0. PrinciplesRemoteSensing Contents

Principles of Remote Sensing

An introductory textbook

EditorsKlaus TempfliNorman Kerle

Gerrit C. HuurnemanLucas L. F. Janssen

Authors of TextWim H. Bakker Freek D. van der Meer

Wim Feringa Gabriel N. ParodiAmbro S. M. Gieske Christine Pohl

Ben G. H. Gorte Colin V. ReevesKarl A. Grabmaier Frank J. van Ruitenbeek

Chris A. Hecker Ernst M. SchetselaarJohn A. Horn Klaus Tempfli

Gerrit C. Huurneman Michael J. C. WeirLucas L. F. Janssen Eduard Westinga

Norman Kerle Tsehaie Woldai

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Cover illustration:

Paul Klee (1879–1940), Chosen Site (1927)Pen-drawing and water-colour on paper. Original size: 57.8 × 40.5 cm.Private collection, Munichc© Paul Klee, Chosen Site, 2001 c/o Beeldrecht Amstelveen

Cover page design: Wim Feringa

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, byprint, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permissionfrom the publisher.

Published by:The International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation(ITC),Hengelosestraat 99,P.O. Box 6,7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands

CIP-GEGEVENS KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK, DEN HAAG

Principles of Remote SensingKlaus Tempfli, Norman Kerle, Gerrit C. Huurneman and Lucas L. F. Janssen(eds.)


3

(ITC Educational Textbook Series; 2)Fourth edition

ISBN 978–90–6164–270–1 ITC, Enschede, The NetherlandsISSN 1567–5777 ITC Educational Textbook Series

