ASPRS

PE&RS September 2007

VOLUME 73, NUMBER 9
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING

Peer-Reviewed Articles

1005 Detection of Yellow Starthistle through Band Selection and Feature Extraction from Hyperspectral Imagery
Xin Miao, Peng Gong, Sarah Swope, Ruiliang Pu, Raymond Carruthers, and Gerald L. Anderson

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To effectively display hyperspectral imagery for visualization purposes, the three RGB channels should be selected or extracted from a hyperspectral image under the criteria of maximum information or maximum between-class separability. Seven band selection (OIF, SI, CI, divergence, transformed divergence, B-distance, JM-distance) and five feature extraction (principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis, class-based PCA, segmented PCT (SPCT), independent component analysis) methods and their variations are examined and compared using CASI hyperspectral imagery with the goal of detecting Centaurea solstitialis (yellow starthistle or YST), an invasive weed, in an annual grassland in California. Three indicators, information index (Infodex), separability index (Sepadex) and average correlation coefficient (ACC) are proposed to evaluate the quality of the generated images. The results suggest that both the combination of the three SPCT channels and the combination of the second PCA channel with the positive and negative of the first LDA channels (PCA2, LDA1, -LDA1) can enhance our ability to visualize the distribution of YST in contrast to the surrounding vegetation.

1017 Improving Pixel-based VHR Land-cover Classifications of Urban Areas with Post-classification Techniques
Tim Van de Voorde, William De Genst, and Frank Canters

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In this paper, three post-classification techniques are proposed to improve the information content, thematic accuracy, and spatial structure of pixel-based classifications of complex urban areas. A shadow-removal technique based on a neural network that was trained using the output of a soft classification is proposed to assign shadow pixels to meaningful land-cover classes. Knowledge-based rules are suggested to correct wrongly classified pixels and to improve the overall accuracy of the land-cover map. Finally, a region-based filter is applied to reduce high-frequency structural clutter. The three techniques were successfully applied to a pixel-based classification of a QuickBird image covering the city of Ghent, Belgium, improving the kappa index-of-agreement from 0.82 to 0.86 and transforming the shadow pixels into meaningful land-cover information.

1029 Spectral Matching Techniques to Determine Historical Land-use/Land-cover and Irrigated Areas using Time-series 0.1 degree AVHRR Pathfinder Datasets
P.S. Thenkabail, P. GangadharaRao, T.W. Biggs, M. Krishna, and H. Turral

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This study established spectral matching techniques (SMTs) to determine land-use and land-cover (LULC) and irrigated area classes from historical time-series (HTS-LULC) AVHRR 0.1-degree pathfinder satellite sensor data. The approach for HTS-LULC mapping and characterization was to develop“target” spectra from: (a) Recent Time Series for which LULC and irrigated area classes (RTS-LULC) were mapped using extensive ground-truth data, and (b) ideal locations, which are known endmembers even during historical time-periods of interest, as determined based on existing knowledge base including agricultural census data. The HTS-LULC for the period of 1982 to 1985 and RTS-LULC for the period of 1996 to 1999 were established using monthly continuous timeseries AVHRR mega-file data of 192 bands (48 months * 4 AVHRR bands per month) each for the HTS and RTS time periods. The study was conducted in the Krishna river basin (India), which has a large area (267,088 km2) with numerous irrigation projects and high population density.

The quantitative and qualitative SMTs were used to identify and label HTS LULC classes. The identification and labeling process begins with qualitative spectral matching technique which visually matches the time-series NDVI spectra of known RTS-LULC classes and/or ideal endmember classes with time-series spectra of HTS-LULC classes. This helps identify classes of similar spectral characteristics in terms of shape and magnitude over time. The quantitative SMTs involved: (a) spectral correlation similarity (SCS), as a shape measure, (b) Euclidian distance (Ed), as distance measure, (c) spectral similarity value (SSV) as a combination of shape and distance measure, and (d) modified spectral angle similarity (MSAS) as a hyperangle measure. The quantitative and qualitative SMT methods and techniques lead to assigning HTS-LULC classes that match RTS-LULC names. In all, an aggregated seven HTS-LULC that were spectrally similar to the seven RTS-LULC classes and/or ideal endmember classes were identified and labeled. The SSV was the best method, followed by SCS.

1041 Adaptive Correlation Analysis With Non-Overlapping Imagery Indication
Frank Crosby

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Many traditional image registration algorithms assume that the shared structures in each of two images are a significant portion of the image. However, in some remote sensing applications, the overlap can be small or even nonexistent. The registration method developed in this paper can assess the existence of a common area and identify the alignment between two images when the common area is a small percentage of the images. Conventional correlation is used as an input to an adaptive target detector designed for registration. The output of the detector is then modeled with a statistical distribution to find the significance of the alignment point, which generally indicates if any overlap was found. The method is applied to two data sets with varying amounts of overlap. The data is low contrast, midwave infrared, which is particularly challenging for traditional registration algorithms and infrared imagery. The results show that this method produces accurate registration in a variety of cases where traditional correlation fails.

1049 Automatic Extraction of Main Road Centerlines from High Resolution Satellite Imagery Using Hierarchical Grouping
Xiangyou Hu and Vincent Tao

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Automatic road centerline extraction from high-resolution satellite imagery has gained considerable interest recently due to the increasing availability of commercial high-resolution satellite images. In this paper, a hierarchical grouping strategy is proposed to automatically extract main road centerlines from high-resolution satellite imagery. Here hierarchical grouping means that, instead of grouping all segments at once, the selective segments are grouped gradually, and multiple clues are closely integrated into the procedure. By this means, the computational cost can be reduced significantly. Through the stepwise grouping, the detected fragmented line segments eventually form the long main road lines. The proposed method has been tested and validated using several Ikonos and QuickBird images both in open areas and build-up urban environments. The results demonstrate its robustness and viability on extracting salient main road centerlines.

1057 Forest and Land Cover Mapping in a Tropical Highland Region
Christian Tottrup

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Linear mixture modeling, in combination with a set of decision rules, is used to map tropical forest and land-cover classes within a highland region in north central Vietnam. The linear mixture model is applied to a topographic normalized SPOT HRVIR image and the resulting fractional images of three endmembers: green vegetation, shade, and soil are classified into six forest and land-cover classes using field data and a decision tree classifier. The overall accuracy of the classification is assessed to 82.1 percent (KHAT  0.78), which is significantly better than a decision tree classification based on the four SPOT HRVIR reflectance bands. In conclusion, the presented classification approach is believed to advance the use of satellite remote sensing in support for land-use planning and natural resource management in areas of complex terrain.

1067 Integration of Ikonos and QuickBird Imagery for Geopositioning Accuracy Analysis
Rongxing Li, Feng Zhou, Xutong Niu, and Kaichang Di

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This research investigated the accuracy in three-dimensional (3D) geopositioning achieved by integrating Ikonos and QuickBird images using the vendor-provided rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs). One pair of stereo Ikonos images and one pair of stereo QuickBird images were collected for the same region of Tampa Bay, Florida, and used in this study. Results of 3D geopositioning from different combinations of Ikonos and QuickBird stereo images were generated by using an improved rational function model (RFM). The relationship between the satellite-borne pointing geometry and the attainable ground accuracy is examined. This research demonstrates that the integration of Ikonos and QuickBird images is feasible and can improve the 3D geopositioning accuracy using a proper combination of images.

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