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Although multimodal remote sensing data analysis can strongly improve the characterization of physical phenomena on Earth’s surface, nonidealities and estimation imperfections between records and investigation models can limit its actual information extraction ability. In this article, we aim at predicting the maximum information extraction that can be reached when analyzing a given data set. By means of an asymptotic information theory-based approach, we investigate the reliability and accuracy that can be achieved under optimal conditions for multimodal analysis as a function of data statistics and parameters that characterize the multimodal scenario to be addressed. Our approach leads to the definition of two indices that can be easily computed before the actual processing takes place. Moreover, we report in this article how they can be used for operational use in terms of image selection in order to maximize the robustness of the multimodal analysis, as well as to properly design data collection campaigns for understanding and quantifying physical phenomena. Experimental results show the consistency of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remotely sensed images with very high spatial resolution provide a detailed representation of the surveyed scene with a geometrical resolution that, at the present, can be up to 30 cm (WorldView-3). A set of powerful image processing operators have been defined in the mathematical morphology framework. Among those, connected operators [e.g., attribute filters (AFs)] have proven their effectiveness in processing very high resolution images. AFs are based on attributes which can be efficiently implemented on tree-based image representations. In this paper, we considered the definition of \min, \max, \textdirect, and \textsubtractive filter rules for the computation of AFs over the tree-of-shapes representation. We study their performance on the classification of remotely sensed images. We compare the classification results over the tree of shapes with the results obtained when the same rules are applied on the component trees. The random forest is used as a baseline classifier, and the experiments are conducted using multispectral data sets acquired by QuickBird and IKONOS sensors over urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just over a decade has passed since the concept of morphological profile was defined for the analysis of remote sensing images. Since then, the morphological profile has largely proved to be a powerful tool able to model spatial information (e.g., contextual relations) of the image. However, due to the shortcomings of using the morphological profiles, many variants, extensions, and refinements of its definition have appeared stating that the morphological profile is still under continuous development. In this case, recently introduced theoretically sound attribute profiles (APs) can be considered as a generalization of the morphological profile, which is a powerful tool to model spatial information existing in the scene. Although the concept of the AP has been introduced in remote sensing only recently, an extensive literature on its use in different applications and on different types of data has appeared. To that end, the great amount of contributions in the literature that address the application of the AP to many tasks (e.g., classification, object detection, segmentation, change detection, etc.) and to different types of images (e.g., panchromatic, multispectral, and hyperspectral) proves how the AP is an effective and modern tool. The main objective of this survey paper is to recall the concept of the APs along with all its modifications and generalizations with special emphasis on remote sensing image classification and summarize the important aspects of its efficient utilization while also listing potential future works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Segmentation and classification are prolific research topics in the image processing community. These topics have been increasingly used in the context of analysis of cementitious materials on images acquired with a scanning electron microscope. Indeed, there is a need to be able to detect and to quantify the materials present in a cement paste in order to follow the chemical reactions occurring in the material even days after the solidification. We propose a new approach for segmentation and classification of cementitious materials based on the denoising of the data with a block-matching three-dimensional (3-D) algorithm, binary partition tree (BPT) segmentation, support vector machines (SVM) classification, and interactivity with the user. The BPT provides a hierarchical representation of the spatial regions of the data, allowing a segmentation to be selected among the admissible partitions of the image. SVMs are used to obtain a classification map of the image. This approach combines state-of-the-art image processing tools with user interactivity to allow a better segmentation to be performed, or to help the classifier discriminate the classes better. We show that the proposed approach outperforms a previous method when applied to synthetic data and several real datasets coming from cement samples, both qualitatively with visual examination and quantitatively with the comparison of experimental results with theoretical ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection of deformation in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) time series associated with (a)seismic events down to a low