Hyperspectral imaging data atmospheric correction challenges and solutions using QUAC and FLAASH algorithms

The hyperspectral and multispectral image fusion process, commonly known as the multisharpening process (also known as the hypersharpening process), results in the creation of unobservable high spectral and spatial resolution hyperspectral remote sensing data, by combining (or fusing) a hyperspectral image, characterized by a high spectral resolution, with, especially, a high spatial resolution multispectral one. There are several approaches in the literature performing such a process, in particular, those based on the spectral unmixing concept. The latter fusion methods aim to extract pure-material spectra from the high spectral resolution hyperspectral image and combine them with their corresponding proportions extracted from the high spatial resolution multispectral image. However, most of these methods, which mainly consider the standard linear mixing model, do not address the spectral variability phenomenon, precisely due to the considered data mixing model, which does not handle variations in illumination and atmospheric conditions or material composition inducing spectral variability. Neglecting such a phenomenon may lead to errors in the fusion process, thus decreasing the spatial and spectral qualities of sharpened products. In this paper, a new hyperspectral and multispectral data fusion method, based on the linear spectral unmixing concept that deals with spectral variability, is proposed. This approach, based on a multiplicative Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) technique, substantially extends the multiplicative Coupled NMF (CNMF) algorithm by considering a linear data mixing model that addresses the considered phenomenon. Indeed, the introduced approach minimizes new cost functions involving matrices with specific structures in order to deal with the spectral variability phenomenon. The proposed method is applied to synthetic and real data, and its effectiveness is evaluated with established performance criteria. Experimental results show that the designed algorithm globally yields sharpened hyperspectral data with fine spectral and spatial fidelities. Also, these results demonstrate that the proposed technique globally outperforms the tested literature approaches.

Hyperspectral sensors record the reflectance from the Earth's surface over the full range of solar wavelengths with high spectral resolution. The resulting high-dimensional data contain rich information for a wide range of applications. However, for a specific application, not all the measurements are important and useful. The original feature space may not be the most effective space for representing the data. Feature mining, which includes feature generation, feature selection (FS), and feature extraction (FE), is a critical task for hyperspectral data classification. Significant research effort has focused on this issue since hyperspectral data became available in the late 1980s. The feature mining techniques which have been developed include supervised and unsupervised, parametric and nonparametric, linear and nonlinear methods, which all seek to identify the informative subspace. This paper provides an overview of both conventional and advanced feature reduction methods, with details on a few techniques that are commonly used for analysis of hyperspectral data. A general form that represents several linear and nonlinear FE methods is also presented. Experiments using two widely available hyperspectral data sets are included to illustrate selected FS and FE methods.

Hyperspectral imaging is concerned with the measurement, analysis, and interpretation of spectra acquired from a given scene (or specific object) at a short, medium or long distance by an airbone or satellite sensor. Over the last few years, hyperspectral image data sets have been collected for a great amount of locations over the world, using a variety of instruments for Earth observation. Despite the increasing importance of hyperspectral images in remote sensing applications, there is no common repository of hyperspectral data intended to distribute and share hyperspectral data sets in the community. Quite opposite, the hyperspectral data sets which are available for public use are spread among different storage locations and present significant heterogeneity regarding the storage format, associated meta-data (if any), or ground-truth availability. As a result, the development of a standardized hyperspectral data repository is a highly desired goal in the remote sensing community. In this paper, we take a necessary first step towards the development of a digital repository for remotely sensed hyperspectral data. The proposed system allows uploading new hyperspectral data sets along with meta-data, ground-truth and analysis results, with the ultimate goal of sharing publicly available hyperspectral images within the remote sensing community. The database has been designed in order to allow storing relevant information for the hyperspectral data available through the system, including basic image characteristics (width, height, number of bands, format) and more advanced meta-data (ground-truth information, publications in which the data has been used). The current implementation consists of a front-end to ease the management of images through a web interface, thus containing both synthetic and real hyperspectral images from two highly representative instruments, such as NASAs Airborne Visible Infra-Red Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) over the Cuprite Mining District in Nevada. Most importantly, the developed system includes a spectral unmixing-based content based image retrieval (CBIR) functionality which allows searching for images on the spectral unmixing information (spectrally pure components or endmembers and their associated abundances in the scene). This information is stored as meta-data associated to each hyperspectral image instance, and then used to search and retrieve images based on information content. This paper presents the design of the system and a preliminary validation of the unmixing-based retrieval functionality using both synthetic and real hyperspectral images stored in the database.

Hyperspectral imaging has become a significant source of valuable data for astronomers over the past decades. Current instrumental and observing time constraints allow direct acquisition of multispectral images, with high spatial but low spectral resolution, and hyperspectral images, with low spatial but high spectral resolution. To enhance scientific interpretation of the data, we propose a data fusion method which combines the benefits of each image to recover a high spatio-spectral resolution datacube. The proposed inverse problem accounts for the specificities of astronomical instruments, such as spectrally variant blurs. We provide a fast implementation by solving the problem in the frequency domain and in a low-dimensional subspace to efficiently handle the convolution operators as well as the high dimensionality of the data. We conduct experiments on a realistic synthetic dataset of simulated observation of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, and we show that our fusion algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods commonly used in remote sensing for Earth observation.

