An effective approach for land-cover classification from airborne lidar fused with co-registered data

Airborne lidar provides accurate height information of objects on the earth and has been recognized as a reliable and accurate surveying tool in many applications. In particular, lidar data offer vital and significant features for urban land-cover classification, which is an important task in urban land-use studies. In this article, we present an effective approach in which lidar data fused with its co-registered images (i.e. aerial colour images containing red, green and blue (RGB) bands and near-infrared (NIR) images) and other derived features are used effectively for accurate urban land-cover classification. The proposed approach begins with an initial classification performed by the Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence with a specifically designed basic probability assignment function. It outputs two results, i.e. the initial classification and pseudo-training samples, which are selected automatically according to the combined probability masses. Second, a support vector machine (SVM)-based probability estimator is adopted to compute the class conditional probability (CCP) for each pixel from the pseudo-training samples. Finally, a Markov random field (MRF) model is established to combine spatial contextual information into the classification. In this stage, the initial classification result and the CCP are exploited. An efficient belief propagation (EBP) algorithm is developed to search for the global minimum-energy solution for the maximum a posteriori (MAP)-MRF framework in which three techniques are developed to speed up the standard belief propagation (BP) algorithm. Lidar and its co-registered data acquired by Toposys Falcon II are used in performance tests. The experimental results prove that fusing the height data and optical images is particularly suited for urban land-cover classification. There is no training sample needed in the proposed approach, and the computational cost is relatively low. An average classification accuracy of 93.63% is achieved.     

Object-based land cover classification of shaded areas in high spatial resolution imagery of urban areas: A comparison study

A significant proportion of high spatial resolution imagery in urban areas can be affected by shadows. Considerable research has been conducted to investigate shadow detection and removal in remotely sensed imagery. Few studies, however, have evaluated how applications of these shadow detection and restoration methods can help eliminate the shadow problem in land cover classification of high spatial resolution images in urban settings. This paper presents a comparison study of three methods for land cover classification of shaded areas from high spatial resolution imagery in an urban environment. Method 1 combines spectral information in shaded areas with spatial information for shadow classification. Method 2 applies a shadow restoration technique, the linear-correlation correction method to create a “shadow-free” image before the classification. Method 3 uses multisource data fusion to aid in classification of shadows. The results indicated that Method 3 achieved the best accuracy, with overall accuracy of 88%. It provides a significantly better means for shadow classification than the other two methods. The overall accuracy for Method 1 was 81.5%, slightly but not significantly higher than the 80.5% from Method 2. All of the three methods applied an object-based classification procedure, which was critical as it provides an effective way to address the problems of radiometric difference and spatial misregistration associated with multisource data fusion (Method 3), and to incorporate thematic spatial information (Method 1).     

A maximum entropy method to extract urban land by combining MODIS reflectance,MODIS NDVI,and DMSP-OLS data

Researchers often encounter difficulties in obtaining timely and detailed information on urban growth. Modern remote-sensing techniques can address such difficulties. With desirable spectral resolution and temporal resolution, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products have significant advantages in tackling land-use and land-cover change issues at regional and global scales. However, simply based on spectral information, traditional methods of remote-sensing image classification are barely satisfactory. For example, it is quite difficult to distinguish urban and bare lands. Moreover, training samples of all land-cover types are needed, which means that traditional classification methods are inefficient in one-class classification. Even support vector machine, a current state-of-the-art method, still has several drawbacks. To address the aforementioned problems, this study proposes extracting urban land by combining MODIS surface reflectance, MODIS normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System data based on the maximum entropy model (MAXENT). This model has been proved successful in solving one-class problems in many other fields. But the application of MAXENT in remote sensing remains rare. A combination of NDVI and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System data can provide more information to facilitate the one-class classification of MODIS images. A multi-temporal case study of China in 2000, 2005, and 2010 shows that this novel method performs effectively. Several validations demonstrate that the urban land extraction results are comparable to classified Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) images. These results are also more reliable than those of MODIS land-cover type product (MCD12Q1). Thus, this study presents an innovative and practical method to extract urban land at large scale using multiple source data, which can be further applied to other periods and regions.     

