Scale Issues In Multisensor Image Fusion

Abstract

This chapter investigates to what degree fusion techniques can be used to form multispectral images of larger scale when combined with high-resolution black-and-white images. Image fusion is used in many fields such as military, medical imaging, computer vision, the robotics industry, and remote sensing of the environment. It concentrates on the image-sharpening process (iconic fusion) and its relationship with image scale. Ehlers fusion provides a good compromise between spatial resolution enhancement and spectral characteristics preservation, which makes it an excellent tool for the investigation of scale and fusion. Fusion techniques to sharpen multispectral images have focused primarily on the merging of panchromatic and multispectral electro-optical (EO) data with emphasis on single-sensor, single-date fusion. Ehlers fusion, however, allows multiple-sensor, multiple-date fusion and has recently been extended to fuse radar and EO image data. Radar remote sensing offers a number of advantages over electro-optical sensing. © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.