Adaptive Fuzzy Learning Superpixel Representation for PolSAR Image Classification

The increasing applications of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image classification demand for effective superpixels’ algorithms. Fuzzy superpixels’ algorithms reduce the misclassification rate by dividing pixels into superpixels, which are groups of pixels of homogenous appearance and undetermined pixels. However, two key issues remain to be addressed in designing a fuzzy superpixel algorithm for PolSAR image classification. First, the polarimetric scattering information, which is unique in PolSAR images, is not effectively used. Such information can be utilized to generate superpixels more suitable for PolSAR images. Second, the ratio of undetermined pixels is fixed for each image in the existing techniques, ignoring the fact that the difficulty of classifying different objects varies in an image. To address these two issues, we propose a polarimetric scattering information-based adaptive fuzzy superpixel (AFS) algorithm for PolSAR images classification. In AFS, the correlation between pixels’ polarimetric scattering information, for the first time, is considered through fuzzy rough set theory to generate superpixels. This correlation is further used to dynamically and adaptively update the ratio of undetermined pixels. AFS is evaluated extensively against different evaluation metrics and compared with the state-of-the-art superpixels’ algorithms on three PolSAR images. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of AFS on PolSAR image classification problems

Recurrent Multiresolution Convolutional Networks for VHR Image Classification

Classification of very high resolution (VHR) satellite images has three major challenges: 1) inherent low intra-class and high inter-class spectral similarities, 2) mismatching resolution of available bands, and 3) the need to regularize noisy classification maps. Conventional methods have addressed these challenges by adopting separate stages of image fusion, feature extraction, and post-classification map regularization. These processing stages, however, are not jointly optimizing the classification task at hand. In this study, we propose a single-stage framework embedding the processing stages in a recurrent multiresolution convolutional network trained in an end-to-end manner. The feedforward version of the network, called FuseNet, aims to match the resolution of the panchromatic and multispectral bands in a VHR image using convolutional layers with corresponding downsampling and upsampling operations. Contextual label information is incorporated into FuseNet by means of a recurrent version called ReuseNet. We compared FuseNet and ReuseNet against the use of separate processing steps for both image fusion, e.g. pansharpening and resampling through interpolation, and map regularization such as conditional random fields. We carried out our experiments on a land cover classification task using a Worldview-03 image of Quezon City, Philippines and the ISPRS 2D semantic labeling benchmark dataset of Vaihingen, Germany. FuseNet and ReuseNet surpass the baseline approaches in both quantitative and qualitative results

This article is published in cooperation with Terclim 2022 (XIVth International Terroir Congress and 2nd ClimWine Symposium), 3-8 July 2022, Bordeaux, France.

Terroir is not just a geographical site, but also a complex concept aiming to express the "collective knowledge of the interactions" between the environment and the vines mediated through human action, "providing distinctive characteristics" to the final product (OIV 2010).In the popular press, it is often treated and communicated without a proper understanding of the mechanistic relationships between the wine characteristics and the site. These relationships are primarily rooted in the physical environment, particularly in the interactions between the soil-plant and atmosphere system, affecting grapevine physiology, grape composition and wine. Comprehension of the phenomena starts with viticulture zoning techniques, a crucial first step in mapping, describing and further studying terroirs. Viticulture zoning can be carried out with diverse empiricism and expertise and achieving different level of details in describing complex biophysical processes. Spatial and temporal scales can vary across studies, and not all of them have been able to capture the multidisciplinary nature of the terroir.The scientific understanding of the mechanisms ruling vineyard variability and grape composition is one of the most critical scientific focuses of terroir research. This knowledge can contribute to the analysis of climate change impacts on terroir resilience, the identification of new suitable land for viticulture, and the precise management of vineyards to reach a specific oenological goal.This article gives an overview of the latest approaches to terroir studies and of new zoning technology, with particular attention to their importance in supporting terroir resilience to climate change

Hyperspectral Image Classification -- Traditional to Deep Models: A Survey for Future Prospects

Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) has been extensively utilized in many real-life applications because it benefits from the detailed spectral information contained in each pixel. Notably, the complex characteristics i.e., the nonlinear relation among the captured spectral information and the corresponding object of HSI data make accurate classification challenging for traditional methods. In the last few years, Deep Learning (DL) has been substantiated as a powerful feature extractor that effectively addresses the nonlinear problems that appeared in a number of computer vision tasks. This prompts the deployment of DL for HSI classification (HSIC) which revealed good performance. This survey enlists a systematic overview of DL for HSIC and compared state-of-the-art strategies of the said topic. Primarily, we will encapsulate the main challenges of traditional machine learning for HSIC and then we will acquaint the superiority of DL to address these problems. This survey breakdown the state-of-the-art DL frameworks into spectral-features, spatial-features, and together spatial-spectral features to systematically analyze the achievements (future research directions as well) of these frameworks for HSIC. Moreover, we will consider the fact that DL requires a large number of labeled training examples whereas acquiring such a number for HSIC is challenging in terms of time and cost. Therefore, this survey discusses some strategies to improve the generalization performance of DL strategies which can provide some future guidelines

Spatio-Temporal Information Extraction Under Uncertainty Using Multi-Source Data Integration and Machine Learning: Applications To Human Settlement Modelling

Due to advances in information and communication technology, new ways of acquisition, storage, and analysis of digital data have emerged. This constitutes new opportunities, but also imposes challenges for many scientific disciplines, including the geospatial sciences, where the availability, accessibility, and spatio-temporal granularity and coverage of environmental, geographic, and socioeconomic data is steadily increasing. Multi-source data measuring identical or related processes typically increase the reliability of knowledge derived but also lead to higher levels of discrepancies. In order to fully benefit from the value of such multi-source data, the contained information needs to be extracted effectively and efficiently, employing adequate data integration, mining, and analysis techniques. This work demonstrates how the integration of coherent multi-source geospatial data supports information extraction and analysis to generate new knowledge of both, the data itself and the underlying phenomenon, exemplified by the spatio-temporal distribution of human settlements. I present three applications in the field of human settlement modelling where data integration is a key component for knowledge acquisition. These three applications consist of i) a deep-learning based classification framework for fully automated extraction of built-up areas from historical maps in the spatial domain, ii) a machine-learning based time series classification framework for estimating changes in built-up areas in the temporal domain, based on multispectral remote sensing time series data, and iii) a novel framework for an in-depth accuracy assessment of model-generated data, exemplified by the Global Human Settlement Layer, for a detailed analysis of data uncertainty in the spatio-temporal domain, as well as across different scales and aggregation levels, attempting to quantify the fitness-for-use of such data.</p