The Resurs-P satellite enables one simultaneously to observe the underlying surface using both multi- and hyperspectral equipment. The multispectral images, thus obtained, have high spatial resolution but low spectral resolution. Hyperspectral images, on the contrary, have high spectral resolution but low spatial resolution. This article proposes a method of the hyper- and multispectral data fusion aimed at improving their information value.

Recent growth in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology have promoted the detailed mapping of individual tree species. However, the in-depth mining and comprehending of the significance of features derived from high-resolution UAV data for tree species discrimination remains a difficult task. In this study, a state-of-the-art approach combining UAV-borne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and hyperspectral was used to classify 11 common tree species in a typical natural secondary forest in Northeast China. First, comprehensive relevant structural and spectral features were extracted. Then, the most valuable feature sets were selected by using a hybrid approach combining correlation-based feature selection with the optimized recursive feature elimination algorithm. The random forest algorithm was used to assess feature importance and perform the classification. Finally, the robustness of features derived from point clouds with different structures and hyperspectral images with different spatial resolutions was tested. Our results showed that the best classification accuracy was obtained by combining LiDAR and hyperspectral data (75.7%) compared to that based on LiDAR (60.0%) and hyperspectral (64.8%) data alone. The mean intensity of single returns and the visible atmospherically resistant index for red-edge band were the most influential LiDAR and hyperspectral derived features, respectively. The selected features were robust in point clouds with a density not lower than 5% (~5 pts/m2) and a resolution not lower than 0.3 m in hyperspectral data. Although canopy surface features were slightly different from original LiDAR features, canopy surface information was also important for tree species classification. This study proved the capabilities of UAV-borne LiDAR and hyperspectral data in natural secondary forest tree species discrimination and the potential for this approach to be transferable to other study areas.

The added value of multiple data sources on tree species mapping has been widely analyzed. In particular, fusion of hyperspectral (HS) and LiDAR sensors for forest applications is a very hot topic. In this paper, we exploit the use of multi-scale features to fuse HS and LiDAR data for tree species mapping. Hyperspectral data is obtained from the APEX sensor with 286 spectral bands. LiDAR data has been acquired with a TopoSys sensor Harrier 56 at full waveform. We generate multi-scale features on both HS and LiDAR data, by considering the diameter and the height layer of different tree species. Experimental results on a forested area in Belgium demonstrate the effectiveness of using multi-scale features for fusion of HS image and LiDAR data both visually and quantitatively.

Hyperspectral images (HSI) have high spectral and low spatial resolutions. However, multispectral images (MSI) usually have low spectral and high spatial resolutions. In various applications HSI with high spectral and spatial resolutions are required. In this paper, a new method for spatial resolution enhancement of HSI using high resolution MSI based on sparse coding and linear spectral unmixing (SCLSU) is introduced. In the proposed method (SCLSU), high spectral resolution features of HSI and high spatial resolution features of MSI are fused. In this case, the sparse representation of some high resolution MSI and linear spectral unmixing (LSU) model of HSI and MSI is simultaneously used in order to construct high resolution HSI (HRHSI). The fusion process of HSI and MSI is formulated as an ill-posed inverse problem. It is solved by the Split Augmented Lagrangian Shrinkage Algorithm (SALSA) and an orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm. Finally, the proposed algorithm is applied to the Hyperion and ALI datasets. Compared with the other state-of-the-art algorithms such as Coupled Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (CNMF) and local spectral unmixing, the SCLSU has significantly increased the spatial resolution and in addition the spectral content of HSI is well maintained.

Hyperspectral image classification has been an active topic of research. In recent years, it has been found that light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data provide a source of complementary information that can greatly assist in the classification of hyperspectral data, in particular when it is difficult to separate complex classes. This is because, in addition to the spatial and the spectral information provided by hyperspectral data, LiDAR can provide very valuable information about the height of the surveyed area that can help with the discrimination of classes and their separability. In the past, several efforts have been investigated for fusion of hyperspectral and LiDAR data, with some efforts driven by the morphological information that can be derived from both data sources. However, a main challenge for the learning approaches is how to exploit the information coming from multiple features. Specifically, it has been found that simple concatenation or stacking of features such as morphological attribute profiles (APs) may contain redundant information. In addition, a significant increase in the number of features may lead to very high-dimensional input features. This is in contrast with the limited number of training samples often available in remote-sensing applications, which may lead to the Hughes effect. In this work, we develop a new efficient strategy for fusion and classification of hyperspectral and LiDAR data. Our approach has been designed to integrate multiple types of features extracted from these data. An important characteristic of the presented approach is that it does not require any regularization parameters, so that different types of features can be efficiently exploited and integrated in a collaborative and flexible way. Our experimental results, conducted using a hyperspectral image and a LiDAR-derived digital surface model (DSM) collected over the University of Houston campus and the neighboring urban area, indicate that the proposed framework for multiple feature learning provides state-of-the-art classification results.

