Multispectral imagery band sharpening study

Abstract

The fusion of multisensor and multiresolution satellite imagery is an means of exploiting the complimentary nature of various image types. With band sharpening (a type of imagery fusion), higher spatial resolution panchromatic data is fused with lower resolution multispectral imagery (MSI). This fusion creates a product with the spectral characteristics of the MSI and a spatial resolution approaching that of the panchromatic image (effective ground-sample distance, or GSD). Others have fused 10-m SPOT panchromatic with 20-m SPOT MSI or 30-m Landsat TM (sharpening factors of 2:l and 3:1). In this study, MSI of 10 m to 30 m was sharpened with 5- to 15-m imagery (sharpening factors of 2:1 to 6:l) using four algorithms. The research goals were to (1) determine the validity of the concept of effective GSD; (2) determine the relative utility of band sharpening by different factors; and (3) compare the relative effectiveness of different band sharpening algorithms.