A decision fusion method using an algorithm for fusion of correlated probabilities

This paper proposes a new decision fusion method accounting for conditional dependence (correlation) between land-cover classifications from multi-sensor data. The dependence structure between different classification results is calculated and used as weighting parameters for the subsequent fusion scheme. An algorithm for fusion of correlated probabilities (FCP) is adopted to fuse the prior probability, conditional probability, and obtained weighting parameters to generate a posterior probability for each class. A maximum posterior probability rule is then used to combine the posterior probabilities generated for each class to produce the final fusion result. The proposed FCP-based decision fusion method is assessed in land-cover classification over two study areas. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed decision fusion method outperformed the existing decision fusion methods that do not take into account the correlation or dependence. The proposed decision fusion method can also be applied to other applications with different sensor data.     

Land-cover classification using multi-temporal GF-1 wide field view data

ABSTRACT

Vegetation is an important land-cover type and its growth characteristics have potential for improving land-cover classification accuracy using remote-sensing data. However, due to lack of suitable remote-sensing data, temporal features are difficult to acquire for high spatial resolution land-cover classification. Several studies have extracted temporal features by fusing time-series Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data and Landsat data. Nevertheless, this method needs assumption of no land-cover change occurring during the period of blended data and the fusion results also present certain errors influencing temporal features extraction. Therefore, time-series high spatial resolution data from a single sensor are ideal for land-cover classification using temporal features. The Chinese GF-1 satellite wide field view (WFV) sensor has realized the ability of acquiring multispectral data with decametric spatial resolution, high temporal resolution and wide coverage, which contain abundant temporal information for improving land-cover classification accuracy. Therefore, it is of important significance to investigate the performance of GF-1 WFV data on land-cover classification. Time-series GF-1 WFV data covering the vegetation growth period were collected and temporal features reflecting the dynamic change characteristics of ground-objects were extracted. Then, Support Vector Machine classifier was used to land-cover classification based on the spectral features and their combination with temporal features. The validation results indicated that temporal features could effectively reflect the growth characteristics of different vegetation and finally improved classification accuracy of approximately 7%, reaching 92.89% with vegetation type identification accuracy greatly improved. The study confirmed that GF-1 WFV data had good performances on land-cover classification, which could provide reliable high spatial resolution land-cover data for related applications.     

Land-cover classification of an intra-urban environment using high-resolution images and object-based image analysis

Detailed, up-to-date information on intra-urban land cover is important for urban planning and management. Differentiation between permeable and impermeable land, for instance, provides data for surface run-off estimates and flood prevention, whereas identification of vegetated areas enables studies of urban micro-climates. In place of maps, high-resolution images, such as those from the satellites IKONOS II, Quickbird, Orbview and WorldView II, can be used after processing. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) is a well-established method for classifying high-resolution images of urban areas. Despite the large number of previous studies of OBIA in the context of intra-urban analysis, there are many issues in this area that are still open to discussion and resolution. Intra-urban analysis using OBIA can be lengthy and complex because of the processing difficulties related to image segmentation, the large number of object attributes to be resolved and the many different methods needed to classify various image objects. To overcome these issues, we performed an experiment consisting of land-cover mapping based on an OBIA approach using an IKONOS II image of a southern sector of São José dos Campos city (covering an area of 12 km² with 50 neighbourhoods), which is located in São Paulo State in south-eastern Brazil. This area contains various occupation and land-use patterns, and it therefore contains a wide range of intra-urban targets. To generate the land-cover map, we proposed an OBIA-based processing framework that combines multi-resolution segmentation, data mining and hierarchical network techniques. The intra-urban land-cover map was then evaluated through an object-based error matrix, and classification accuracy indices were obtained. The final classification, with 11 classes, achieved a global accuracy of 71.91%.     

Combining parametric and non-parametric algorithms for a partially unsupervised classification of multitemporal remote-sensing images

In this paper, we propose a classification system based on a multiple-classifier architecture, which is aimed at updating land-cover maps by using multisensor and/or multisource remote-sensing images. The proposed system is composed of an ensemble of classifiers that, once trained in a supervised way on a specific image of a given area, can be retrained in an unsupervised way to classify a new image of the considered site. In this context, two techniques are presented for the unsupervised updating of the parameters of a maximum-likelihood classifier and a radial basis function neural-network classifier, on the basis of the distribution of the new image to be classified. Experimental results carried out on a multitemporal and multisource remote-sensing data set confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system.     