Encoding of multispectral and hyperspectral image data using wavelet transform and gain shape vector quantization

Recent advances and new guidelines on hyperspectral and multispectral image fusion

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a Fabry-Perot Interferometer (FPI) based hyperspectral imager compatible with light weight UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) platforms (SPIE Proc. 7474¹, 8186B²). The FPI based hyperspectral imager was used in a UAV imaging campaign for forest and agriculture tests during the summer 2011 (SPIE Proc. 8174³). During these tests high spatial resolution Color-Infrared (CIR) images and hyperspectral images were recorded on separate flights. The spectral bands of the CIR camera were 500 - 580 nm for the green band, 580 - 700 nm for the red band and 700 - 1000 nm for the near infrared band. For the summer 2012 flight campaign a new hyperspectral imager is currently being developed. A custom made CIR camera will also be used. The system which includes both the high spatial resolution Color-Infrared camera and a light weight hyperspectral imager can provide all necessary data with just one UAV flight over the target area. The new UAV imaging system contains a 4 Megapixel CIR camera which is used for the generation of the digital surface models and CIR mosaics. The hyperspectral data can be recorded in the wavelength range 500 - 900 nm at a resolution of 10 - 30 nm at FWHM. The resolution can be selected from approximate values of 10, 15, 20 or 30 nm at FWHM.

Infection by the fungus Verticillium dahliae (Vd) and the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) threatens the production of olives (Olea europaea L.) and almonds (Prunus dulcis Mill.) worldwide. Producing symptoms that resemble water stress or nutrient deficiency, infection by these vascular pathogens restricts water and nutrient flow through the xylem. Hyperspectral, narrow-band multispectral, and thermal imagery acquired at a high spatial resolution can detect disease symptoms, even before they are visible, potentially allowing growers to distinguish infected plants from those affected by confounding environmental stresses. Nevertheless, operational detection of vascular disease using high-resolution commercial satellite multispectral images remains to be evaluated. Here, we assessed the capacity of high-resolution Worldview-2 and -3 multispectral imagery to detect Xf and Vd infections in olive and almond orchards in Spain, Italy, and Australia between 2011 and 2021. We compared the accuracy of detecting both pathogens using the satellite imagery with results obtained using aerial high-resolution hyperspectral and thermal imaging, with model-inverted plant traits, solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), and thermal data as a reference. Our results using spectral plant traits to examine disease progression at all stages showed that traits and their importance varied as a function of disease severity. Worldview-2 and -3 detected the disease incidence with overall accuracies ranging from 0.63 to 0.83 and kappa coefficients (κ) ranging from 0.29 to 0.68. Nevertheless, detecting the early stages of disease with multispectral satellite data yielded poorer results, with κ values of 0.22–0.45, compared with κ values of 0.3–0.69 obtained from hyperspectral data. Typical multispectral bandsets available from satellite sensors cannot measure important plant traits such as the blue index NPQI, xanthophyll proxy PRIn, SIF, and anthocyanin levels, thus explaining the poorer results obtained from multispectral satellite data for the early detection of vascular diseases. Adding a thermal-based crop water stress indicator to the satellite data improved the overall accuracies by 10–15% and increased κ by >0.2 units. This work shows that commercial multispectral high-spatial resolution imagery can be used to detect intermediate and advanced Xf and Vd infection, but that the early detection of disease symptoms requires hyperspectral and thermal data.

Mapping rock forming minerals at Boundary Canyon, Death Valey National Park, California, using aerial SEBASS thermal infrared hyperspectral image data

The most standard blind source separation (BSS) methods address the situation when a set of signals are available, e.g. from measurements, and all of them are linear memoryless combinations, with unknown coefficient values, of the same limited set of unknown source signals. BSS methods aim at estimating these unknown source signals and/or coefficients. This generic problem is e.g. faced in the field of Earth observation (where it is also called “unsupervised unmixing”), when considering the commonly used (over)simplified model of hyperspectral images. Each pixel of such an image has an associated reflectance spectrum derived from measurements, which is defined by the fraction of sunlight power reflected by the corresponding Earth surface at each wavelength. Each source signal is then the single reflectance spectrum associated with one of the classes of pure materials which are present in the region of Earth corresponding to the overall considered hyperspectral image. Besides, the associated coefficients define the surfaces on Earth covered with each of these pure materials in each sub-region corresponding to one pixel of the considered image. However, real hyperspectral data e.g. obtained in urban areas have a much more complex structure than the above basic model: each class of pure materials (e.g. roof tiles, trees or asphalt) has so-called spectral or intra-class variability, i.e. it yields a somewhat different spectral component in each pixel of the image. In this complex framework, this chapter shows that Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and its proposed extension are of high interest at three stages of our investigation. First, PCA allows us to analyze the above-mentioned spectral variability of real high-dimensional hyperspectral data and to propose an extended data model which is suited to these complex data. We then develop a versatile extension of BSS methods based on Nonnegative Matrix Factorization, which adds the capability to handle arbitrary forms of intra-class variability by transposing PCA concepts to this original version of the BSS tramework. Finally, PCA again proves to be very well suited to analyzing the high-dimensional data obtained as the result of the proposed BSS method.