Sparse Coding Based Feature Representation Method for Remote Sensing Images

In this dissertation, we study sparse coding based feature representation method for the classification of multispectral and hyperspectral images (HSI). The existing feature representation systems based on the sparse signal model are computationally expensive, requiring to solve a convex optimization problem to learn a dictionary. A sparse coding feature representation framework for the classification of HSI is presented that alleviates the complexity of sparse coding through sub-band construction, dictionary learning, and encoding steps. In the framework, we construct the dictionary based upon the extracted sub-bands from the spectral representation of a pixel. In the encoding step, we utilize a soft threshold function to obtain sparse feature representations for HSI. Experimental results showed that a randomly selected dictionary could be as effective as a dictionary learned from optimization. The new representation usually has a very high dimensionality requiring a lot of computational resources. In addition, the spatial information of the HSI data has not been included in the representation. Thus, we modify the framework by incorporating the spatial information of the HSI pixels and reducing the dimension of the new sparse representations. The enhanced model, called sparse coding based dense feature representation (SC-DFR), is integrated with a linear support vector machine (SVM) and a composite kernels SVM (CKSVM) classifiers to discriminate different types of land cover. We evaluated the proposed algorithm on three well known HSI datasets and compared our method to four recently developed classification methods: SVM, CKSVM, simultaneous orthogonal matching pursuit (SOMP) and image fusion and recursive filtering (IFRF). The results from the experiments showed that the proposed method can achieve better overall and average classification accuracies with a much more compact representation leading to more efficient sparse models for HSI classification. To further verify the power of the new feature representation method, we applied it to a pan-sharpened image to detect seafloor scars in shallow waters. Propeller scars are formed when boat propellers strike and break apart seagrass beds, resulting in habitat loss. We developed a robust identification system by incorporating morphological filters to detect and map the scars. Our results showed that the proposed method can be implemented on a regular basis to monitor changes in habitat characteristics of coastal waters

Hierarchical segmentation, object detection and classification in remotely sensed images

Ankara : The Department of Computer Engineering and the Institute of Engineering and Science of Bilkent Univiversity, 2007.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2007.Includes bibliographical references leaves 68-76Automatic content extraction and classification of remotely sensed images have become highly desired goals by the advances in satellite technology and computing power. The usual choice for the level of processing image data has been pixelbased analysis. However, spatial information is an important element to interpret the land cover because pixels alone do not give much information about image content. Automatic segmentation of high-resolution remote sensing imagery is an important problem in remote sensing applications because the resulting segmentations can provide valuable spatial and structural information that are complementary to pixel-based spectral information in classification. In this thesis, we first present a method that combines structural information extracted by morphological processing with spectral information summarized using principal components analysis to produce precise segmentations that are also robust to noise. First, principal components are computed from hyper-spectral data to obtain representative bands. Then, candidate regions are extracted by applying connected components analysis to the pixels selected according to their morphological profiles computed using opening and closing by reconstruction with increasing structuring element sizes. Next, these regions are represented using a tree, and the most meaningful ones are selected by optimizing a measure that consists of two factors: spectral homogeneity, which is calculated in terms of variances of spectral features, and neighborhood connectivity, which is calculated using sizes of connected components. Experiments on three data sets show that the method is able to detect structures in the image which are more precise and more meaningful than the structures detected by another approach that does not make strong use of neighborhood and spectral information.Then, we introduce an unsupervised method that combines both spectral and structural information for automatic object detection. First, a segmentation hierarchy is constructed and candidate segments for object detection are selected by the proposed segmentation method. Given the observation that different structures appear more clearly in different principal components, we present an algorithm that is based on probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) for grouping the candidate segments belonging to multiple segmentations and multiple principal components. The segments are modeled using their spectral content and the PLSA algorithm builds object models by learning the objectconditional probability distributions. Labeling of a segment is done by computing the similarity of its spectral distribution to the distribution of object models using Kullback-Leibler divergence. Experiments on three data sets show that our method is able to automatically detect, group, and label segments belonging to the same object classes. Finally, we present an approach for classification of remotely sensed imagery using spatial information extracted from multi-scale segmentations. Different structuring element size ranges are used to obtain multiple representations of an image at different scales to capture different details inherently found in different structures. Then, pixels at each scale are grouped into contiguous regions using the proposed segmentation method. The resulting regions are modeled using the statistical summaries of their spectral properties. These models are used to cluster the regions by the proposed grouping method, and the cluster memberships assigned to each region at multiple scales are used to classify the corresponding pixels into land cover/land use categories. Final classification is done using decision tree classifiers. Experiments with three ground truth data sets show the effectiveness of the proposed approach over traditional techniques that do not make strong use of region-based spatial information.Akçay, Hüseyin GökhanM.S

Outils statistiques et géométriques pour la classification des images SAR polarimétriques hautement texturées