magnitude is still a challenging issue. The presence of a considerable amount of noise in the data makes it difficult to reveal patterns of small ground deformation. Traditional analyses and methodologies are able to effectively retrieve the deformation associated with medium to large magnitude events. However, the automatic detection and characterization of such events is still a complex task, because traditionally employed methods often separate the time series analysis from the source characterization. Here we propose a first end‐to‐end framework to characterize seismic sources using geodetic data by means of deep learning, which can be an efficient alternative to the traditional workflow, possibly overcoming its performance. We exploit three different geodetic data representations in order to leverage the intrinsic spatio‐temporal structure of the GNSS noise and the target signal associated with (slow) earthquake deformation. We employ time series, images, and image time series to account for the temporal, spatial, and spatio‐temporal domain, respectively. Thereafter, we design and develop a specific deep learning model for each dataset. We analyze the performance of the tested models both on synthetic and real data from North Japan, showing that image time series of geodetic deformation can be an effective data representation to embed the spatio‐temporal evolution, with the associated deep learning method outperforming the other two. Therefore, jointly accounting for the spatial and temporal evolution may be the key to effectively detect and characterize fast or slow earthquakes. Plain Language Summary: The continuous monitoring of ground displacement with Global Navigation Satellite System allowed, at the beginning of the 2000s, the discovery of slow earthquakes—a transient slow slippage of tectonic faults that releases stress without generating seismic waves. Nevertheless, the detection of small events is still a challenge, because they are hidden in the noise. Most of the methods which are traditionally employed are able to extract the deformation down to a certain signal‐to‐noise level. However, one can ask if deep learning can be a more efficient and powerful alternative. To this end, we address the problem by using deep learning, as it stands as a powerful way to automatize and possibly overcome traditional methods. We use and compare three data representations, that is time series, images, and image time series of deformation, which account for the temporal, spatial, and spatio‐temporal variability, respectively. We train our methods on synthetic data, since real datasets are still not enough to be effectively employed with deep learning, and we test on synthetic and real data as well, claiming that image time series and its associated deep learning model may be more effective toward the study of the slow deformation. Key Points: We develop deep learning approaches on synthetics mimicking the spatio‐temporal structure of static deformation and realistic Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) noiseWe design three deep learning models and we train and test them against three GNSS data representationsTransformers and image time series of deformation can effectively characterize small deformation patterns associated with the seismic source [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarimetric incoherent target decomposition aims at accessing physical parameters of illuminated scatters through the analysis of the target coherence or covariance matrix. In this framework, independent component analysis (ICA) was recently proposed as an alternative method to eigenvector decomposition to better interpret non-Gaussian heterogeneous clutter (inherent to high-resolution synthetic aperture radar systems). Until now, the two main drawbacks reported of the aforementioned method are the greater number of samples required for an unbiased estimation, when compared to the classical eigenvector decomposition, and the inability to be employed in scenarios under the Gaussian clutter assumption. In this paper, both drawbacks are analyzed. First, a Monte Carlo approach is performed in order to investigate the bias in estimating Touzi's target-scattering-vector-model parameters when ICA is employed. Simulated data and a RAMSES X-band image acquired over Brétigny, France, are taken into consideration to investigate the bias estimation under different scenarios. Finally, the performance of the algorithm is also evaluated under the Gaussian clutter assumption and when spatial correlation is introduced in the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiplicative model, expressed as a product between the square root of a scalar positive quantity (texture) and the description of an equivalent homogeneous surface (speckle), is one of the most appropriate and disseminated models used to describe high-resolution polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) clutter. Generally, the texture is assumed polarization independent, which causes PolSAR data to present a spherical symmetry property, allowing for the usage of most of the algorithms present in the literature. Nevertheless, the existence of polarization-dependent clutter has also been reported, for which specific algorithms need to be derived. Therefore, it becomes clear that the first step in SAR data analysis should be the validation of the model employed. Within this context, this paper presents a new methodological framework to assess the conformity of multivariate high-resolution SAR data with respect to the product model in terms of asymptotic