A New Subspace Approach

for Supervised Hyperspectral

Image Classification

Jun Li1,2, José M. Bioucas-Dias2 and Antonio Plaza1

1Hyperspectral Computing Laboratory
University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain
2Instituto de Telecomunicaçoes, Instituto Superior Técnico, TULisbon, Portugal

Contact e-mails: {junli, aplaza}@unex.es, bioucas@lx.it.pt

A New Subspace Approach for Hyperspectral Classification

Talk Outline:
1. Challenges in hyperspectral image classification

2. Subspace projection

2.1. Subspace projection-based framework

2.2. Considered subspace projection techniques: PCA versus HySime

2.3. Integration with different classifiers (LDA, SVM, MLR)

3. Experimental results
3.1. Experiments with AVIRIS Indian Pines hyperspectral data

3.2. Experiments with ROSIS Pavia University hyperspectral

4. Conclusions and future research lines

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011
 Challenges in Hyperspectral Image Classification

Concept of hyperspectral imaging using NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Airborne Visible Infra-Red Imaging Spectrometer

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 1
 Challenges in Hyperspectral Image Classification

Challenges in hyperspectral image classification

• Imbalance between dimensionality and training samples, presence of mixed pixels

Ultraspectral
(1000’s of bands)

Hyperspectral
(100’s of bands)

Multispectral
(10’s of bands)

Panchromatic

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 2
 Challenges in Hyperspectral Image Classification

Challenges in hyperspectral image classification

• The special characteristics of hyperspectral data pose several processing problems:

1. The high-dimensional nature of hyperspectral data introduces important

limitations in supervised classifiers, such as the limited availability of
training samples or the inherently complex structure of the data

2. There is a need to address the presence of mixed pixels resulting from

insufficient spatial resolution and other phenomena in order to properly
model the hyperspectral data

3. There is a need to develop computationally efficient algorithms, able to

provide a response in a reasonable time and thus address the computational
requirements of time-critical remote sensing applications

• In this work, we evaluate the impact of using subspace projection techniques prior to
supervised classification of hyperspectral image data while analyzing each of the
aforementioned items

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 3
A New Subspace Approach for Hyperspectral Classification

Talk Outline:
1. Challenges in hyperspectral image classification

2. Subspace projection

2.1. Subspace projection-based framework

2.2. Considered subspace projection techniques: PCA versus HySime

2.3. Integration with different classifiers (LDA, SVM, MLR)

3. Experimental results
3.1. Experiments with AVIRIS Indian Pines hyperspectral data

3.2. Experiments with ROSIS Pavia University hyperspectral

4. Conclusions and future research lines

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011
Subspace Projection-Based Framework

Subspace projection-based framework.-

• Hyperspectral image data generally lives in a lower-dimensional subspace compared
with the input feature dimensionality
• This can be exploited to address ill-posed problems given by limited training samples
• The projection into such subspaces allows us to specifically avoid spectral confusion
due to mixed pixels, thus reducing their impact in the subsequent classification process

J. Li, J. M. Bioucas-Dias and A. Plaza, “Spectral-spatial hyperspectral image segmentation using sub-
space multinomial logistic regression and Markov random fields,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and
Remote Sensing, in press, 2011.
IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 4
Considered Subspace Projection Techniques: PCA versus HySime

Principal Component Analysis (PCA).-

• High-dimensional data can be transformed effectively according to its distribution in feature
space (e.g. by finding the most important directions or axes, establishing those axes as the
references of a new coordinate system which takes into account data distribution)
• Orders the resulting components in decreasing order of variance

Component 1

Component 2

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 5
Considered Subspace Projection Techniques: PCA versus HySime

Principal Component Analysis (PCA).-

• High-dimensional data can be transformed effectively according to its distribution in feature
space (e.g. by finding the most important directions or axes, establishing those axes as the
references of a new coordinate system which takes into account data distribution)
• Orders the resulting components in decreasing order of variance
Band PCA 1 Band PCA 2 Band PCA 3 Band PCA 4 Band PCA 5

Band PCA 6 Band PCA 7 Band PCA 8 Band PCA 9 Band PCA 10

Band PCA 11 Band PCA 12 Band PCA 13 Band PCA 14 Band PCA 15

Band PCA 16 Band PCA 17 Band PCA 18 Band PCA 19 Band PCA 20

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 6
Considered Subspace Projection Techniques: PCA versus HySime

Hyperspectral Signal Identification by Minimum Error (HySime).-

• A recently developed method for subspace identification in remotely sensed hyperspectral
data, which offers several additional features with regards to principal component analysis and
other subspace projection techniques

Principal Component Analysis HySime

• Seeks for the projection that best • HySime finds the subset of
represents the original hyperspectral eigenvectors and the correspondent
data in least square sense eigenvalues by minimizing the mean
square error between the original
• Reduces the original signal into
signal and its projection onto the
subset of eigenvectors without
eigenvector subspace
computing any noise statistics
• Uses multiple regressions for the
• The difficulty in getting reliable
estimation of the noise and signal
noise estimates from the resulting
covariance matrices
eigenvalues is that these eigenvalues
still represent mixtures of signal • Optimally represents the original
sources and noise signal with minimum error

