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 Lecture 7

Digital Image Processing:

Image Enhancement

TC 24 Remote Sensing of the Environment

Lecturer: Jeark A. Principe, PhD
 Recall: Digital Image Processing

A collection of techniques for the manipulation of digital

images by computers:

Classification and
Pre-processing Information Extraction

Display and
Enhancement

3
Digital Image Processing:
Image Enhancement
• These are operations that are carried out
to improve the interpretability of the
image by increasing apparent contrast
among various features in the scene.
• One of its objectives is to process an
image such that the result is more
suitable to extract information about a
specific application.

4
Digital Image Processing:
Image Enhancement
• The evaluation of the results is highly subjective
(hence no general theory of image
enhancement).
• It is normally used only for visual (manual)
interpretation and not for further numeric
analysis.
• The enhancement techniques mainly depend
upon two factors:
• The digital data (i.e., with spectral bands and
resolution)
• The objectives of interpretation
6
Spatial Enhancements
Convolution filters
High pass filter
Low pass filter
Order statistics filter

7
Spatial Enhancement
Spatial Domain
• aggregation of image pixels

Point Enhancement Operations

• modify BVi independently
in image
Local Enhancement Operations
• modify BVi in context of
neighbors
8
Spatial Filtering
• explores the distribution of pixels of varying
brightness over an image and especially
detects boundary discontinuities.

• Emphasize fine detail

and edges (highpass
filters)
• Useful in smoothing an
image (lowpass filters)

9
Spatial Filtering: Convolution Filters
produce output images in which the
brightness value at a given pixel is a
function of some weighted average of
the brightness of the surrounding pixels

No change Average Filter

10
 Spatial Frequency
Number of changes in brightness value per
unit distance
• Few changes → Low frequency area
• Many changes → High frequency area

11
 High-pass Filter
• Removes the low frequency components of an
image while retaining the high frequency (local
variations). It can be used to enhance edges
between different regions as well as to sharpen an
image.

• This is accomplished
using a kernel with a high
central value, typically
surrounded by negative
weights.

12
High-pass Filter

13
 Low-pass Filtering
• Preserves low frequency components of an image,
thus smooths it.
• Common low pass filter contains the same weights
in each kernel element, replacing the center pixel
value with an average of the surrounding values.

14
 Sample Filtered Images

low pass filter high pass filter contrast-stretched

15
 Order Statistics Filter
• Order statistics filters are non-linear
spatial filters.
• Operations:
• Perform ordering (ranking) the pixels within
a filter mask.
• Replace the value of the center pixel by the
ranking result
• Best known example in this class: Median
Filter

16
Order Statistics Filter: Median Filter

sort

17
 Order Statistics Filter: Median Filter

• Removes isolated pulses

• Preserves uniform areas

• Removes thin vertical, horizontal or

PROPERTIES

diagonal lines

• Preserves sharp
horizontal and vertical
edges

• Preserves soft horizontal

and vertical edges

18
 Order Statistics Filter: Median Filter

Preserves sharp diagonal

edges
PROPERTIES

Preserves soft diagonal edges

Damages corners

19
Order Statistics Filter: Median Filter

Removal of Impulse Noise

20
Spectral Enhancements
Contrast Enhancement
Density Slice
Band Ratios
Vegetation Indices
Orthogonal Transformations
Pan-sharpening 21
 Spectral Enhancement
Transforms the data by either:
• combining subsets of the wavebands in some
way, or
• altering the way pixel values are displayed in the
screen.

22
 Contrast Enhancement
• Raw images appear dark so they can collect all brightness
levels that might be encountered.
• Contrast Enhancement - “stretching” all or part of input
BVs from the image data to the full 0-255 screen output
range

23
 Image Histograms
• To obtain improvements in picture brightness and
contrast, it is useful to examine the image
histograms before performing any image
enhancement
• An image histogram is a plot of the values of the
pixels in a digital image, where the pixel values are
in the horizontal axis and the frequency of pixels
is in the vertical axis.

24
Image Histograms

25
Image Histograms

26
 Common Contrast
Enhancements Techniques
1. Linear Stretch
2. Histogram
Equalization
3. Non-linear
Stretches

27
Contrast Stretching Methods

28
 Contrast Enhancements:
Linear Contrast Stretch
• A linear stretch is one of the
most common types of Linear Contrast Stretch
contrast enhancement. 255

• Min BV is remapped to 0

BV (output)
• Max BV is remapped to 255

0 255
BV (input)
 BVin − min k 
BVout =  ( max out − min out )
 max k − min k 
29
 Contrast Enhancements:
Linear Contrast Stretch

0 60 108 160 255

0 127 255

 BVin − min k 
BVout =  * 255
 max k − min k 
30
Contrast Enhancements:
Linear Contrast Stretch