statistics. More precisely, spherical symmetry is investigated by applying statistical hypothesis testing on the structure of the quadricovariance matrix. Simulated data, data from the P-band airborne data set acquired by the Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) over the French Guiana in 2009 in the frame of the European Space Agency campaign TropiSAR and a RAMSES X-band image acquired over Brétigny, France, are taken into consideration to investigate the performance of the derived test. The detection results are qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed, and some important conclusions are drawn regarding the methodology employed in analyzing SAR data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a pioneering approach for blind Hyperspectral Image (HSI) unmixing named Multi-Features Graph Deep Fusion Learning Networks for HSI Unmixing (MF-GDL). Our method leverages the power of multi-feature graph deep fusion learning networks. MF-GDL integrates spectral HSI graph features with complementary spatial graph features, overcoming the fixed window size limitation observed in prior deep learning approaches in capturing spatial relationships effectively. A key contribution lies in the introduction of multi-view graph learning, a novel aspect in HSI unmixing. By incorporating graph similarity-based spatial information, we address an important gap in the existing literature, marking the first attempt, to our knowledge, to tackle this challenge using a graph deep learning method. Furthermore, we introduce auxiliary information based on Extended Morphological Profiles (EMPs) to enrich spatial context beyond high-level spatial relationships between neighboring pixels. This multi-view fusion learning not only improves accuracy in material abundance estimation but also demonstrates the significance of considering multiple perspectives in HSI unmixing. We validate the efficacy of MF-GDL on four real datasets: Jasper Ridge, Samson, Urban, and Apex showcasing its robust performance and highlighting the substantial contribution of the multi-view aspect in advancing HSI unmixing techniques. • A multi-view graph neural networks is proposed for hyperspectral image unmixing. • Spectral- and Morphological Profiles-based graphs are built with relevant features. • Unmixing accuracy is improved by the learned shared latent representation. • Superior unmixing performance demonstrated on real HSI datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HYEP project (ANR HYEP 14-CE22-0016-01 Hyperspectral imagery for Environmental urban Planning - Mobility and Urban Systems Programme - 2014) confirmed the interest of a global approach to the urban environment by remote sensing and in particular by using hyperspectral imaging (HI). The interest of hyperspectral images lies in the range of information provided over wavelengths from 0.4 to 4 μm; they thus provide access to spectral quantities of interest and to chemical or biophysical parameters of the surface. HYEP's objective was to specify this and to propose a panel of methods and treatments taking into account the characteristics of other existing sensors in order to compare their performance. The developments carried out were applied and evaluated on hyperspectral airborne images acquired in Toulouse and Kaunas (Lithuania), also used to synthesize space systems: Sentinel-2, Hypxim/Biodiversity and Pleiades. Among the locks identified were those related to improving the spatial capabilities of the sensors and spatial scale changes, which were partially overcome by fusion and sharpening approaches, which proved to be successful. After a description of our hyperspectral data set acquired over Toulouse, an analysis is conducted on several existing and accessible spectral databases. Then, the chosen methods are presented. They include extraction, fusion and classification methods, which are then applied on our dataset synthetized at different spatial resolution to evaluate the benefits and the complementarity of hyperspectral imagery in comparison with other traditional sensors. Some specific applications are investigated of interest for urban planners: impervious soil map, vegetation species cartography and detection of solar panels. Finally, discussion and perspectives are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphological and attribute profiles have been proven to be effective tools to fuse spectral and spatial information for classification of remote sensing data. A wide range of filters (i.e., number of levels in the profiles) is usually necessary in order to properly model the spatial information in a remote sensing scene. A dense sampling of the values of the parameters of the filters generates profiles that have both a very large dimensionality (leading to the Hughes phenomenon in classification) and a high redundancy. In this paper, a novel iterative technique based on genetic algorithms (GAs) is proposed to automatically optimize the selection of the optimal features from the profiles. The selection of the filtered images that compose the profile is performed by dividing them into three classes corresponding to high, medium, and low importance. We propose to measure the importance (modeled in terms of discriminative power in the classification task) using a random forest classifier, which provides a rank for each feature with its model. Only the set of images associated with the highest importance is selected, i.e., preserved for classification. The proposed technique is applied to the features labeled with medium importance, whereas the