The blacklab facilities of the Remote Sensing Group (RSG) include the room itself, the rotation stages, the detectors, source and associated controllers, power supplies and electronics. As the name suggests, the walls, floor, and ceiling of the blacklab are black in order to reduce stray light being reflected from the walls back onto the sample under test. The room is also divided into two sub-rooms with the lamp and the rotation stages in separate rooms. This also cuts down on stray light by restricting the illumination of the sample to the light passing through an aperture in the wall. The rotation stages provide three degrees of freedom, horizontal illumination angle, horizontal view angle, and vertical sample tilt. The two most commonly used detectors are the visible and near infrared Che detector (400-1050 nm, 9 filters) and the short-wave infrared transfer radiometer (900-2500 nm, 12 filters). The lamp used is a 1-kW tungsten halogen DXW lamp operated at a constant current of 8.0 A.

The blacklab is used to measure the bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) of a sample. The first step is to measure a pressed poly-tetra flouro ethylene (PTFE) sample that was prepared according to the procedures outlined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Following this procedure, the pressed PTFE sample has a prescribed hemispherical reflectance and a known directional reflectance for a normal viewing angle and a 45° incident angle. The signals recorded by the detectors measuring the PTFE reference are ratioed to the signals from the unknown sample to calculate the BRF. For most applications, these measurements are performed for a detector normal to the surface and incident angles from 10° to 70° at 5° increments, though it is possible to perform measurements at other viewing angles and with the sample tilted if so desired.

The blacklab can also be used to calibrate radiometers. To do this a calibrated lamp is used. RSG has two types of calibrated lamps. One is a primary standard purchased from NIST and the other is a secondary standard purchased from Optronic Laboratories. The NIST lamp is more accurate but far more expensive, and so for most work the Optronic source is used. Provided with the lamps are values of spectral irradiances valid at 50 cm from the lamp when the lamp is operated at the rated current. These irradiances are converted to radiances by reflecting them off a panel with a measured directional reflectance. The radiometer to be calibrated is then set up to view the panel at a 45° viewing angle and normal incidence. The signal from the radiometer is recorded and compared to the reflected radiance from the panel to calculate the calibration coefficients.