c© 2009 by ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands


Contents

1 Introduction to earth observation by remote sensing 37

1.1 Geospatial data acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

1.2 Remote sensing for earth observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

1.3 Structure of the textbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

2 Electromagnetic energyand remote sensing 53

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

2.2 Electromagnetic energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

2.2.1 Waves and photons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

2.2.2 Sources of EM energy and radiometric units . . . . . . . . 62

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Contents 5

2.2.3 Electromagnetic spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

2.3 Energy interaction in the atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

2.3.1 Absorption and transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

2.3.2 Atmospheric scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

2.4 Energy interactions with the Earth’s surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

2.4.1 Spectral reflectance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

2.5 Sensing of EM energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

2.5.1 Sensing properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

2.5.2 Classification of sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

3 Spatial referencing 110

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

3.2 Review of concepts needed for RS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

4 Platforms and passive electro-optical sensors 116

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

4.2 Platforms and missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

4.2.1 Moving platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

4.2.2 Aerial survey missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122


Contents 6

4.2.3 Satellite missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

4.2.4 Market figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

4.3 Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

4.3.1 Detector arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

4.3.2 Optical system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

4.4 Scanners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

4.4.1 Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

4.4.2 Geometric aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

4.5 Stereoscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

4.6 Overview of popular spaceborne sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

4.7 Data selection criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

4.7.1 Information requirements and constraints . . . . . . . . . . 157

4.7.2 Availability and cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

5 Visualization and radiometric operations 166

5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

5.2 Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

5.2.1 Perception of colour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170


Contents 7

5.2.2 Image display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

5.3 Radiometric corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

5.3.1 Sun elevation correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

5.3.2 Haze correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

5.4 Elementary image processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

5.4.1 Histograms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

5.4.2 Histogram operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

5.4.3 Filter operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

5.5 Image fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

6 Geometric operations 218

6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

6.2 Elementary image distortions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

6.2.1 Relief displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

6.3 Two-dimensional approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

6.3.1 Georeferencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

6.3.2 Geocoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

6.4 Three-dimensional approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240


Contents 8

6.4.1 Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

6.4.2 Monoplotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

6.4.3 Orthoimage production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

6.4.4 Stereo restitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

7 Visual image interpretation 255

7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

7.2 Interpretation fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

7.2.1 Human vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

7.2.2 Interpretation elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

7.3 Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

7.3.1 Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

7.3.2 Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

7.3.3 Analyzing field data and map preparation . . . . . . . . . 272

7.4 Quality aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

8 Digital image classification 280

8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

8.2 Principle of image classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283


Contents 9

8.2.1 Image space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

8.2.2 Feature space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

8.2.3 Image classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

8.3 Image classification process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

8.3.1 Preparation for image classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

8.3.2 Supervised image classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

8.3.3 Unsupervised image classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

8.3.4 Classification algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

8.4 Validation of the result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

8.5 Pixel-based and object oriented classification . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

9 Aerial photography 316

9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

9.2 Aerial survey camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

9.2.1 Lens cone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

9.2.2 Film magazine and auxiliary data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

9.3 Spectral and radiometric characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

9.3.1 General sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327


Contents 10

9.3.2 Spectral sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

9.3.3 True colour and colour infrared photography . . . . . . . . 329

9.4 Spatial characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

9.4.1 Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

9.4.2 Spatial resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

9.5 Aerial photography missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

9.6 Scanning photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

10 Active sensors 345

10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

10.2 Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

10.2.1 What is radar? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

10.2.2 Principles of imaging radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

10.2.3 Geometric properties of radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

10.2.4 Data formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

10.2.5 Distortions in radar images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

10.2.6 Interpretation of radar images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

10.2.7 Applications of radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374


Contents 11

10.2.8 InSAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

10.2.9 Differential InSAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

10.2.10 Application of DINSAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

10.2.11 Supply market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

10.2.12 SAR systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

10.2.13 Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

10.3 Laser scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

10.3.1 Basic principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

10.3.2 ALS components and processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

10.3.3 System characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

10.3.4 Variants of Laser Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

10.3.5 Supply Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

11 Image restoration and atmospheric corrections 410

11.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

11.2 From satellite to ground radiances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

11.3 Cosmetic corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

11.3.1 Periodic line dropouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418


Contents 12

11.3.2 Line striping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

11.3.3 Random noise or spike noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

11.4 Atmospheric corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

11.4.1 Relative AC methods based on ground reflectance . . . . . 425

11.4.2 Absolute AC methods based on atmospheric processes . . 428

12 Thermal remote sensing 438

12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

12.2 Principles of Thermal Remote Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

12.2.1 The physical laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

12.2.2 Black-bodies and emissivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

12.2.3 Radiant and kinetic temperatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

12.3 Processing of thermal data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

12.3.1 Band ratios and transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

12.3.2 Determining kinetic surface temperatures . . . . . . . . . . 452

12.4 Thermal applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

12.4.1 Rock emissivity mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

12.4.2 Thermal hotspot detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458


Contents 13

13 Imaging Spectrometry 463

13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

13.2 Reflection characteristics of rocks and minerals . . . . . . . . . . . 467

13.3 Pre-processing of imaging spectrometer data . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

13.4 Atmospheric correction of imaging spectrometer data . . . . . . . 470

13.5 Thematic analysis of imaging spectrometer data . . . . . . . . . . 471

13.5.1 Spectral matching algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

13.5.2 Spectral unmixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

13.6 Applications of imaging spectrometry data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

13.6.1 Geology and resources exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

13.6.2 Vegetation sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

13.6.3 Hydrology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

13.7 Imaging spectrometer systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

14 Remote sensing below the ground surface 488

14.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

14.2 Gamma ray surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

14.3 Gravity and magnetic anomaly mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492


Contents 14

14.4 Electrical imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

14.5 Seismic surveying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498

Glossary 509

A Spaceborne EO systems of special significance 562

A.1 Meteosat-8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

A.2 NOAA-17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

A.3 Landsat-7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

A.4 Terra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

A.5 SPOT-5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571

A.6 Satellites of IRS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

A.7 Ikonos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

A.8 EO-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

A.9 Proba/CHRIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578

A.10 Envisat-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

A.11 Future development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584

B SI units & prefixes 587


Contents 15

C List of Formulae 589


List of Figures

1.1 Sea surface temperature map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

1.2 Ocean surface wind map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

1.3 Ocean biomass map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

1.4 Sea elevation map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

1.5 Structure of the textbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

2.1 Photograph of the ITC building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

2.2 Electromagnetic waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

2.3 Characteristics of a sine wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

2.4 The spectrum of light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

2.5 Relationship between wavelength, frequency and energy . . . . 60


List of Figures 17

2.6 Black-body radiation curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

2.7 The EM spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

2.8 Energy interactions in the atmosphere and at the Earth’s surface 70

2.9 Atmospheric transmittance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

2.10 Radiation curves of the Sun and a black-body . . . . . . . . . . . 73

2.11 Rayleigh scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

2.12 Rayleigh scattering affects the colour of the sky . . . . . . . . . . 75

2.13 Effects of clouds in optical remote sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

2.14 Specular and diffuse reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

2.15 Reflectance curve of vegetation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

2.16 Reflectance curves of soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

2.17 Reflectance curves of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

2.18 Active sensor versus passive sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

2.19 Radiance at the sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

2.20 Spectral reflectance curves and spectral bands of some multi-spectral sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

2.21 Illustration of sampling a signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

2.22 8 bits versus 1 bit radiometric resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94


