Department of Geography

Image interpretation and analysis

Grundlagen Fernerkundung, Geo 123.1, FS 2014

Lecture 7a

Rogier de Jong
Michael Schaepman

Why are snow, foam, and clouds white?

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Why are snow, foam, and clouds white?

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Today’s topics

Book: Chapter 7, p. 482 – 623

Visualization and contrast

Spectral analysis
• Band combinations and indices
• Image transformation
Temporal analysis
• Change detection
Spatial analysis
• Filtering (high-pass and low-pass)
• Pixels and objects
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Visualization and contrast manipulation

• A sensor measures energy and has a certain dynamic range (DR)

• The lowest amount of energy that can be detected is recorded as 0
• The highest amount of energy that can be detected is recorded as 255

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Histogram stretching

DR sensor (0-255)

DR display (0-255)

DR sensor (60-158)

DR display (0-255)

Lillesand Fig. 7.13

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Histogram stretching

Lillesand Fig. 7.13

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Contrast
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Level slicing

• Discontinuous color mapping

• Subdividing the continuous range of values into discontinuous but
sequential groups (called bins or classes)
• Simplest way of making classes based on spectral values

0 – 10 aquamarine
11 – 50 sienna
51 – 100 dark green
101 – 255 color scale light
green to white

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Continuous color mapping

• 0-255 = 256 values

• 256 values = 28 = 8 bit
• 00 00 00 00 … 11 11 11 11
• Example: 01 10 01 01 =>
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Band combinations

Each spectral band represents a grey-scale image. Three of these bands

can be assigned to the display colors red (R), green (G) and blue (B) to
obtain a full-color image.

3 bands, 0-255 each = 24 bit ‘color depth’

(16.7 million colors)
blue green red

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True-color image

R
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Color-infrared image R

Red = Near IR (band 4)

Green = Red (band 3)
Blue = Green (band 2)

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False-color images using 7 Landsat bands

Landsat bands
1 0.45-0.52 µm Blue
2 0.52-0.60 µm Green
3 0.63-0.69 µm Red
4 0.76-0.90 µm Near IR
5 1.55-1.75 µm Mid-IR
6 10.40-12.50 µm Thermal IR
7 2.08-2.35 µm Mid-IR
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Spectral analysis

R,G,B = R,G,B

R,G,B = NIR,R,G

Lillesand Plate 3

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Spectral analysis

R,G,B = R,G,B

R,G,B = SWIR,NIR,G
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Band operations

Per-pixel mathematical operations and transformations, where equation

variables are represented by various spectral bands

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Simple band ratios

HOTSPOT" DARKSPOT"

• Minimize topographic effects on

spectral information."

• The DN ratio for a sunlit pixel is

nearly identical to the DN ratio
for a shadowed pixel."
"

Lillesand Fig. 7.25

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Maximizing spectral contrast

Color-infrared (CIR) images provide the best contrast for vegetation (lecture 2)

Why?

R = Near IR
G = Red
B = Green

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Vegetation in visible versus near infrared

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Maximizing spectral contrast

Green, dense For vegetation:" Brown or sparse

Red Infrared • Reflectance is highest in NIR Red Infrared

and lowest in RED"

• Both change if vegetation
changes (senescence animation
in previous lecture)"
• The ratio NIR / RED gives
therefore the highest contrast
and the best way to quantify
changes"
"

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Spectral index

• A mathematical combination of spectral regions (or bands) is known as a

spectral index.

• For vegetation, these indices represent ‘greenness’ in terms of

photosynthetic activity (not ‘greenness’ in terms of color)

• Many other spectral indices exist, for example for soils/geology (texture, iron
content, soil organic carbon), for snow and ice (grain size, contamination),
for water (chlorophyll content, dissolved organic matter) and for the
atmosphere (NO2 concentration, aerosols, ozone)
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Spectral index
RED “Color-mapped” INDEX

NIR 1

0
Southern France (Cabrieres, Languedoc)

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Data transformations

• Aim at reducing the spectral

redundancy (i.e. correlation
between spectral bands)

• Compress the information

content in fewer bands with
decreasing variance

• Common example: Principal

Component Analysis (PCA)

Lillesand Fig. 7.27

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Data transformations

• The resulting bands can be

used for visual interpretation or
as input for classification

Apex, true color PC1 PC2 PC3 PC25 PC50

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Temporal analysis

“Detecting changes is the first step towards assigning causes”

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Change detection

Example:
Mapping of forest /
plantation disturbances
(red = disturbed)

2002 2003

Google Earth, 2014 2004 2005

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Temporal change: Aral Sea

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Temporal change: Rondonia, Brazil 2000-2008

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Temporal change: Dubai

2002-2011
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Types of change

• Short-term change
e.g. weather events

• Cyclic change
e.g. seasonality

• Sustained change
e.g. urban expansion (Dubai)

• Multidirectional change
e.g. drought stress and recovery

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Change detection techniques

• Image differencing
Calculate the difference or the ratio of two remotely sensed images.
Regions that differ from 0 (difference) or 1 (ratio) have changed.