31
Contrast Enhancements:
Linear Contrast Stretch

32
 Contrast Enhancements:
Linear Contrast Stretch
True-Color 321 Image
Linear Contrast Stretch

True-Color 321 Image

No Stretch Applied

33
 Contrast Enhancements:
Piecewise Linear Stretch
Analyst identifies a number of linear enhancement
steps that expand brightness ranges in modes of
histogram.
Piecewise Linear Stretch
255

BV (output)

0 255

BV (input)
34
 Contrast Enhancements:
Histogram Equalization
• Another popular contrast stretching technique
• Makes most efficient use of gray levels
• Contrast is increased at the most populated range
of brightness values of the histogram (or "peaks").
• It automatically reduces the contrast in very light or
dark parts of the image associated with the tails of a
normally distributed histogram (Jensen 1996).
• All pixel values of the image are redistributed so
there are approximately an equal number of pixels
to each of the user-specified output gray-scale
classes 35
 Contrast Enhancements:
Histogram Equalization

Before
36
 Contrast Enhancements:
Histogram Equalization

After
37
 Non-linear Contrast Enhancements:
Log and Power Law Transformations

38
 Density Slice
• It is a straightforward form of enhancement
that results from combining (“lumping
together”) of DNs of different values within
a specified range or interval into a single
value.
• It is also called “level slice” method and
works best on single band images. It is
especially useful when a given surface
feature has a unique and generally narrow
set of DN values.
39
Density Slice

40
Density Slice

41
 Spectral Enhancement:
Band Ratios
• The procedure of forming a
ratio of one band to
another band in the data
• Differences in BVs due to
slope aspect, shadows, BVi , j ,k
seasonal illumination BVi , j ,r =
BVi , j ,l
changes can be reduced
• May help in discriminating
between soils and
vegetation

43
Spectral Enhancement:
Band Ratios

44
 Spectral Enhancement:
Band Ratios
• can be used in any instance where the
absorption in one band is altered in some way
• stressed/healthy vegetation
• algae in turbid water

45
 Spectral Enhancement:
Band Ratios
• May help in discriminating between soils
and vegetation
• Most discrimination between green
vegetation, soil and water occurs in the R and
IR regions
• NIR/Red will yield:
• High values for green vegetation
• Values slightly > 1 for soils
• Values < 1 for water

46
 Spectral Enhancement:
Band Ratios
Vegetation indices
quantify the
distance from the
line of soils in the
direction of the
point of herbage.

Typical response values in broad red/near IR waveband space for the common
cover types and the shape of typical broadband vegetation indices 47
Vegetation Indices (VIs)

transform a number of
bands of data into an
index that is correlated
with the amount of
green vegetative
material in the canopy.
VI

48
 Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI)

• Standardized vegetation ratio

• Used in long-term global monitoring
• Used in multi-temporal comparisons
NIR - R
NIR + R
• Developed for Landsat systems and has been used
for over 20 years by researchers and practitioners
worldwide.
49
 Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI)
TM 3

TM 4

NDVI
Mt. Makiling

50
 Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI)

51
Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
• Developed for the MODIS sensor
• uses data from the blue band to correct for
atmospheric and background effects.

52
 Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI)
• Recognize that the soil line does not go exactly through
the origin, and does not lie at an orientation of 45o to
the red and NIR axes
• Minimizes soil brightness effect:

where L is the soil brightness correction factor.

• The value of L varies by the amount or cover of green
vegetation: very high vegetation regions, L=0; no green
vegetation, L=1. Generally, an L=0.5 works well in most
situations and is the default value used.

53
 Other Soil-adjusted
Vegetation Indices

• TSAVI = (NIR – s * Red – i) * s .

(s * NIR + Red – s * i)

• ATSAVI = (NIR – s * Red – i) .

(s * NIR + Red – s * i) + X * (1 + s2)
• where:
s – soil line slope (gain)
i – soil line intercept (offset)
X = adjustment factor

54
 Orthogonal Transformations
• Done to multiband images in order to reduce
highly correlated (redundant) data in the
bands.

• A new set of orthogonal axes is defined at a

specified orientation to the original axes to
minimize the spectral redundancy.

• Most common technique: Principal

Components Analysis (PCA)

55
 Principal Components Analysis (PCA)
• Also called the discrete Karhunen-Loève transform,
the Hotelling transform or Proper Orthogonal
Decomposition (POD).
• It is a multivariate statistical technique that attempts
to group together highly correlated variables into a
single index.
• The components represent a set of mutually
orthogonal and independent axes in an n-
dimensional space.
• The first new axis contains the highest percentage of the
total variance or scatter in the data set.
• Each succeeding (lower-order) axis contains less variance.
Principal Components Analysis (PCA)

• This is useful in reducing

the number of data
channels required for a
given analysis.

