Component-I(A) - Personal Details

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof.MasoodAhsanSiddiqui Department of Geography,

JamiaMilliaIslamia, New Delhi
Paper Coordinator, if any Dr. M P Punia Head, Department of Remote
Sensing, Birla Institute of
Scientific Research, Jaipur

Content Writer/Author (CW) Kumari Anamika Senior Research Fellow, Birla

Institute of Scientific Research,
Jaipur
Content Reviewer (CR) Dr. M P Punia Head, Department of Remote
Sensing, Birla Institute of
Scientific Research, Jaipur

Language Editor (LE)

Component-I (B) - Description of Module

Items Description of Module

Subject Name Geography

Paper Name Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS

Module Name/Title IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Module Id RS/GIS 05

Pre-requisites

Objectives  Student will get to know why enhancement is required.

 Student will acquire skill how to study statistics of image
enhancement
 Student will be equipped with knowledge to study further
about the background functioning of image enhancement

Keywords
 IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Outline

 Image enhancement is a technique which is widely used in computer

graphics.
 This operation are performed in order to modify the brightness, contrast or
the distribution of the gray level of satellite image
 The aim of image enhancement is to improve the interpretability or
perception on information in image for human viewers, or to provide
“better” input for other automated image processing techniques.
 This technique is tested on a large number of images and has shown
significant result.
 This module discusses the concept of image enhancement, their approaches
and different techniques.

Image enhancement means to improve the visibility of any portion or feature of

the image suppressing the information in other portions or features. Information
extraction techniques help to get the statistical information about any specific
feature or portion of the image. Now a day Image enhancement is applied in the
field of medical imaging, analysis of satellite image etc. The satellite image
having insufficient information (details) or having a lots of extra information
which is unwanted. It may reduce the noise level by using the enhancement
technique and eliminate by using some filtering techniques. Even filtering
techniques are a part of image enhancement techniques. These techniques are
discussed in detail and illustrated in this module.
Introduction:
Digital Image Processing (DIP) involves the modification of digital data for
improving image qualities with the aid of computer. The processing helps in
maximising clarity, sharpness and details of features of interest towards
information extraction and further analysis. Image enhancement plays a vital
role in the analysis and interpretation of remotely sensed data. Particularly data
obtained from Satellite, which is in digital form can best be utilised with the
help of digital image processing. Image enhancement algorithms are applied to
improve the appearance of an image for human visual analysis. The principal
objective of image enhancement is to modify attribute of an image to make it
more suitable for a given task and a specific observer. During this process, one
or more attributes of the image are modified. This technique is widely applied to
geophysical images and used to make it easier for visual interpretation and
geological understanding.

Input Image Enhanced Image

Enhancement
Techniques

Specific Application

Fig (1): Process of image enhancement

Source: self

For example, you can remove noise, sharpen or brighten an image and improve
perceptual aspects, such as image quality, intelligibility or visual appearance
and make it easier to identify key features. The enhancement techniques change
the original digital number (DN) values permanently. Therefore those images
cannot be used for many digital analysis e.g, image classification. These
techniques are applied either to single-band image or separately to the
individual bands of a multi-band image set.
Image Reduction and Magnification:
 Image Reduction: Image Reduction techniques allow the analyst to obtain a
regional perspective of the remotely sensed data. The computer screen cannot
display the entire image on the screen unless reduce the visual representation of
the image. It is commonly known as zoom out.

0 1 4 2 5 3
2 4 2 1 2 2
5 8 8 6 5 3 0 4 5
4 9 8 5 5 5 5 8 6
7 8 3 5 4 5 7 3 4
5 6 7 5 4 6

Original Image Reduced Image

Fig (2): Logic of a simple 2x integer reduction.
Source: Self
Fig (2) shows the hypothetical example of 2x image reduction achieved by
sampling every other row and column of the original data. Result shows that the
new image consisting of only quarter (25%) of the original data.
Image Magnification:
Image magnification is very useful techniques when the analysis is trying to
obtain the detail information about the spectral reflectance or emitance
characteristics of a relatively small geographic area of interest and it is also used
to match the display scale of another image. It is commonly known as zoom out.