J. M. Bioucas-Dias and J. M. P Nascimento, “Hyperspectral subspace identification,” IEEE

Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 46, no. 8, pp. 2435-2445, 2008.
IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 7
Supervised Classification Framework Tested in this Work

Supervised Classification Framework.-

• Includes subspace projection and supervised classification based on training samples:

PCA, HySime

Subspace projection

Randomly selected

Test Training
Samples Samples Supervised classifier

Test classification accuracy

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 8
Integration with different classifiers (LDA, SVM, MLR)

Integration of subspace-based framework with different classifiers.-

• Three different supervised classifiers tested in this work:
1. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA): find a linear combination
of features which separate two or more classes; the resulting
combination may be used as a linear classifier (only linearly
separable classes will remain separable after applying LDA)
2. Support vector machine (SVM): constructs a set of
hyperplanes in high-dimensional space; a good separation is
achieved by the hyperplane that has the largest distance to the
nearest training data points of any class
3. Multinomial logistic regression (MLR): models the posterior
class distributions in a Bayesian framework, thus supplying (in
addition to the boundaries between the classes) a degree of
plausibility for such classes

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 9
A New Subspace Approach for Hyperspectral Classification

Talk Outline:
1. Challenges in hyperspectral image classification

2. Subspace projection

2.1. Classic techniques for subspace projection: PCA versus HySime

2.2. Subspace projection-based framework

2.3. Integration with different classifiers (LDA, SVM, MLR)

3. Experimental results
3.1. Experiments with AVIRIS Indian Pines hyperspectral data

3.2. Experiments with ROSIS Pavia University hyperspectral

4. Conclusions and future research lines

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011
Experimental Results Using Real Hyperspectral Data Sets

AVIRIS Indian Pines data set.-

• Challenging classification scenario due to spectrally similar classes
• Early growth stage of the agricultural features (only around 5% coverage of soil)
• 145x145 pixels, 202 spectral bands, 16 ground-truth classes
• 10366 labeled pixels (random training subsets evenly distributed among classes)

False color composition Ground-truth

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 10
Experimental Results Using Real Hyperspectral Data Sets

AVIRIS Indian Pines data set.-

• Classification results using 160 training samples (10 training samples per class)
• For the SVM classifier we used the Gaussian RBF kernel after testing other kernels
• The mean accuracies (after 10 Monte Carlo runs) and processing times are reported

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 11
Experimental Results Using Real Hyperspectral Data Sets

AVIRIS Indian Pines data set.-

• Classification results using 240 training samples (15 training samples per class)
• For the SVM classifier we used the Gaussian RBF kernel after testing other kernels
• The mean accuracies (after 10 Monte Carlo runs) and processing times are reported

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 12
Experimental Results Using Real Hyperspectral Data Sets

AVIRIS Indian Pines data set.-

• Classification results using 320 training samples (20 training samples per class)
• For the SVM classifier we used the Gaussian RBF kernel after testing other kernels
• The mean accuracies (after 10 Monte Carlo runs) and processing times are reported

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 13
Experimental Results Using Real Hyperspectral Data Sets

AVIRIS Indian Pines data set.-

• Classification results using 320 training samples (20 training samples per class)

SVM (OA=65.36%) Subspace SVM (OA=70.33%) LDA (OA=50.74%) Subspace LDA (OA=54.90%)

Linear MLR (OA=60.38%) Subspace MLR (OA=67.53%) Ground-truth

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 14
Experimental Results Using Real Hyperspectral Data Sets

ROSIS Pavia University data set.-

False color composition Ground-truth Training data

Overall classification accuracies and kappa coefficient (in the parentheses) using different training sets for the ROSIS Pavia
University
IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 15
Conclusions and Hints at Plausible Future Research

Conclusions and Future Lines.-

• We have evaluated the impact of subspace projection on supervised classification
of remotely sensed hyperspectral image data sets

• Two dimensionality reduction methods have been used: PCA and HySime,
although many others are available and could be used: MNF, OSP, VD

• Three different supervised classifiers considered: LDA, SVM, MLR

• Experimental results indicate that different approaches for hyperspectral image

classification approaches can benefit from subspace projection, particularly
when very limited training samples are available

• Subspace projection can be naturally integrated with multinomial logistic

regression (MLR) classifiers, which greatly benefit from dimensionality reduction

• Future work will focus on the evaluation of other subspace projection approaches
and hyperspectral data sets

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 16
•IEEE J-STARS Special Issue on Hyperspectral Image and Signal Processing

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 2011), Vancouver, Canada, July 24 – 29, 2011 17
 A New Subspace Approach
for Supervised Hyperspectral
Image Classification

Jun Li1,2, José M. Bioucas-Dias2 and Antonio Plaza1

1Hyperspectral Computing Laboratory
University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain
2Instituto de Telecomunicaçoes, Instituto Superior Técnico, TULisbon, Portugal

Contact e-mails: {junli, aplaza}@unex.es, bioucas@lx.it.pt