List of Figures 18

2.23 Digital image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

2.24 Digital image file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

2.25 Overview of sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

2.26 Landsat-5 TM false colour composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

2.27 ‘Thermal image’ of a coal mining area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

2.28 Pictorial representation of a digital surface model . . . . . . . . 102

2.29 ERS-1 SAR image of the Mahakam Delta, Kalimantan . . . . . . 103

3.1 Illustration of geospatial reference systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

4.1 Attitude angles and IMU attached to an aerial camera . . . . . . 123

4.2 Meteorological observation by geostationary and polar satellites 127

4.3 Matrix and linear array CCD chips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

4.4 Principle of imaging by a line camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

4.5 Normalized spectral response curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

4.6 Pixel, GRC, GSD - for digital cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

4.7 Principle of an across-track scanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

4.8 Ground resolution cell of NOAA’s AVHRR . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

4.9 The principle of stereoscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147


List of Figures 19

5.1 Sensitivity curves of the human eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

5.2 Comparison of additive and subtractive colour schemes . . . . . 174

5.3 The RGB cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

5.4 Relationship between RGB and IHS colour spaces . . . . . . . . 177

5.5 One-band and three-band image display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

5.6 Multi-band image display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

5.7 Anaglyph principle and stereograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

5.8 Original - contrast enhanced - edge enhanced image . . . . . . . 189

5.9 Standard and cumulative histogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

5.10 Linear contrast stretch versus histogram equalization . . . . . . 195

5.11 Effect of histogram operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

5.12 Input and output of a filter operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

5.13 Original, edge enhanced and smoothed image . . . . . . . . . . 202

5.14 Procedure to merge SPOT panchromatic and multispectral data 206

5.15 Fused image of Landsat-7 ETM and orthophoto mosaic . . . . . 209

5.16 Fused images of and ERS-1 SAR and SPOT-2 . . . . . . . . . . . 211

6.1 The problem of georeferencing a RS image . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220


List of Figures 20

6.2 Geometric image distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

6.3 The effect of terrain relief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

6.4 Illustration of relief displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

6.5 Image and map coordinate systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

6.6 Original, georeferenced and geocoded image . . . . . . . . . . . 234

6.7 Transformation and resampling process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

6.8 Illustration of different image transformations . . . . . . . . . . 236

6.9 Schematic of image resampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

6.10 Effect of different resampling methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

6.11 Difference between DTM and DSM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

6.12 Illustration of the collinearity concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

6.13 Inner geometry of a camera and the associated image . . . . . . 245

6.14 The process of digital monoplotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

6.15 Illustration of parallax in stereo pair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

7.1 RS image of Antequera area in Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

7.2 Mud huts of Labbezanga near the Niger river . . . . . . . . . . . 261

7.3 Example of an interpretation Manyara, Tanzania . . . . . . . . . 267


List of Figures 21

7.4 Comparison of different line maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

7.5 Comparison of different thematic maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

8.1 Two- and three-dimensional feature space . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

8.2 Scatterplot of a digital image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

8.3 Distances in the feature space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

8.4 Feature space showing six clusters of observations . . . . . . . . 290

8.5 The classification process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

8.6 Image classification input and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

8.7 Results of a clustering algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

8.8 Box classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

8.9 Minimum distance to mean classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

8.10 Maximum likelihood classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

8.11 Mixed pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

9.1 Vertical and oblique photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

9.2 Vertical and oblique aerial photo of ITC building . . . . . . . . . 319

9.3 Lens cone of an aerial camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

9.4 Auxiliary data annotation on an aerial photograph . . . . . . . . 323


List of Figures 22

9.5 Layers of B&W and colour film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

9.6 Spectral sensitivity curves of B&W films . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

9.7 Single-band and three-band photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

9.8 Effect of a different focal length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

9.9 Arrangement of photos in a typical ‘aerial photo block’ . . . . . 336

10.1 Principle of active microwave remote sensing . . . . . . . . . . . 348

10.2 From radar pulse to pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

10.3 Microwave spectrum and band identification by letters . . . . . 353

10.4 Radar remote sensing geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

10.5 Slant range resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

10.6 Geometric distortions in a radar image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

10.7 Original and speckle filtered radar image . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

10.8 Phase differences forming an interferogram . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

10.9 InSAR geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

10.10 Surface deformation mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

10.11 Polar measuring principle and ALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

10.12 DSM of part of Frankfurt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391