Magnified Image
Original Image
0 0 2 2 5 5
0 0 2 2 5 5
3 3 4 4 1 1
 3 3 4 4 1 1
0 2 5 2 7 7 5 5 8 8
7 7 5 5 8 8
3 4 1 1
7 5 8 6
4 9 8 5

Fig (3): logic of a simple 2x integer magnification.

Source: Self
Fig (3) shows the hypothetical example of 2x image magnification achieved by
replacing every row and column in the original image. The new image will
consist of four times as many pixels as the original scene. Row and column
deletion is the simplest form of image magnification. To magnify an image by
an integer factor m squared, each pixel in the original image is replaced by an
m×m block of pixels all of the original pixel values.
Methods of Enhancement:
 Spatial Domain enhancement techniques
 Frequency Domain enhancement techniques

 Spatial domain enhancement techniques modify the grey scale or

intensity value of image and it is based on direct manipulation of pixels in
an image.
Spatial domain process are denoted by the expression
g (x, y) = T[f(x, y)]
Where,
f(x, y) is input image.
g(x, y) is processed image.
f is the intensity value at the pixel located by x and y.
T is define the operator on f over some neighbourhood region of x and y.

Intensity value at the pixel located by x and y after processed does not depend
on the intensity value at pixel located by x and y which are there in the
neighbourhood of x and y alone. It is also depend on the intensity which are
there in the neighbourhood of the x and y point. The value of a pixel with
coordinates (x, y) in the enhanced image is the result of performing some
operation on the pixels in the neighbourhood of (x, y) in the input image, f. In
frequency domain methods, the image is first transferred into frequency domain.
It means that, Fourier Transform of the image is computed first. Fourier analysis
is a mathematical technique is used to separate the satellite image into its
various spatial frequency component. Frequency domain filtering operations is
shown in Fig (4).

Fig (4): Filtering operation in frequency domain

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/diwakerpant/frequency-domain-image-
enhancement-techniques.

Contrast Enhancement:
Remote sensing images have played an important role in many fields such as
meteorology, agriculture, geology, education, etc. Contrast enhancement
techniques are required for better visual perception and colour reproduction.
The range of brightness values present on image is referred to as contrast.
Contrast enhancement techniques have been widely used in many applications
of image processing where the subjective quality of images is important for
human interpretation. A common problem in remote sensing is that the range of
reflectance values collected by a sensor may not match the capabilities of the
colour display monitor. In digital image processing the contrast enhancement
for satellite image in the field of remote sensing a lot of work has been done to
get better the quality of image such as histogram equalization, multi-histogram
equalization and pixel dependent contrast preserving.Contrast generally refers
to the difference in luminance or grey level values in an image and is an
important characteristic. It can be defined as the ratio of the maximum intensity
to the minimum intensity over an image.

Contrast Ratio = BV max / BV min

Where,
BV max is the maximum brightness value.
BV min is the minimum brightness value.

In this module we will talk about contrast enhancement. Linear and non-linear
transformation functions such as image negatives, logarithmic transformations,
power-law transformations, and piecewise linear transformations will be
discussed. Histogram process and histogram of four basic grey-level
characteristics will be introduced.

Fig (5): Image Histogram

Source:
https://hexagongeospatial.fluidtopics.net/book#!book;uri=a0316196704acf3e68
dc2909785a5f77;breadcrumb=1959db97f38d1f1c5b119813d9287f6a-
60efbd0962e05deb5a71261633febc8d
The key to understand contrast enhancements is to the concept of an image
histogram. A histogram is a graphical representation of satellite data.
 Linear Contrast Enhancement: Linear Contrast linearly expands the original
digital values of the remotely sensed data into a new distribution. It is also
referred to as a contrast stretching. These types of enhancements are best
applied to remotely sensed images with Gaussian or near-Gaussian histograms,
meaning, all the brightness values fall within a narrow range of the histogram
and only one mode is apparent. There are four methods of linear contrast
enhancement.

