0602 - Izak Marais Presentation

On-board Image Quality Assessment for a Satellite
I.v.Z. Marais
Prof W.H. Steyn
Prof J. du Preez
Stellenbosch University
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
7th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation,

5 May 2009
Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)
On-board Image Quality Assessment
IAA Symposium, May 09
1 / 31
Outline
Motivation
Quality Features Used

Cloud Cover
Sensor Noise Level
Telescope Defocus Extent
Quality Assessment Model

Creating the Model
Testing the integrated system
2 / 31
Motivation
Outline
Motivation

Cloud Cover
Sensor Noise Level

Creating the Model
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Motivation
Satellite Design Constraints

Storage Capacity Exceeds Download Capacity
Limited download capacity

Short downlink time
(low earth orbit).
Limited bandwidth.
Big storage capacity

Storage cheaper than bandwidth.
Figure: LEO satellite footprint.
4 / 31
Motivation
How On-Board Processing Can Help
Problem
More images can be acquired and stored than downloaded.
Solution
Use on-board processing to ensure best images are downloaded first.
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Motivation
How Image Processing Is Used
Estimate 3 image quality features.

Combine features into quality measure
based on quality model.
Sort images according to quality measure.
Download images from top of sorted quality list.
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Motivation

6 / 31
Motivation

6 / 31
Motivation

6 / 31
Outline
Motivation

Cloud Cover
Sensor Noise Level

Creating the Model
7 / 31
Cloud Cover
Cloud Cover as a Quality Feature

Resource satellites map earths surface.
Cloud cover = interference.
Figure: Differing levels of cloud cover.
8 / 31
Cloud Cover
Cloud Detection Algorithms

Two categories.
Spectral Domain
Spectral signature must be bright (visible band) and cold (thermal
band) enough, i.e., greater than thresholds.
Prevalent technique since 1965.
Spatial Domain
Texture features are used in a pattern recognition system.
Requires more training data and are processor intensive.
Less commonly used.
9 / 31
Cloud Cover
Region Growing Algorithm

Background
Used on board Surrey satellite for cloud detection.

Algorithm combines ideas from
spectral and spatial domains.
Figure: Cloud cover extracted by region growing algorithm.
10 / 31
Cloud Cover

Summary
Start at bright centre pixel.

Grow region up to a fixed size by adding brightest pixels from the
boundary to the region.
Segment when contrast across the boundary and between the
area and the boundary is the greatest.
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Cloud Cover

Summary

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Cloud Cover

Summary

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Cloud Cover
Comparative Results for Cloud Detection

Region Growing vs Thresholding
Thresholding has performance advantage.

Region growing computationally more expensive.
Region Growing
Threshold
Train
Test
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16
Segmentation error
Figure: Comparison of segmentation errors on Landsat 5 data.

12 / 31
Cloud Cover
Using Multiple Channels for Cloud Detection

Background
Problem
Multiple image channels available.
Cannot fit all channel into satellite memory.
Which is best for cloud detection?
Solution
Use a single channel or weighted
combination.
Evaluate different combination techniques
from cloud detection literature.
Novel application of speech processing
method: HDA.
13 / 31
Cloud Cover
Comparison Between Multiple Channels

Results
HDA gave best results, both quantitatively and qualitatively:
Red
Blue
Train
Test
HDA
HOT
D
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
Segmentation error
0.10
Figure: Quantitative comparison
0.12
Figure: Qualitative comparison
14 / 31
Sensor Noise Level
Noise as a Quality Feature

Noise from different sources can corrupt images.
Global additive Gaussian encountered in literature. Relatively
difficult to remove.
Figure: Different types of noise in satellite images.
15 / 31
Sensor Noise Level
Noise Estimation Algorithms
Blind, automatic estimation.

Two algorithms were compared.
Both divide the image into small blocks and determine the
variance of each block.
Noise variance calculated differently:
1
2
Fixed block size. Uses variance histogram peak.

Varying block size. Separates image variance from noise variance
based on typical noise variance order statistics.
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Sensor Noise Level
Comparative Results for Noise Estimation

Fixed Block Size vs. Varying Block Size
Varying block size method superior.