Mapping the land-cover distribution in arid and semiarid urban landscapes with Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery

Mapping the land-cover distribution in arid and semiarid urban landscapes using medium spatial resolution imagery is especially difficult due to the mixed-pixel problem in remotely sensed data and the confusion of spectral signatures among bare soils, sparse density shrub lands, and impervious surface areas (ISAs hereafter). This article explores a hybrid method consisting of linear spectral mixture analysis (LSMA), decision tree classifier, and cluster analysis for mapping land-cover distribution in two arid and semiarid urban landscapes: Urumqi, China, and Phoenix, USA. The Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery was unmixed into four endmember fraction images (i.e. high-albedo object, low-albedo object, green vegetation (GV), and soil) using the LSMA approach. New variables from these fraction images and TM spectral bands were used to map seven land-cover classes (i.e. forest, shrub, grass, crop, bare soil, ISA, and water) using the decision tree classifier. The cluster analysis was further used to modify the classification results. QuickBird imagery in Urumqi and aerial photographs in Phoenix were used to assess classification accuracy. Overall classification accuracies of 86.0% for Urumqi and 88.7% for Phoenix were obtained, much higher accuracies than those utilizing the traditional maximum likelihood classifier (MLC). This research demonstrates the necessity of using new variables from fraction images to distinguish between ISA and bare soils and between shrub and other vegetation types. It also indicates the different effects of spatial patterns of land-cover composition in arid and semiarid landscapes on urban land-cover classification.     

遥感图象分类的统计融合方法及性能分析

基于数据层的统计数据融合方法,以提高遥感图象的分类性能为目的,实现了一种新的可调参数的图象分类方法。用这种方法对ＴＭ图象和ＳＡＲ图象进行了一系列的实验,并对实验的结果进行了分析,从而得出关于数据层统计信息融合方法的有益的结论。     

A semi-supervised spatially aware wrapper method for hyperspectral band selection

Band selection is widely used to identify relevant bands for land-cover classification of hyperspectral images. The combination of spectral and spatial information can improve the classification performance of hyperspectral images dramatically. Similarly, the fusion of spectral–spatial information should also improve the performance of band selection. In this article, two semi-supervised wrapper-based spectral–spatial band selection algorithms are proposed. The local spatial smoothness of hyperspectral imagery is used to improve the performance of band selection when limited labelled samples available. With superpixel segmentation, the first algorithm uses the statistical characteristics of classification map to predict the classification quality of all samples. Based on the Markov random field model, the second algorithm incorporates the spatial information by the minimization of spectral–spatial energy function. Four widely used real hyperspectral data sets are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, when compared to cross-validation-based wrapper method, the accuracy is improved by 2% for different data sets.     

Infrared and visible image fusion using fuzzy logic and population-based optimization

This paper presents a new wavelet-based algorithm for the fusion of spatially registered infrared and visible images. Wavelet-based image fusion is the most common fusion method, which fuses the information from the source images in the wavelet transform domain according to some fusion rules. We specifically propose new fusion rules for fusion of low and high frequency wavelet coefficients of the source images in the second step of the wavelet-based image fusion algorithm. First, the source images are decomposed using dual-tree discrete wavelet transform (DT-DWT). Then, a fuzzy-based approach is used to fuse high frequency wavelet coefficients of the IR and visible images. Particularly, fuzzy logic is used to integrate the outputs of three different fusion rules (weighted averaging, selection using pixel-based decision map (PDM), and selection using region-based decision map (RDM)), based on a dissimilarity measure of the source images. The objective is to utilize the advantages of previous pixel- and region-based methods in a single scheme. The PDM is obtained based on local activity measurement in the DT-DWT domain of the source images. A new segmentation-based algorithm is also proposed to generate the RDM using the PDM. In addition, a new optimization-based approach using population-based optimization is proposed for the low frequency fusion rule instead of simple averaging. After fusing low and high frequency wavelet coefficients of the source images, the final fused image is obtained using the inverse DT-DWT. This new method provides improved subjective and objectives results as compared to previous image fusion methods.     