Fig (6): Linear Contrast Stretch

source : Lilles and Kiefer, 1993
Fig(6) shows the graphical representation of linear contrast stretch.

 Minimum-Maximum Linear Contrast Stretch

 Piecewise Linear Contrast Stretch
 Saturation stretch

Minimum-Maximum Linear Contrast Stretch: In this technique the original

minimum and maximum values of the data are assigned to a newly specified set
of values that utilize the full range of available brightness values of the display
unit. To perform linear contrast enhancement, the analyst examines the satellite
image statistics and determines the minimum and maximum brightness values
in band k, maxk and mink respectively.
 BVout = [(BVin - mink ⁄ maxk - mink)] quantk

Where, BVout is the orignal input brightness values and quantk is the maximun
value of range of brightness.

Piecewise Linear Contrast Stretch: It involves the identification of a number

of linear enhancement steps that expands the brightness ranges in the modes of
the histogram. The piecewise linear contrast stretch is similar to the minimum-
maximum linear contrast stretch except this method use a specified minimum
and maximum values that lie in a certain percentage of pixels from the mean of
the histogram. In the piecewise stretch, a series of small min-max stretches are
set up within a single histogram. It is very powerful enhancement techniques.

A piecewise linear contrast stretch normally follows two rules:

1) Data values are continuous there can be no break in the values between
high, middle, and low range.
2) Data values specified can go only in an upward, increasing direction,
as shown in Fig (7) .

Fig(7): Logic of a piecewise linear contrast stretch:

 Source: http://www.r-s-c-c.org/node/244

In the piecewise linear contrast stretch, several breakpoints are defined that
increase or decrease the contrast of the image for a given range of values. The
minimum and maximum values are stretched to the values of 0 and 255 at a
constant level of intensity.

Saturation Linear Contrast Stretch:The saturation contrast stretch is also

referred as percentage linear contrast stretch or tail trim. It is similar to the
minimum-maximum linear contrast stretch except this method uses specified
minimum and maximum values that lie in a certain percentage of pixels.
Sometimes these tails of the histogram is enhanced more prominently. This is
the main of this method. In this method the information content of the pixels
that saturate at 0 and 255 is lost; however, the remainder part of histogram is
more enhanced compared to minimum to maximum linear stretch.

Non-Linear Contrast Enhancement: Nonlinear contrast enhancement often

involves histogram equalizations through the use of an algorithm. In the
nonlinear contrast enhancement techniques the each value in the input image
can have several values in the output image, so that objects in the original image
lose their corrective relative brightness value. Usually, nonlinear enhancements
bring out the contrast in one range while decreasing the contrast in other ranges.

There are three types of nonlinear enhancement techniques

 Histogram Equalizations
 Adaptive Histogram Equalization
 Homomorphic Filter

Histogram equalization is another non-linear contrast enhancement technique. It

is one of the most useful method for the nonlinear contrast enhancement. It
usually increases the global contrast of satellite images. It create an output
version of satellite image which maximizes the contrast of the data by applying
a nonlinear contrast stretch that redistributes pixel values so that there are
approximately the same number of pixels with each value within a range. When
the histogram values of satellite image is equalized, all pixel values of the image
are redistributed. Histogram equalization can also separate pixels into distinct
groups if there are few output values over a wide range. It is not necessary that
contrast will always be increase in this. There may be some cases were
histogram equalization can be worse. In this case the contrast is decreased or it
doesn’t force the distribution “flat” which means the number of pixel in each
intensity levels distributed equally.