• It is a way of identifying
patterns in data, and
expressing the data in such
a way as to highlight their
similarities and differences.
Sample PCA Images
Sample PCA Composite Images
RGB 321 RGB 432
Sample PCA Composite Images
PC314 PC432
 Tasseled Cap Transform
• Kauth-Thomas transform
• It is a means for highlighting the most important
(spectrally observable) phenomena on crop
development
• Allows discrimination of specific crops, and crops
from other vegetative cover, in Landsat multi-
temporal, multispectral imagery
 Tasseled Cap Transform
• provides an excellent information for
agricultural applications because it allows the
separation of vegetated surface from barren
(bright) and wet soils.
• For Landsat 7 ETM data, the tasseled cap
transformation on its six non-thermal bands
produces 6 output bands:
• Brightness, Greenness, Wetness, Fourth
(Atmospheric Haze), Fifth, Sixth.
• Brightness and Greenness correspond to the
first two components of the PCA. These two
axes coincide with the line of soils or brightness
and towards the response of green vegetation
(95% to 98% scene information).
 Tasseled Cap Transform

The Tasseled Cap transformation of Landsat 7

ETM data can be performed using the following
formula:
• Brightness=0.33183TM1+0.33121TM2+0.55177TM3
+ 0.42514TM4+0.48087TM5+0.25252TM7
• Greenness=-0.24717TM1-0.16263TM2-0.40639TM3
+0.85468TM4+0.05493TM5-0.11749TM7
• Wetness=0.13929TM1+0.22490TM2+0.40359TM3+
0.25178TM4-0.70133TM5-0.45732TM7
• Haze=0.84610TM1-0.70310TM2-0.46400TM3-
0.00320TM4-0.04920TM5-0.01190TM7

63
 Data Fusion:
Why is it necessary?
• Remote sensors have different spatial resolution
for panchromatic and multispectral imagery
• The ratios vary between 1:2 and 1:5
• For multi-sensor fusion, the ratios can exceed
1:30 (e.g. Ikonos/Landsat)
• Pan-sharpening is the process of combining a
high spatial resolution image with a lower
resolution multispectral image to create a
pseudo high resolution color image that
preserves the spectral information and facilitates
better visualization and interpretation.
64
 Data Fusion: Objectives
• Sharpen images
• Improve geometric corrections
• Enhance certain features not visible in either of
the single data alone
• Complement data sets for improved
classification
• Detect changes using multitemporal images
• Substitute missing information in one image
with signals from another sensor image
• Replace defective data
65
 Pan-sharpening

Spatial + Spectral

panchromatic & multi-/hyperspectral image &

high geometric resolution low geometric resolution

multi-/hyperspectral &
high geometric resolution

66
Pan-sharpening

67
 Fusion/Pan-sharpening: Methods
• Color Transformations
• Modified IHS Transformation
• Statistical Methods
• Principal Component Merge/PC Spectral
Sharpening
• Numerical Methods
• Brovey
• CN Spectral Sharpening (Color Normalized)
• Gram-Schmidt Spectral Sharpening
• Wavelet based Fusion
• Combined Methods
• Ehlers Fusion
68
 Sample Pan-sharpening:
Original Data

Quickbird Multispectral image Quickbird Panchromatic image

(2004-09-04) (2004-09-04)

69
 Sample Pan-sharpening:
Original Data

Formosat Multispectral image Ikonos Multispectral image

(2004-01-30) (2005-08-03)

70
Single Sensor Fusion: Quickbird

Fused
Fusedwith
Fused
Fused
withCN
Quickbird
Fused with
Spectral
withEhlers
Brovey
Gram-Schmidt
with Sharpening
Multispectral
Fused Wavelet
modified
with PCIHS image
71
Multisensor Fusion: Ikonos

Fused Fused
Fused
with
Fused
Fused CN
with
Fused
Ikonos with
Fused
with
with Ehlers
Spectral
with
Gram-Schmidt
Brovey
withSharpening
modified
Wavelet
Multispectral PC
IHS
image
72
Multisensor Fusion: Formosat

Fused
FusedFused
Fused
with with
with
Fused
Fused
Formosat CN with
with Ehlers
modified
with
Gram-Schmidt
PC Sharpening
IHS
Brovey
Spectral
Wavelet
Multispectral image
73
 Pan-sharpening Problems

• Color distortion
• Panchromatic band has a different spectral
sensitivity
• Inconsistent panchromatic information is fused
into the multispectral bands
• Multi-sensor differences (e.g. Ikonos and SPOT
merge)
• Multi-temporal (seasonal) changes between pan
and MS image data

74
End of lecture.

75