Coastal wetland classification with multiseasonal high-spatial resolution satellite imagery

ABSTRACT

Accurate mapping of wetland distribution is required for wetland conservation, management, and restoration, but remains a challenge due to the complexity of wetland landscapes. This research employed four seasons of multispectral images from Gaofen-1 satellite to map wetland land-cover distribution in Hangzhou bay coastal wetland (245 km²) in China. Maximum likelihood classifier (MLC), random forest (RF), and the expert-based approach were examined based on spectral, spatial, and phenological features. The results showed that land-cover classification accuracies of 83.9% using RF and 90.3% using the expert-based approach were obtained, and they had higher accuracy than MLC, which had an overall accuracy of only 63.3%. The high classification accuracy for nine land-cover classes using the expert-based approach indicated the important role of expert knowledge from the phenological features in improving wetland classification accuracy. As high spatial resolution satellite images become more easily obtainable, effective use of temporal information of different sensor data will be valuable for detailed land-cover classification with higher accuracy. The approach to establish expert rules from multitemporal images provides a new way to improve land-cover classification in different terrestrial ecosystems.     

A variational method for multisource remote-sensing image fusion

With the increasing availability of multisource image data from Earth observation satellites, image fusion, a technique that produces a single image which preserves major salient features from a set of different inputs, has become an important tool in the field of remote sensing since usually the complete information cannot be obtained by a single sensor. In this article, we develop a new pixel-based variational model for image fusion using gradient features. The basic assumption is that the fused image should have a gradient that is close to the most salient gradient in the multisource inputs. Meanwhile, we integrate the inputs with the average quadratic local dispersion measure for the purpose of uniform and natural perception. Furthermore, we introduce a split Bregman algorithm to implement the proposed functional more effectively. To verify the effect of the proposed method, we visually and quantitatively compare it with the conventional image fusion schemes, such as the Laplacian pyramid, morphological pyramid, and geometry-based enhancement fusion methods. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and stability of the proposed method in terms of the related fusion evaluation benchmarks. In particular, the computation efficiency of the proposed method compared with other variational methods also shows that our method is remarkable.     

Super-resolution land-cover mapping using multiple sub-pixel shifted remotely sensed images

Super-resolution land-cover mapping is a promising technology for prediction of the spatial distribution of each land-cover class at the sub-pixel scale. This distribution is often determined based on the principle of spatial dependence and from land-cover fraction images derived with soft classification technology. However, the resulting super-resolution land-cover maps often have uncertainty as no information about sub-pixel land-cover patterns within the low-resolution pixels is used in the model. Accuracy can be improved by incorporating supplemental datasets to provide more land-cover information at the sub-pixel scale; but the effectiveness of this is limited by the availability and quality of these additional datasets. In this paper, a novel super-resolution land-cover mapping technology is proposed, which uses multiple sub-pixel shifted remotely sensed images taken by observation satellites. These satellites take images over the same area once every several days, but the images are not identical because of slight orbit translations. Low-resolution pixels in these remotely sensed images therefore contain different land-cover fractions that can provide useful information for super-resolution land-cover mapping. We have constructed a Hopfield Neural Network (HNN) model to solve it. Maximum spatial dependence is the goal of the proposed model, and the fraction maps of all images are constraints added to the energy function of HNN. The model was applied to synthetic artificial images as well as to a real degraded QuickBird image. The output maps derived from different numbers of images at different zoom factors were compared visually and quantitatively to the super-resolution map generated from a single image. The resulting land-cover maps with multiple remotely sensed images were more accurate than was the single image map. The use of multiple remotely sensed images is therefore a promising method for decreasing the uncertainty of super-resolution land-cover mapping. Moreover, remotely sensed images with similar spatial resolution from different satellite platforms can be used together, allowing a fusion of information obtained from remotely sensed imagery.     