List of Figures 23

10.13 Concept of laser ranging and scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

10.14 Multiple return laser ranging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

10.15 First and last return DSM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

10.16 Devegging laser data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

10.17 3D modelling by a TLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

11.1 Original Landsat ETM image of Enschede . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

11.2 Image with line-dropouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

11.3 Image corrected for line-dropouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

11.4 Image with line striping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

11.5 Image with spike noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

11.6 Model atmospheric profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

12.1 Illustration of Planck’s radiation law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

12.2 Thermal infrared spectra of a sandy soil and a marble . . . . . . 447

12.3 Decorrelation stretched colour MASTER image . . . . . . . . . . 457

12.4 ASTER thermal image of coal fires in Wuda, China . . . . . . . . 459

13.1 Imaging spectrometry concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465


List of Figures 24

13.2 Kaolinite spectrum at various spectral resolutions . . . . . . . . 466

13.3 Effects of different processes on absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

13.4 Concept of signal mixing and spectral unmixing . . . . . . . . . 475

14.1 Abundance map of K, Th and U from gamma-ray measurements 491

14.2 Sea-floor relief as determined by satellite altimetry . . . . . . . . 493

14.3 Magnetic anomaly map derived by an airborne magnetometer . 495

14.4 Conductivity measured by airborne measurements . . . . . . . . 497

14.5 3D terrain from seismic surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499


List of Tables

5.1 Example histogram in tabular format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

5.2 Summary histogram statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

5.3 Filter kernel for smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

5.4 Filter kernel for weighted smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

5.5 Filter kernel for edge enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

6.1 Sample set of ground control points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

7.1 Made-up example of an interpretation legend . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

8.1 Example error matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

8.2 Spectral land cover classes and land use classes . . . . . . . . . . . 310


List of Tables 26

10.1 Airborne SAR systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

10.2 Spaceborne SAR systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

11.1 Characteristics of selected RTMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

13.1 Airborne imaging spectrometer systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

A.1 Meteosat-8/SEVIRI characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

A.2 NOAA-17/AVHRR characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

A.3 Landsat-7/ETM+ characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

A.4 Example applications of Landsat-7/ETM+ bands . . . . . . . . . . 567

A.5 Terra/ASTER characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

A.6 SPOT-5/HRG characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

A.7 Resourcesat-1/LISS4 characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

A.8 Ikonos/OSA characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

A.9 EO-1/Hyperion characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

A.10 Proba/CHRIS characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

A.11 Applications of Envisat’s instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

A.12 Characteristics of Envisat, ASAR and MERIS . . . . . . . . . . . . 581


List of Tables 27

A.13 Envisat-MERIS band characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

B.1 Relevant SI units in the context of remote sensing . . . . . . . . . 587

B.2 Unit prefix notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

B.3 Common units of length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

B.4 Constants and non-SI units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588


Preface

Principles of Remote Sensing is written to be primarily used as textbook for the in-troductory module on Earth Observation of all ITC degree courses and for sev-eral short diploma or certificate courses. Together with the complementary bookPrinciples of Geographic Information Systems it can also serve as a basic refer-ence on geoinformatics for a wide disciplinary user range from urban and re-gional planning, civil engineering and geo-engineering, management of naturalresources, environmental protection, disaster management and defense, watermanagement and earth resources exploration to land administration and gov-ernance. The book presents the basic principles of geospatial data acquisitionlimiting the scope to the intersection of earth observation and remote sensing.The design of the book was governed by the aim to cover the interests of a verywide user spectrum and the restriction that a novice student of geoinformaticscan learn the selected basics in three weeks. The structure of the book follows theclassical set-up of first reviewing the necessary physics before discussing sensortechnology and introducing common image processing techniques. The title Re-mote Sensing has been kept for historical reasons; the book is now in its forthedition.


Preface 29

You may wonder why ITC has been producing its own introductory textbookwhile there are already many books on the subject available on the market. PoRSis different in various aspects. First of all, it has been developed for the specificITC student population, thereby taking into account their entry level and knowl-edge of English language. Being used at the beginning of the courses it tries tostimulate conceptual and abstract thinking without overloading it with formu-lae. The book relates to the typical ITC application disciplines and is, therefore,not limited to traditional sectorial remote sensing; it includes photogrammetricsubjects and an introduction into techniques of data acquisition for subsurfacecharacteristics. Finally, compared to other introductory books, which often fo-cus on the technique, PoRS also introduces processes. In this sense, it providesa frame to refer to when more detailed subjects are dealt with later in the pro-gramme.


Preface 30

How to use the material

Principles of Remote Sensing has been produced both as a hardcopy textbook andas an electronic document. In this way, the student is offered the optimal com-bination to study the subject and to use the book as a general reference. Eachchapter gives a summary and provides questions for self testing. The book com-prises a glossary, an index and a bibliography. The electronic document (PDFformat) enables fast navigation and quick referencing.