The total number of pixels is divided by the number of bins, equaling the
number of pixels per bin, as shown in the following equation:

𝑇
𝐴=
𝑁

Where,

N= number of bins (If there are many bins or many pixels with the same value
or values, some bins may be empty).

T= total number of pixels in the image.

A= equalized number of pixels per bin.

Histogram Equalization Example: In this example, 10 bins are rescaled to the

range 0 to 9, because the input values ranged from 0 to 9, so that the equalized
histogram can be compared to the original. The output histogram of this
equalized image is shown in fig 8(b). In the output, histogram is not exactly flat,
since the pixels can rarely be grouped together into bins with an equal number
of pixels.

Fig (8a): Histogram Equalization Fig (8b) Equalized Histogram

 Source: ERDAS, (2014). ERDAS field guide)

There are 240 pixels represented by this histogram. To equalize this histogram
to 10 bins,

240 pixels / 10 bins = 24 pixels per bin = A

Following equation is used to assign pixels to bins:

Source: ERDAS, (2014). ERDAS field guide

Where,

A = equalized number of pixels per bin.

Hi = number of values with the value i.
Hk = number of pixel per bin.
k = a particular bin number.
int = integer function.
Bi= bin number for pixels with value i.
There is also one important thing to be note here that during histogram
equalization the overall shape of the histogram changes, where as in histogram
stretching the overall shape of histogram remains same.

Adaptive Histogram Equalization: In Adaptive histogram equalization the

satellite image divide into several rectangular domains, compute an equalizing
histogram and modify levels. This method enhances the contrast of images by
transforming the values in the intensity image. Contrast is increased at the most
populated range of brightness values of the histogram. It automatically reduces
the contrast in very light or dark parts of the image associated with the tails of a
normally distributed histogram. According to this method, we partition the
given image into blocks of suitable size and equalize the histogram of each sub
block. In order to eliminate artificial boundaries created by the process, the
intensities are interpolated across the block regions using bicubic interpolating
functions (Al-amri, S. S., Kalyankar, N. V., & Khamitkar, S. D. (2010)

Homomorphic Filter: In the image enhancement techniques the homomorphic

filter is used to remove the multiplicative noise, It is used in the log-spectral
domain to separate filter effects from excitation effects, enhancements in the log
spectral domain can improve sound intelligibility. For homomorphic filter to be
effective it needs to affect the low- and high-frequency components of the
Fourier transform in different way.

Fig(9):Homorphic Filter

Source:
http://debian.fmi.unisofia.bg/~blizzard/download/Image%20Processing/6.Image
%20Enhancement%203.pdf

For homomorphic filter to be effective it needs to affect the low- and high-
frequency components of the Fourier transform in different way.

Filters: There are two types of enhancement techniques called spatial domain
and frequency domain techniques which are categorized again for smoothing
and sharpening the images. We considered the filtering in frequency domain
using FFT, use of the terms frequency domain and frequency components is
really no different from the terms time domain and time components, which we
would use to express the domain and values of f(x) if x where a time variable
aattenuated to some degree.

Lowpass filter (smoothing): A low-pass filter is a filter that passes low-

frequency signals and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cut-off
frequency. The actual amount of attenuation for each frequency varies
depending on specific filter design. Smoothing is fundamentally a lowpass
operation in the frequency domain . There are several standard forms of lowpass
filters are Ideal, Butterworth and Gaussian lowpass filter.

Highpass filters (sharpening): A high-pass filter is a filter that passes high

frequencies well, but attenuates frequencies lower than the cut-off frequency.
Sharpening is fundamentally a highpass operation in the frequency domain.
There are several standard forms of highpass filters such as Ideal, Butterworth
and Gaussian highpass filter. All highpass filter (Hhp) is often represented by its
relationship to the lowpass filter (Hlp).