images with the lowest importance are removed from the profile. This method is employed to classify three hyperspectral data sets achieving significantly high classification accuracy values. A parallel computing implementation has been developed in order to significantly reduce the time required for the run of the GAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characterization of snow extent is critical for a wide range of applications. Since 1966, snow maps at different spatial resolutions have been produced using various satellite sensor images. Nowadays, the most widely used products are likely those derived from Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, which cover the whole Earth at a near-daily frequency. There are a variety of snow mapping methods for MODIS data, based on different methodologies and applied at different spatial resolutions. Up to now, all these products have been tested and evaluated separately. This study aims to compare the methods currently available for retrieving snow from MODIS data. The focus is on fractional snow cover, which represents the snow cover area at the subpixel level. We examine the two main approaches available for generating such products from MODIS data; namely, linear regression of the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and spectral unmixing (SU). These two approaches have resulted in several methods, such as MOD10A1 (the NSIDC MODIS snow product) for NDSI regression, and MODImLAB for SU. The assessment of these approaches was carried out using higher resolution binary snow maps (i.e., showing the presence or absence of snow) at spatial resolutions of 10, 20, and 30 m, produced by SPOT 4, SPOT 5, and LANDSAT-8, respectively. Three areas were selected in order to provide landscape diversity: the French Alps (117 dates), the Pyrenees (30 dates), and the Moroccan Atlas (24 dates). This study investigates the impact of reference maps on accuracy assessments, and it is suggested that NDSI-based high spatial resolution reference maps advantage NDSI medium-resolution snow maps. For MODIS snow maps, the results show that applying an NDSI approach to accurate surface reflectance corrected for topographic and atmospheric effects generally outperforms other methods for the global retrieval of snow cover area. The improvements to the newer version of MOD10A1 (Collection 6) compared to the older version (Collection 5) are significant. Products based on SU provide a good alternative and more accurate retrieval of the snow fraction where wider ranges of land covers are concerned. The fusion process and its resulting 250 m spatial resolution product improve snow line retrieval. False detection in mixed pixels, probably due to the spectral variability associated with the various materials in the spectral mixture, has been identified as an area that will require improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral video sequences (HVSs) are well suited for gas plume detection (GPD). The high spectral resolution allows the detection of chemical clouds even when they are optically thin. Processing this new type of video sequences is challenging and requires advanced image and video analysis algorithms. In this paper, we propose a novel method for GPD recorded in HVSs. Based on the assumption that the background is stationary and the gas plume is moving, the proposed method separates the background from the gas plume via a low-rank and sparse decomposition. Furthermore, taking into consideration that the gas plume is continuous in both spatial and temporal dimensions, we include total variation regularization in the constrained minimization problem, which we solve using the augmented Lagrangian multiplier method. After applying the above process to each extracted feature, a novel fusion strategy is proposed to combine the information into a final detection result. Experimental results using real data sets indicate that the proposed method achieves very promising GPD performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extraction of man-made objects (e.g., roads and buildings) from remotely sensed imagery plays an important role in many urban applications (e.g., urban land use and land cover assessment, updating geographical databases, change detection, etc). This task is normally difficult due to complex data in the form of heterogeneous appearance with large intra-class and lower inter-class variations. In this work, we propose a single patch-based Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture for extraction of roads and buildings from high-resolution remote sensing data. Low-level features of roads and buildings (e.g., asymmetry and compactness) of adjacent regions are integrated with Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) features during the post-processing stage to improve the performance. Experiments are conducted on two challenging datasets of high-resolution images to demonstrate the performance of the proposed network architecture and the results are compared with other patch-based network architectures. The results demonstrate the validity and superior performance of the proposed network architecture for extracting roads and buildings in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intrinsic dimensionality (ID) of multivariate data is a very important concept in spectral unmixing of hyperspectral images. A good estimation of the ID is crucial for a correct retrieval of the number of endmembers (the spectral signatures of macroscopic materials) in the image, for dimensionality reduction or for subspace