Preface 31

Acknowledgements

Lucas Janssen was the editor of the first edition of Principles of Remote Sensing. In2000 he wrote in his preface to the book:

“This textbook is the result of a process to define and develop material for acore curriculum. This process started in 1998 and was carried out by a workinggroup comprising of Rolf de By, Michael Weir, Cees van Westen, myself, chairedby Ineke ten Dam and supported by Erica Weijer. This group put many effortsin the definition and realization of the earlier version of the two core textbooks.Ineke was also supervising the process leading to this result. My fellow workinggroup members are greatly acknowledged for their support.

This textbook could not have materialized without the efforts of the (co–) au-thors of the chapters: Wim Bakker, Ben Gorte, John Horn, Christine Pohl, ColinReeves, Michael Weir and Tsehaie Woldai. Many other colleagues contributedone way or another to either the earlier version or this version of Principles of Re-mote Sensing: Paul Hofstee, Gerrit Huurneman, Yousif Hussin, David Rossiter,Rob Soeters, Ernst Schetselaar, Andrew Skidmore, Dhruba Shrestha and ZoltánVekerdy.

The design and implementation of the textbook layout, of both the hardcopy andelectronic document, is the work of Rolf de By. Using the LATEX typesetting sys-tem, Rolf realized a well structured and visually attractive document to study.Many of the illustrations in the book have been provided by the authors, sup-ported by Job Duim and Gerard Reinink. Final editing of the illustrations was


Preface 32

done by Wim Feringa who also designed the cover.

Michael Weir has done a tremendous job in checking the complete textbook onEnglish spelling and grammar. We know that our students will profit from this.

The work on this textbook was greatly stimulated through close collaborationwith the editor of Principles of Geographic Information Systems, Rolf de By.”


Preface 33

Preface to the fourth edition

Gerrit Huurneman was the editor of the second edition of PoRS. Gerrit added anew chapter on atmospheric aspects, and revised and updated the entire text, inparticular the information on multispectral scanners, the chapter that becomesoutdated most quickly. Three years later it was Norman Kerle, who took upthe editorial work for the third edition. Norman updated again the chapter onscanners and accomplished a complete overhaul of the chapter on radiomet-ric correction. Moreover, he had new sections and chapters added, which ac-counted for new developments and could serve as reference material for morespecific concepts and methods beyond sole core matter. The chapters on laserscanning, thermal remote sensing, and the one on imaging spectrometry wereentirely new.

The third edition served as textbook for five years while ICT continued to rapidlydevelop. Taking into account the suggestions of many ITC colleagues I decidedto regroup several chapters to better “map” technological innovation to ITC’scourses. Updating, focusing and homogenizing were the aims of the revisionfor the 4th edition, not further extending the content of the book. The previouschapters on scanners and digital aerial cameras are now merged and specifica-tions of current sensors have migrated to an Appendix. The new chapter is morefocused on sensor system characteristics. I have added the basic principles ofsensing to the physics chapter, which as a whole has become more quantitative.The previous chapters on radiometric correction and image enhancement havebeen rearranged to a core chapter on visualization and radiometric corrections.The chapter on visual image interpretation has become shorter, now describing


Preface 34

the principles of interpretation and the general approach rather than elaboratingon application examples.

The chapters not belonging to the core subjects of all ITC courses are groupedin the Capita Selecta Section in the second part of the book (ie, Chapters 9 to 14).There is only on exception, ie, the elaboration on ‘image fusion’ in Section 5.6,which is also a subject of a course specific choice.

I have made a major effort to homogenize the terminology and significantly ex-tend the glossary. You find there not only the definitions of disciplinary termsbut also – where deemed appropriate – a sharpened or more elaborate descrip-tion of a notion than in the text body of the book. New is the list of abbreviationsand list of formulae. If you should doubt the English here and there, take it asthe Europeanized version of English. Finally, many of the corrigenda have beenfixed for the softcopy version of the book.

I would like to thank my colleagues, who made many valuable suggestions forupdating the book, in particular Markus Gerke, Chris Hecker, Norman Kerle,Monika Kuffer, Georges Vosselman, Michael Weir, and Eduard Westinga – thelatter I want to also thank for giving shape to the new chapter on interpretation.

Above all I want to thank Coco Rulinda for doing all the latexing: without hergenerous and dedicated support revising the book would have been impossible.

Lastly I would like to thank my wife, Gerti, for tolerating me getting carried


Preface 35

away with the book on a couple of evenings and weekends.

Klaus Tempfli, Enschede, September 28, 2008


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