𝐻ℎ𝑝 = 1 −𝐻𝑙

Indices: Band rationing of satellite image is the arithmetic operation that is

most widely applied to images in the application of remote sensing such as
geological, forestry and agriculture. In this enhancement techniques the DN
value of one band is divided by that of any other band in the sensor array.
Creating ratio images is done using the following general formula:

BVi, j, r = (BV i, j, k / BV I ,j, l

Where,

BVi ,j, r = output ratio values for pixel at row i, column j.

BVi ,j, k and B Vi ,j,l are the brightness values at the same location in bands k and
l respectively.

 If BVi,j,k and BVi ,j,l both values are similar, resulting proportion is a
number close to 1.
  If the numerator number is low and denominator high, the quotient
approaches zero.
 If this is reversed (high numerator; low denominator) the number is well
above 1.

The Ratio of their reflectance between the two bands should always be very
similar. Three band ratio images can be combined as colour composites which
highlight certain features in distinctive colours. Commonly used ratios/indices
are as follow

Vegetation Index = DNNIR / DNR

Where,
DNNIR = Brightness value of pixel in NIR band
DNR = Brightness value of pixel in R band

 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI): In the NDVI, the

difference between the near-infrared and red (or visible) reflectance is
divided by their sum. The NDVI has a range limited to a value from -1 to
1. Data from vegetated areas will yield positive values for the NDVI due
to high near-infrared and low red or visible reflectance. NDVI is
calculated as follows:

NDVI = (NIR - RED) / (NIR + RED)

 Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI): Normalized difference of two

bands (one in the visible and one in the near-infrared or short-wave infrared
parts of the spectrum) is used to map snow.

Values of NDSI greater than 0.4 indicate the presence of snow. The NDSI
was originally developed for use with Land sat TM/ETM+ bands 2 and 5 or
MODIS bands 4 and 6. However, it will work with any multispectral sensor
 with a green band between 0.5-0.6 µm and a NIR band between 0.76-0.96
µm.

Reference: Riggs, G., D. Hall, and V. Salomonson. "A Snow Index for the
Land sat Thematic Mapper and Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectrometer." Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, IGARSS
'94, Volume 4: Surface and Atmospheric Remote Sensing: Technologies,
Data Analysis, and Interpretation (1994), pp. 1942-1944.

 Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI): This index highlights

urban areas where there is typically a higher reflectance in the shortwave-
infrared (SWIR) region, compared to the near-infrared (NIR) region.
Applications include watershed runoff predictions and land-use planning.

The NDBI was originally developed for use with Landsat TM bands 5 and
4. However, it will work with any multispectral sensor with a SWIR band
between 1.55-1.75 µm and a NIR band between 0.76-0.9 µm.

Reference: Zha, Y., J. Gao, and S. Ni. "Use of Normalized Difference

Built-Up Index in Automatically Mapping Urban Areas from TM
Imagery." International Journal of Remote Sensing 24, no. 3 (2003): 583-
594.

Principal Component Analysis: Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of

the statistical techniques frequently used in signal processing to the data
dimension reduction or to the data decorrelation. There are two distinct
applications of PCA in image processing. They are a) image colour reduction b)
Determination of object orientation with the help of eigenvector. Quality of
image segmentation implies to results of the following process of object
orientation evaluation based on PCA as well. Presented paper briefly Principal
Component Analysis is a technique in which the original remotely sensed
dataset is transformed into a new dataset which may better capture the essential
information. This transform is known as principal Component transformation
(PCT) or Principal component analysis (PCA). Principal component analysis
(Karhunen-Loeve or Hotelling transform) belongs to linear transforms based on
the statistical techniques. This method provides a powerful tool for data analysis
and pattern recognition which is often used in signal and image processing as a
technique for data compression, data dimension reduction or their decorrelation
as well. There are various algorithms based on multivariate analysis or neural
networks that can perform PCA on a given data set. The objective of this
transform is to reduce the no of bands in the data and compress as much of the
information in the original bands into fewer bands. The new bands that result
from this statistical procedure are called principal.