Multispectral image classification using wavelets: a simulation study

This work presents methods for multispectral image classification using the discrete wavelet transform. Performance of some conventional classification methods is evaluated, through a Monte Carlo study, with or without using the wavelet transform. Spatial autocorrelation is present in the computer-generated data on different scenes, and the misclassification rates are compared. The results indicate that the wavelet-based method performs best among the methods under study.     

A study of a Gaussian mixture model for urban land-cover mapping based on VHR remote sensing imagery

This article proposes a Gaussian-mixture-model (GMM)-based method with optimal Gaussian components to address the high intra-class spectral variability in urban land-cover mapping using remote sensing images with very high resolution (VHR). GMMs can simulate and approximate any data distribution provided the optimal Gaussian components can be found. Through improving the model parameters in view of the characteristic of VHR remote sensing images, the parameter space of GMM is optimized significantly, and the model can find the optimal Gaussian components that are suitable for remote sensing images with different resolutions. Experimental results of Wuhan urban area using two images with different resolutions have demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of the model. The optimized GMM-based method performs at least comparably or superior to the state-of-the-art classifiers such as support vector machines (SVMs), characterizes man-made land-cover types better than conventional methods, fuses spectral and textural features of VHR image properly, and meanwhile has lower computational complexity.     

Multi-attentive hierarchical dense fusion net for fusion classification of hyperspectral and LiDAR data

With recent advance in Earth Observation techniques, the availability of multi-sensor data acquired in the same geographical area has been increasing greatly, which makes it possible to jointly depict the underlying land-cover phenomenon using different sensor data. In this paper, a novel multi-attentive hierarchical fusion net (MAHiDFNet) is proposed to realize the feature-level fusion and classification of hyperspectral image (HSI) with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. More specifically, a triple branch HSI-LiDAR Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) backbone is first developed to simultaneously extract the spatial features, spectral features and elevation features of the land-cover objects. On this basis, hierarchical fusion strategy is adopted to fuse the oriented feature embeddings. In the shallow feature fusion stage, we propose a novel modality attention (MA) module to generate the modality integrated features. By fully considering the correlation and heterogeneity between different sensor data, feature interaction and integration is released by the proposed MA module. At the same time, self-attention modules are also adopted to highlight the modality specific features. In the deep feature fusion stage, the obtained modality specific features and modality integrated features are fused to construct the hierarchical feature fusion framework. Experiments on three real HSI-LiDAR datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The code will be public on https://github.com/SYFYN0317/-MAHiDFNet.     

Improvement of land-cover classification over frequently cloud-covered areas using Landsat 8 time-series composites and an ensemble of supervised classifiers

Recent abundance of moderate-to-high spatial resolution satellite imagery has facilitated land-cover map production. However, in cloud-prone areas, building high-resolution land-cover maps is still challenging due to infrequent satellite revisits and lack of cloud-free data. We propose a classification method for cloud-persistent areas with high temporal dynamics of land-cover types. First, compositing techniques are employed to create dense time-series composite images from all available Landsat 8 images. Then, spectral–temporal features are extracted to train an ensemble of five supervised classifiers. The resulting composite images are clear with at least 99.78% cloud-free pixels and are 20.47% better than their original images on average. We classify seven land classes, including paddy rice, cropland, grass/shrub, trees, bare land, impervious area, and waterbody over Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2016. Using a time series of composites significantly improves the classification performance with 10.03% higher overall accuracy (OA) compared to single composite classifications. Additionally, using time series of composites and the ensemble technique, which combines the best of five experimented classifiers (eXtreme Gradient Boosting, logistic regression, Support Vector Machine (SVM) with Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel – SVM–RBF and Linear kernel – SVM–Linear, multilayer perceptron), performed best with 84% OA and 0.79 kappa coefficient.     

基于数据融合的多特征遥感图像分类

以多光谱图像为研究对象，综合利用遥感图像的光谱、纹理和数学变换特征，提出了一种基于数据融合的多特征遥感地物分类方法。该方法针对不同的特征分别构造了神经网络分类器和K-均值聚类器，并对前者利用Adaboost算法进行提升，然后再将各特征的分类结果利用证据理论合成公式融合得到最终结果。实验结果表明，该方法的分类效果要优于单特征的分类结果。