learning, among others. Recently, some approaches to perform spectral unmixing and superresolution locally have been proposed, which require a local estimation of the number of endmembers to use. However, the role of ID in local regions of hyperspectral images has not been properly addressed. Some important issues when dealing with small regions of hyperspectral data can seriously affect the performance of conventional hyperspectral ID estimators. We show that three factors mainly affect local ID estimation: the number of pixels in the local regions, which has to be high enough for the estimations to be relevant, the number of hyperspectral bands which complicates the estimations if the ambient space has a high dimensionality, and the noise, which can be misinterpreted as a signal when its power is important. Here, we review the hyperspectral ID estimators on the literature for local ID estimation, we show how they behave in a local setting on synthetic and real data sets, and we provide some guidelines to make proper use of these estimators in local approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pansharpening aims at fusing a multispectral and a panchromatic image, featuring the result of the processing with the spectral resolution of the former and the spatial resolution of the latter. In the last decades, many algorithms addressing this task have been presented in the literature. However, the lack of universally recognized evaluation criteria, available image data sets for benchmarking, and standardized implementations of the algorithms makes a thorough evaluation and comparison of the different pansharpening techniques difficult to achieve. In this paper, the authors attempt to fill this gap by providing a critical description and extensive comparisons of some of the main state-of-the-art pansharpening methods. In greater details, several pansharpening algorithms belonging to the component substitution or multiresolution analysis families are considered. Such techniques are evaluated through the two main protocols for the assessment of pansharpening results, i.e., based on the full- and reduced-resolution validations. Five data sets acquired by different satellites allow for a detailed comparison of the algorithms, characterization of their performances with respect to the different instruments, and consistency of the two validation procedures. In addition, the implementation of all the pansharpening techniques considered in this paper and the framework used for running the simulations, comprising the two validation procedures and the main assessment indexes, are collected in a MATLAB toolbox that is made available to the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La détection des haies à partir d'images Pléiades est abordée dans cet article. Un système de détection en deux étapes estproposé. Il est basé sur l'utilisation conjointe de l'information spatiale et de l'information spectrale. Tout d'abord, leséléments ligneux sont détectés en utilisant l'information spectrale. Puis, l'orientation locale de chaque pixel est calculéeà l'aide de filtres directionnels. Les expériences menées sur une image multispectrale Pléiades acquise en septembre2013 montrent une bonne performance de l'approche proposée (> 90% de pixels bien classés) et permet d'envisager unedétection du réseau de haies sur de grandes étendues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective strategies for forest characterization and monitoring, are important to support sustainable management. Recent advances in remote sensing, like LiDAR and hyperspectral sensors, provide valuable information to characterize forests at stand, plot and tree level. LiDAR data offers potentialities for analyzing structural properties of canopy, while hyperspectral imaging contains meaningful reflectance attributes of plants or spectral traits. The fusion of these two modalities provide better and more robust estimation of the forestry variables. This work presents a review of methods for the integration of LiDAR data and hyperspectral imagery by taking into account applications related to forestry. Although different authors propose different approaches of data fusion, our review is divided according to three levels of fusion based on data processing: observation level, feature level, and decision level. Fusion at observation level preserves most of the original information from both modalities by integrating 3D point cloud with the hyperspectral information. One alternative for this task is the generation of the Canopy Height Model (CHM), which is the most used two-dimensional representation of LiDAR data. Fusion at feature level seeks to complement information by exploiting the original data. The most relevant features extracted from LiDAR or hyperspectral data are statistical, structural, topographic, vegetation indices, textural and dimension reduction. Some of these feature descriptors are stacked to be fused at higher level, or these are normalized to be integrated through methods of dimension reduction or feature selection. Fusion at decision level is directly associated to the forestry application and implies tasks of segmentation, classification, data association and prediction - estimation. This review describes relationship between the three levels of fusion and the methods used in each considered approach. The most important applications are oriented to species mapping, functional and physiological attributes, structural attributes, above ground biomass and carbon density and landcover maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]