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Fundamentals of Remote Sensing |
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4.5 Image EnhancementEnhancements are used to make it easier for visual interpretation and understanding of imagery. The advantage of digital imagery is that it allows us to manipulate the digital pixel values in an image. Although radiometric corrections for illumination, atmospheric influences, and sensor characteristics may be done prior to distribution of data to the user, the image may still not be optimized for visual interpretation. Remote sensing devices, particularly those operated from satellite platforms, must be designed to cope with levels of target/background energy which are typical of all conditions likely to be encountered in routine use. With large variations in spectral response from a diverse range of targets (e.g. forest, deserts, snowfields, water, etc.) no generic radiometric correction could optimally account for and display the optimum brightness range and contrast for all targets. Thus, for each application and each image, a custom adjustment of the range and distribution of brightness values is usually necessary.
By manipulating the range of digital values in an image, graphically represented by its histogram, we can apply various enhancements to the data. There are many different techniques and methods of enhancing contrast and detail in an image; we will cover only a few common ones here. The simplest type of enhancement is a linear contrast stretch. This involves identifying lower and upper bounds from the histogram (usually the minimum and maximum brightness values in the image) and applying a transformation to stretch this range to fill the full range. In our example, the minimum value (occupied by actual data) in the histogram is 84 and the maximum value is 153. These 70 levels occupy less than one-third of the full 256 levels available. A linear stretch uniformly expands this small range to cover the full range of values from 0 to 255. This enhances the contrast in the image with light toned areas appearing lighter and dark areas appearing darker, making visual interpretation much easier. This graphic illustrates the increase in contrast in an image before (left) and after (right) a linear contrast stretch.
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A low-pass filter is designed to emphasize larger, homogeneous areas of similar tone and reduce the smaller detail in an image. Thus, low-pass filters generally serve to smooth the appearance of an image. Average and median filters, often used for radar imagery (and described in Chapter 3), are examples of low-pass filters. High-pass filters do the opposite and serve to sharpen the appearance of fine detail in an image. One implementation of a high-pass filter first applies a low-pass filter to an image and then subtracts the result from the original, leaving behind only the high spatial frequency information. Directional, or edge detection filters are designed to highlight linear features, such as roads or field boundaries. These filters can also be designed to enhance features which are oriented in specific directions. These filters are useful in applications such as geology, for the detection of linear geologic structures.
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