, color mapping, and gender and happiness analyses.
Explore specialized plotting techniques in Python, including pie charts with palettes, animated scatter plots of life expectancy vs GDP per capita over time, and categorical plots using Titanic data.
Set up a gpu-enabled TensorFlow environment for machine learning and deep learning with conda, CUDA 11.3, cuDNN 8.2, verify GPU availability, and train a simple MNIST neural network.
Master geospatial data processing to detect and count plants with Python, using Geopandas, Rasterio, and OpenCV to read shapefiles, mask rasters, and extract plant coordinates.
Develop a python-based workflow to predict crop health from remote sensing data using ndvi, zonal statistics, and a three-layer neural network with TensorFlow and rasterio, geopandas, and numpy.
Case study one LAI and LST part one
Case study one LAI and LST part two
Remove outliers using the IQR method and group data by state to compute mean pollutant levels (SO2, NO2, SPM) with pandas. Impute missing values and derive AQI for state-level results.
Explore exploratory data analysis (EDA) of India's air quality data using visualizations, correlations, and regression models to forecast AQI with feature selection and cross-validation.
Explore how multicollinearity affects regression models for India's air quality. Apply variance inflation factor, cross-validation, and ridge regression within machine learning to detect, evaluate, and mitigate overfitting.
Explore geospatial and climate data analysis with Python using xray to work with multi-dimensional arrays, covering daily gridded observation data, precipitation, temperatures, and cmip6 climate projections.
Learn to use Xarray to open multiple data files, concatenate datasets, and save netcdf, then work with monthly and annual precipitation analyses for Kansas using masking, plotting, and region averages.
Explore interpolation between CPC club and grade met minimum air temperature datasets at different resolutions, convert longitude ranges, scale kelvin to celsius, and compute moving averages for Texas regions.
Calculate ndvi, ndbi, and nbr from Landsat 8 imagery in Kurdistan, Iraq, using Python; read red, near-infrared, and swir bands, export nbr as geotiff, and visualize with matplotlib.
Recap the key python for scientific research concepts: miniconda environments, jupyter notebook, numpy and scipy, file handling, zonal statistics, fourcastnet AI, and climate data case studies.
Your data is bigger than your spreadsheet, and your analysis needs to be repeatable.
Most researchers reach a point where the tool stops fitting the question - the dataset is too large, the test you need is not in the menu, or a reviewer asks you to re-run everything with one variable changed. Python solves all three, and this course teaches it from the beginning, with research data rather than toy examples.
You will install Miniconda, Python and Jupyter Notebook and write your first program, then cover data types, control flow, functions and modules. From there into the work itself: file handling, directories, and importing and cleaning datasets with Pandas.
The analysis
Scientific computing with NumPy and SciPy
Descriptive statistics, correlations, ANOVA and t-tests
Zonal statistics on spatial data
Three sections of plotting, from first graphs to specialised techniques
Then the part most Python courses for researchers leave out
Setting up GPU acceleration for machine learning
Detecting and counting plants with computer vision
Building a convolutional neural network in PyTorch for image classification
Training a machine learning model for crop health analysis
Three full case studies
Leaf Area Index and Land Surface Temperature analysis
India's air quality data analysed with machine learning, across four lectures
Climate data analysis, across four lectures
Before you enrol
No programming experience is needed. The setup lectures are recorded on Windows, though the code runs on macOS and Linux as well, and every tool used is free. Fourteen quizzes run through the course so you can check your understanding as you go.
Taught by Dr. Azad Rasul, Assistant Professor of Remote Sensing, with a PhD in Geography, over 60 peer-reviewed publications, and more than 150,000 students enrolled across his Udemy courses.
Enrol now and start doing your analysis in code that you - and your reviewers - can run again.