Digital Image Classification

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

IMAGE CLASSIFICATION

z Main lecture topics

z what is it and why use it?
z image space versus feature space
z distances in feature space
z decision boundaries in feature space
z unsupervised versus supervised
z training
z classification algorithms
z validation (how good is the result?)
z problems

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

MULTI-SPECTRAL CLASSIFICATION

What is it?
z grouping of similar features

z separation of dissimilar ones

z assigning class label to pixels

z resulting in manageable size of

classes

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

MULTI-SPECTRAL CLASSIFICATION

Why use it?

z To translate continuous variability of image

data into map patterns that provide
meaning to the user

z To obtain insight in the data with respect to

ground cover and surface characteristics

z To find anomalous patterns in the image

data set
PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING
MULTI-SPECTRAL CLASSIFICATION

Why use it? (advantages)

z Cost efficient in the analyses of large data sets

z Results can be reproduced

z More objective then visual interpretation

z Effective analysis of complex multi-band

(spectral) interrelationships

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

CLASSIFICATION METHODS

z MANUAL
z visual interpretation

z combination of spectral and spatial information

z COMPUTER ASSISTED
z mainly spectral information

z STRATIFIED
z using GIS functionality to incorporate
knowledge from other sources of information

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

FEATURE SPACE

ANALYZING PATTERNS IN MULTISPECTRAL DATA

PIXEL A: 34,25,117

PIXEL B: 34,24,119

PIXEL C: 11,77,51

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

FEATURE SPACE

Image Image
band 1
band 2

band 1
band 2
band 3

(v1, v2) (v1, v2, v3)

band 2 band 3

v3
v2

v1
band 1
v1
band 1 v2

band 2
Feature Space Feature Space

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

FEATURE SPACE

FEATURE SPACE
PARTIONED IN CLASSES

z two to n dimensional graph

or scatter diagram
z formation of classes of
points representing DN
values in two/three
spectral bands
z each cluster of points
corresponds to a certain
cover type (class) on the
ground

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

FEATURE SPACE

EUCLIDIAN DISTANCE

.. .
.
Max y

... .
band y
(units of 5 DN)

. Min y ..
(0,0) band x (units of 5 DN)
(0,0) Min x Max x

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

CLASS FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION

Clear distinction of class A and B

Frequency

Class A

Class B

Feature/band 1

Overlap between the classes

Frequency

Class A

Class B

Feature/band 1

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

COMPUTER ASSISTED CLASSIFICATION

UNSUPERVISED APPROACH

z based on spectral groupings

z considers only spectral distance
measures
z minimum user interaction
z requires interpretation after
classification SUPERVISED APPROACH

z based on spectral groupings

z incorporates prior knowledge
z maximum user interaction

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION

CLUSTERING PROCEDURE

z data standardization
z user defines cluster parameters
z class mean vectors are arbitrarily set by algorithm
z class allocation of feature vectors (pixels) (1 st. iteration)
z re-compute class mean vectors
z iterations continue until convergence threshold has been reached
z final class allocation
z cluster statistics reporting

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION

CLUSTERING PARAMETERS

z number of clusters
z size of cluster
z distance between the clusters
z cluster elimination value
(convergence threshold)

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION

CLUSTERING ALGORITHM

z class mean vectors are arbitrarily set

by algorithm (iteration 0)
z class allocation of feature vectors
(pixels)
z compute new class mean vectors
z class allocation (iteration 2)
z re-compute class mean vectors
z iterations continue until
convergence threshold has been
reached

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION

OUTPUT

z cluster image

z distance or divergence measure between

clusters

z cluster mean vector plots

z cluster histogram / feature space plots

z cluster variance-covariance matrices

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

SUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION

MAIN STEPS

z TAKE TRAINING SAMPLES

z define number of classes

z take enough representative samples per class

z analyse training samples before classification

z SELECT APPROPRIATE CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM

z ASSESS CLASSIFICATION ACCURARY

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

ANALYSING TRAINING SAMPLES
(supervised approach)

The points a,b and c are cluster There is overlap between

centres of clusters A, B and C. the clusters A and B.
Line ab is the distance between
the cluster centres A and B.

Clusters A and B are too close

to each other which may give
the problem of overlap between
the classes.

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

BOX CLASSIFICATION

z CHARACTERISTICS
z considers only the lower and the
upper limits of cluster
z computation is simple and fast

z DISADVANTAGE
z overlapping boxes

z poorly adapted to cluster shape

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

BOX CLASSIFICATION

Means and Standard Deviations Partitioned Feature Space

255 255

Band 2 Band 2

0 0
0 Band 1 255 0 Band 1 255

Feature Space Partitioning - Box classifier

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

MINIMUM DISTANCE TO MEAN

z CHARACTERISTICS
z emphasis on the location of cluster
centre
z class labelling by considering
minimum distance to the cluster
centres

z DISADVANTAGE
z avoids the presence of variability
within a class
z shape and size of the clusters are
not important

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

MINIMUM DISTANCE TO MEAN CLASSIFIER
255

"Unknown"

Mean vectors Band 2

255

0
Band 2 0 Band 1 255

255

0
0 Band 1 255

Band 2

Feature Space Partitioning - Minimum

Distance to Mean Classifier 0
0 Band 1 255

Threshold Distance

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD CLASSIFIER

Equiprobability contours

z CHARACTERISTICS
z considers variability within a
cluster
z considers the shape, the size
and the orientation of clusters

z DISADVANTAGE
z takes more computing time

z based on assumption that PDF

is normally distributed

Probability density functions (Lillesand and Kiefer, 1987)

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD CLASSIFIER
255

"Unknown"
Mean vectors and variance-
Band 2
covariance matrices

255

0
0 Band 1 255
Band 2

255

0
0 Band 1 255
Band 2

Feature Space Partitioning -

Maximum Likelihood Classifier 0
0 Band 1 255

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

TM 452 RGB Karoi, Zimbabwe

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Feature space

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Box classification factor 1.7

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Box classification factor 4

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Box classification factor 10

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Minimum distance threshold 50

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Minimum distance threshold 100

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

Maximum likelihood threshold 100

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

ACCURACY ASSESSMENT

CRITICAL ISSUES

z USE INDEPENDENT DATA SOURCE

z ground surveys & maps

z subset of training samples

z ADAPT VALIDATION TO CLASSIFICATION OBJECTIVES

z DESIGN UNBIASSED VALIDATION EXPERIMENT

z sample distribution versus class distribution

z REPORT DISSAPOINTING RESULTS AND SEEK FOR

EXPLANATIONS

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

ACCURACY ASSESSMENT

CONFUSION MATRIX
Classification Reference Class Total Error of User
Result Commission Accuracy
A B C D

A 35 14 11 1 61 43 57

B 4 11 3 0 18 39 61

C 12 9 38 4 63 40 60

D 2 5 12 2 21 90 10

Total 53 39 64 7 163

Error of 34 72 41 71
Omission

Producer 66 28 59 29
Accuracy

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING

PROBLEMS IN IMAGE CLASSIFICATION

THINK ABOUT

z SPECTRAL VARIABILITY

z MIXED PIXELS

z CLASS OCCURRENCE FREQUENCY

z VALIDATION AND ASSESSMENT

PRINCIPLES OF REMOTE SENSING