• Post-classification comparison
Use same classification algorithm for two or more dates and detect
pixels that are assigned to a different class
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Change detection techniques

• Changed Vector Analysis

Calculate the vector between the
spectral response of a pixel at the
initial date versus following date(s).
Long vectors indicate large change.

• Composite image analysis

Apply a classification algorithm or a transformation on an image stack of
multiple dates. Pixels with similar changes show up in the same class.

Lillesand Fig. 7.59

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Change detection techniques

• Image regression
Regress spectral bands or indices
at date 1 versus date 2. Pixels that
deviate from the 1:1 line have
changed.

• Temporal regression
For time series, changes occurred if the regression coefficient of
observations against time is unequal to zero

Lillesand Fig. 7.61

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Image cube: ‘spectral’ profiles for one pixel

reflectance ~ wavelength

284 bands
(Apex)

288 bands
(Modis VI)

spectral index value ~ time

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 Trend breaks

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Temporal regression: sustained and multidirectional

Herschel

5000
3000

Observation
Yt
1000

(one pixel)
1000

1000
Seasonality
St

500
β = 21.834 β = 12.617
800

p = 0.004 p = 0.367

se
l increa
600

Y = aX + b gradua fast
Changes decrease
Tt
400

stable
β = 6.680
200

p = 0.024
m = 234.773

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Time (t)

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Mapping the change

Y = aX + b

Green increase (a > 0)

Red decrease (a < 0)
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Spatial analysis

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Spatial Image Filtering

• Filtering manipulates the image elements

• Filters are applied using kernels composed of size and weights
• Most common in image analysis: high-pass and low-pass filters
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High-pass filter (sharpening)

• Used to enhance high-frequency variations

• Disadvantage: enhances noise as well
• Kernel typically has high central value surrounded by 0 -1 0
(partially) negative weights; sum is 0 or higher -1 5 -1
0 -1 0
• Special case: Laplacian (2nd derivative) filter

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High-pass filter
3x3 kernel
14 28 13
0 -1 0
9 12 12
-1 5 -1 4
8 7 8 0 -1 0

(0*14) + (-1*28) + (0*13) + (-1*9) + (5*12) + (-1*12) + (0*8) + (-1*7) + (0*8) = 4

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Influence of kernel size

(High-pass filter)

• Radius 1, 10, 50 pixel(s)

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Low-pass filter (smoothing)

• Used to suppress high-frequency variation and noise

• Kernel with small positive values. Simplest case: all 1/9 1/9 1/9
values (1 / kernel size) and thus sum equals 1 1/9 1/9 1/9
• Kernel size (3x3, 5x5, …) determines degree of smoothing 1/9 1/9 1/9
• Special case: Gaussian filter (or “Gaussian blur”)
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Low-pass filter

14 28 13 3x3 kernel
1/9 1/9 1/9
9 12 12 1/9 1/9 1/9 12.33
1/9 1/9 1/9
8 7 8

(1/9*14) + (1/9*28) + (1/9*13) + (1/9*9) + (1/9*12) + (1/9*12) + (1/9*8) +

(1/9*7) + (1/9*8) = 12.33 OR 1/9 * (14+28+13+9+12+12+8+7+8) = 12.33

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Low-pass example: de-noise

noise
5%

low-pass

30%

50%
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Low-pass example: extract large objects

original image 15 x 15 low-pass “thresholding”

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High-pass and low-pass filters, overview

• High-pass 0 -1 0
-1 5 -1
0 -1 0

• Low-pass 1/9 1/9 1/9

1/9 1/9 1/9
1/9 1/9 1/9
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Pixels versus objects

• Statistical approaches
can be used to group
pixels based on spectral
similarity and on
neighborhood criteria

• These ‘segmentation’
techniques transform
per-pixel images into
discrete pixel groups

Lillesand Fig. 7.57

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Pixels versus objects

• Advantage:
Close to the human ability to
distinguish spatial relationships

• Disadvantage:
Models require scale and shape
parameters and therefore
strongly depend on user choices

• The segmented image can be

used for classification (lecture 12)

Lillesand Fig. 7.57

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To take home from this lecture

• Understand that the choice of analysis

technique depends on spectral, spatial
and temporal resolution

• Know which flavors of image-analysis

techniques exist without understanding
technical details

• Be able to select an approach given a

problem and to provide example
problems given an approach

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Thank you!

Next week: image classification

Grundlagen Fernerkundung, Geo 123.1, FS 2014

Lecture 7a

Rogier de Jong
Michael Schaepman