Les radars à synthèse d'ouverture (Synthetic Aperture Radar ou SAR) permettent de fournir des images à très haute résolution de la surface de la Terre. Les algorithmes de classification traditionnels se basent sur une hypothèse de bruit gaussien comme modèle de signal, qui est rapidement mise en défaut lorsque l'environnement devient inhomogène ou impulsionnel, comme c'est particulièrement le cas dans les images SAR polarimétriques haute résolution, notamment au niveau des zones urbaines. L'utilisation d'un modèle de bruit composé, appelé modèle SIRV, permet de mieux prendre en compte ces phénomènes et de représenter la réalité de manière plus adéquate. Cette thèse s'emploie alors à étudier l'application et l'impact de ce modèle pour la classification des images SAR polarimétriques afin d'améliorer l'interprétation des classifications au sens de la polarimétrie et à proposer des outils adaptés à ce nouveau modèle. En effet, il apparaît rapidement que les techniques classiques utilisent en réalité beaucoup plus l'information relative à la puissance de chaque pixel plutôt qu'à la polarimétrie pour la classification. Par ailleurs, les techniques de classification traditionnelles font régulièrement appel à la moyenne de matrices de covariance, calculée comme une moyenne arithmétique. Cependant, étant donnée la nature riemannienne de l'espace des matrices de covariance, cette définition n'est pas applicable et il est nécessaire d'employer une définition plus adaptée à cette structure riemannienne. Nous mettons en évidence l'intérêt d'utiliser un modèle de bruit non gaussien sur des données réelles et nous proposons plusieurs approches pour tirer parti de l'information polarimétrique qu'il apporte. L'apport de la géométrie de l'information pour le calcul de la moyenne est de même étudié, sur des données simulées mais également sur des données réelles acquises par l'ONERA. Enfin, une étude préliminaire d'une extension de ces travaux au cas de l'imagerie hyperspectrale est proposée, de par la proximité de ce type de données avec les données SAR polarimétriques.Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) now provide high resolution images of the Earth surface. Traditional classification algorithms are based on a Gaussian assumption for the distribution of the signal, which is no longer valid when the background is heterogeneous, which is particularly the case for polarimetric SAR images, especially in urban areas. A compound Gaussian model, called the SIRV model, allows to take into account these phenomena. This thesis is then devoted to studying the impact of this model for the classification of polarimetric SAR images in order to improve the interpretation of classification results in a polarimetric sense, and to propose tools better suited to this model. Indeed, classical techniques using the Gaussian assumption actually use the power information of each pixel much more than the polarimetric information. Furthermore, it is often necessary to compute a mean of covariance matrices, usually by taking the standard arithmetical mean. However, the space of covariance matrices has a Riemannian structure, not an Euclidean one, which means this definition of the mean is not correct. We will then present several methods to use the actual polarimetric information thanks to the SIRV model to improve the classification results. The benefit of using a correct, Riemannian definition of the mean will also be demonstrated on simulated and real data. Finally, a preliminary study of an extension of this work to hyperspectral imagery will be presented.RENNES1-Bibl. électronique (352382106) / SudocSudocFranceF

Etude du démélange en imagerie hyperspectrale infrarouge

Thermal hyperspectral remote sensing provides information about materials from the measured radiance image. It is achieved using temperature and emissivity separation (TES) methods, estimating the emissivity and the temperature of the materials, and using unmixing methods, estimating their abundances. TES methods have been well investigated while too few studies have been working on unmixing in thermal infrared domain : this is the objective of this PhD. Therefore, three strategies have been studied. First, the unmixing is applied on radiance. It achieves good results but depends on the spatial variation of temperature. Applying the unmixing on the emissivities, estimated using the TES methods, gets rid of the spatial variation of temperature but provides a noisy abundance estimation. Eventually, a new method called Thermal Remote sensing Unmixing for Subpixel Temperature (TRUST) is designed to jointly estimate the abundance and the temperature of materials within the pixels. It gives better results than the first strategy and is more robust to spatial variation of temperature.La télédétection en imagerie hyperspectrale infrarouge thermique est l'étude d'images en luminance, acquises depuis un avion ou un satellite dans le domaine spectral de l'infrarouge thermique. Ces images sont liées à l'émissivité et à la température, estimées par les méthodes de découplage température/émissivité (T/E), ainsi qu'à l'abondance, estimée par les méthodes de démélange, des matériaux présents dans la scène. Si les méthodes de découplage T/E ont été largement étudiées, les méthodes de démélange dans ce domaine spectral restent peu explorées : c'est l'objectif de cette thèse. Pour cela, nous avons mis en place trois stratégies de démélange. Dans un premier temps, le démélange est effectué sur les luminances. Cette stratégie donne globalement de bons résultats mais est relativement sensible aux variations spatiales de la température. La deuxième stratégie, démélangeant à partir des estimations d'émissivité des méthodes de découplage T/E, s'affranchit de cette variation spatiale mais donne des résultats plus bruités. Enfin, une méthode de démélange basée sur l'estimation conjointe de la température et des abondances a été élaborée. Cette méthode s'appelle Thermal Remote sensing Unmixing for Subpixel Temperature (TRUST) et donne de meilleurs résultats que la première stratégie tout en étant robuste aux variations spatiales de la température