Better accuracy in low noise conditions.
Determines signal noise separation.
Does not estimate when separation is poor.
Adapted to be more conservative: performance increased for
remote sensing images.
17 / 31
Blur as a Quality Feature

Temperature variations can cause lens to become defocused.
Figure: Input image and blurred image.
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Blur Estimation Algorithms

General
Class of problems: Blind Image Deconvolution.
Figure: g(x, y ) = f (x, y ) h(x, y ) + n(x, y )
Difficult problem access to g(x, y ) only,

want to determine h(x, y ).
Requires assumptions about imaging system.
19 / 31
Class of Blur Estimation Algorithms Evaluated
Typical type of blur function assumed (defocus blur).

Use frequency domain to identify blur function parameters.
Spatial domain g(x, y ).
Frequency domain G(u, v ) = F {g(x, y )}.
Cepstral domain Cg (p, q) = F 1 {log G(u, v )}.
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Detecting Failure in Very Noisy Conditions

Is the blur estimate reliable?
In absence of noise methods give clear blur-related peak.

No noise:
(Er large)
blurry image
cepstrum
cepstrum side view
Given enough noise blur detection will fail.

Noise:
(Er small)
Novel relative energy measure detects failure. Er =

Epeak
Erest
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Four Blur Estimation Algorithms Compared

Cepstral algorithm sensitive to noise.
Variations investigated to increase robustness.
Existing
Bicepstrum
Spectral subtraction pre- and
post-processing.
Novel
Spectral subtraction combined with
power spectrum angular smoothing.
Figure: Power spectrum

angular smoothing.
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Comparative Results for Blur Estimation
Performance acceptable in
noiseless conditions.
Cepstral method
very sensitive.
Novel angular smoothing has
best performance.
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Embedded Implementation of Algorithms
Promising algorithms implemented on embedded architecture.

SH4 architecture similar to Sumbandilasat.
Performance feasible.
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Outline
Motivation

Cloud Cover
Sensor Noise Level

Creating the Model
25 / 31
Creating the Model
Subjective Quality Assessment Experiment
Combine quality features into

a single score.
Base model on subjective
evaluation.
Online experiment designed.
More than 18000 independent
judgements recorded.
Figure: Experiment user interface.
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Creating the Model
Quality score
150
100
50
Two models evaluated:
0
15
100
10
0
Blur radius
50
5
0
Cloud cover[%]
Quality score
Mixed spline model - manually tuned

to have more detail in relevant areas.
Neural net model.
Spline model gives better prediction

results.
100
50
0
15
100
10
50
Blur radius
Cloud cover[%]
27 / 31
Total System Performance
Feature estimation combined

with quality model.
Predicted quality correlates
well with human perception.
Linear correlation coefficient of
88%.
28 / 31
Summary
Summary
Novel blur estimation algorithm developed and application of HDA

to cloud detection favourable performance.
Image quality assessment model developed based on large
experiment.
System quality predictions agree with human quality predictions.
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Appendix
For Further Reading
For Further Reading

I.v.Z. Marais and W.H. Steyn
Robust defocus blur identification in the context of blind image
quality assessment.
Signal Processing: Image Communication, November 2007.
I.v.Z. Marais, W.H. Steyn and J.A. du Preez
Construction of an image quality assessment model for use on
board an LEO satellite.
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Boston, MA,
July 2008.
I.v.Z. Marais, J.A. du Preez and W.H. Steyn
An optimal image transform for threshold-based cloud detection
using heteroscedastic discriminant analysis.
International Journal of Remote Sensing, accepted.
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Appendix
For Further Reading
The End
Thank you for listening.

Any Questions?
31 / 31

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On-board Image Quality Assessment for a Satellite

Prof W.H. Steyn

7th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation,

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

Quality Features Used

Quality Assessment Model

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

Quality Features Used

Quality Assessment Model

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

Satellite Design Constraints

Limited download capacity

Big storage capacity

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

How On-Board Processing Can Help

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

How Image Processing Is Used

Estimate 3 image quality features.

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

How Image Processing Is Used

Estimate 3 image quality features.

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

How Image Processing Is Used

Estimate 3 image quality features.

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

How Image Processing Is Used

Estimate 3 image quality features.

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

Quality Features Used

Quality Features Used

Quality Assessment Model

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

Quality Features Used

Cloud Cover as a Quality Feature

Figure: Differing levels of cloud cover.

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09

Quality Features Used

Cloud Detection Algorithms

Marais, Steyn, du Preez (SU)

On-board Image Quality Assessment

IAA Symposium, May 09