The PCA Theory

Principal component analysis in signal processing can be described as a
transform of a given set of n input vectors (variables) with the same length K
formed in the n-dimensional vector.

X = [X1 , X2,.............Xn]T into a vector Y according to (1)

Y = A(X-Mx)
Mx = E{X} = 1/K∑𝑘𝑘=1 𝑋 (2)
Matrix A in Eq. (1) is determined by the covariance matrix Cx. Rows in the A
matrix are formed from the eigenvectors of Cx ordered according to
corresponding eigen values in descending order. The evaluation of the Cx
matrix is possible according to relation.

Cx = E{(x-mx)(x-mx)T} = 1/K∑𝑘𝑘=1 𝑋kXTk - mxmxT (3)

As the vector of input variables is n-dimensional it is obvious that the size of Cx
is nxn.The elements Cx(i,i) lying in its main diagonal are the variances.

Cx(i,i) = {(xi-mi)2} (4)

values Cx(i, j) determine the covariance between input variables xi, xj
Cx(i,j) = E{(xi - mi) (xj- mj)} (5)
The rows of A in Eq. (1) are orthonormal so the inversion of PCA is possible
according to relation.
X = ATY + mx (6)

PCA Use for Image Compression

Data volume reduction is a common task in image processing. There is a huge
amount of algorithms based on various principles leading to the image
compression. Algorithms based on the image colour reduction are mostly less
but their results are still acceptable for some applications. The image
transformation from colour to the gray-level (intensity) image I belongs to the
most common algorithms. Its implementation is usually based on the weighted
sum of three colour components R, G, B according to relation.

I = w1R+w2G + w3B (7)

The R, G and B matrices contain image colour components, the weights wi were
determined with regarding to the possibilities of human perception.The PCA
method provides an alternative way to this method. The idea is based on Eq. (6)
where the matrix A is replaced by matrix Al in which only l largest (instead of
n) eigenvalues are used for its forming. The vector x of reconstructed variables
is then given by relation.

X=Ak T + mx (8)

PCA Use for Determination of Object Rotation

Properties of PCA can be used for determination of selected object orientation
or its rotation, edge detection must be used at first. Binary image containing
object boundary or its area in black (or white) pixels on the inverse background
results from this process. After that two vectors a and b containing the cartesian
coordinates of object’s pixels can be simply formed. The vector x in the Eq. (1)
is in this case a 2-dimensional vector consisting of a and B respectively. The
mean vector mx and the covariance matrix Cx are computed as well as its
eigenvectore. Its two elements -vectors e1 and e2 enable the evaluation of
object rotation in the cartesian axis or object rotation around the center given
by mx illustrates the PCA use for the determination of selected object
orientation. The object boundary was detected at first by means of LoG filter in
the original gray-level image. The original has been rotated by a given angle
with the bilinear interpolation method use and the process of image
segmentation and PCA has been applied again. Resulted eigenvector e1 and e2
are drawn in each binary image, too and their orientation were compared with
the rotation angle.

Fig (10):Object Rotation

REVIEW OF PCA IN SATELLITE IMAGE ANALYSIS:
To perform the principal component analysis apply a transformation to a
correlated set of multispectral satellite images. This technique is widely used in
digital processing of multispectral image. PCA and image fusion techniques
both are often used to enhance an image particularly in the land-use and land-
cover classification of satellite image and it is used for improve the accuracy of
classification. In the field of remote sensing . PCA may also be useful for
reducing the dimensionality of hyper spectral dataset without much loss of data
information. There are certain vectors, called characteristic vectors or Eigen
vector that gives the direction of the new axes. This is a general method for
determining the axes of the new coordinate system.

Fig (10): Principal Component Analysis

Source:https://www.google.co.in/search?q=PCA+ANALYSIS+in+remote+sensi
ng&biw=1821&bih=830&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii0d
PetrnMAhXMG44KHXbPD54Q_AUICCgC&dpr=0.75