Principles of Remote Sensing

An introductory textbook
Editors
Klaus Tempi
Norman Kerle
Gerrit C. Huurneman
Lucas L. F. Janssen

Authors of Text
Wim H. Bakker
Wim Feringa
Ambro S. M. Gieske
Ben G. H. Gorte
Karl A. Grabmaier
Chris A. Hecker
John A. Horn
Gerrit C. Huurneman
Lucas L. F. Janssen
Norman Kerle

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Freek D. van der Meer

Gabriel N. Parodi
Christine Pohl
Colin V. Reeves
Frank J. van Ruitenbeek
Ernst M. Schetselaar
Klaus Tempi
Michael J. C. Weir
Eduard Westinga
Tsehaie Woldai

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Cover illustration:
Paul Klee (18791940), Chosen Site (1927)
Pen-drawing and water-colour on paper. Original size: 57.8 40.5 cm.
Private collection, Munich
c 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, by
print, photoprint, microlm, microche or any other means without written permission
from 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 Sensing

Klaus Tempi, Norman Kerle, Gerrit C. Huurneman and Lucas L. F. Janssen
(eds.)
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3
(ITC Educational Textbook Series; 2)
Fourth edition
ISBN 9789061642701 ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands
ISSN 15675777 ITC Educational Textbook Series
c 2009 by ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands


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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

Electromagnetic energy
and 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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2.2.3
2.3

2.4

2.5

Electromagnetic spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66

Energy interaction in the atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

2.3.1

Absorption and transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71

2.3.2

Atmospheric scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

74

Energy interactions with the Earths surface . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

2.4.1

Spectral reectance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

Sensing of EM energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

86

2.5.1

Sensing properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

2.5.2

Classication of sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97

Spatial referencing

110

3.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

3.2

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

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

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4.3

4.4

4.2.3

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

4.2.4

Market gures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.3.1

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

4.3.2

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

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

Visualization and radiometric operations

166

5.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

5.2

Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
5.2.1

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

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5.2.2
5.3

5.4

5.5
6

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

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

5.3.1

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

5.3.2

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

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

5.4.1

Histograms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

5.4.2

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

5.4.3

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

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

Geometric operations

218

6.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

6.2

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

6.2.1

6.3

6.4

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

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

6.3.1

Georeferencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

6.3.2

Geocoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

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

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Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

6.4.2

Monoplotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

6.4.3

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

6.4.4

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

Visual image interpretation

255

7.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

7.2

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

7.3

7.4
8

6.4.1

7.2.1

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

7.2.2

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

Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
7.3.1

Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

7.3.2

Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

7.3.3

Analyzing eld data and map preparation . . . . . . . . . 272

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

Digital image classication

280

8.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

8.2

Principle of image classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

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8.3

8.2.1

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

8.2.2

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

8.2.3

Image classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Image classication process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

8.3.1

Preparation for image classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

8.3.2

Supervised image classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

8.3.3

Unsupervised image classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

8.3.4

Classication algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

8.4

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

8.5

Pixel-based and object oriented classication . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Aerial photography

316

9.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

9.2

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

9.3

9.2.1

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

9.2.2

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

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

9.3.1

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

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10

Contents

9.4

9.3.2

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

9.3.3

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

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

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11

Contents
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

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12

Contents
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 reectance . . . . . 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

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13

Contents
13 Imaging Spectrometry

463

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

13.2 Reection 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

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14

Contents
14.4 Electrical imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
14.5 Seismic surveying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Glossary

509

A Spaceborne EO systems of special signicance

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 & prexes

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15

Contents
C List of Formulae

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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

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17

List of Figures
2.6

Black-body radiation curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

2.7

The EM spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66

2.8

Energy interactions in the atmosphere and at the Earths 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 reection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

2.15

Reectance curve of vegetation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

2.16

Reectance curves of soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83

2.17

Reectance curves of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

2.18

Active sensor versus passive sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

2.19

Radiance at the sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90

2.20

Spectral reectance curves and spectral bands of some multispectral sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91

2.21

Illustration of sampling a signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

2.22

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

94

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18

List of Figures
2.23

Digital image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

2.24

Digital image le . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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 NOAAs AVHRR . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

4.9

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

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List of Figures
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 lter operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

5.13

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

5.14

Procedure to merge SPOT panchromatic and multispectral data

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

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List of Figures
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

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List of Figures
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 classication process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

8.6

Image classication input and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

8.7

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

8.8

Box classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

8.9

Minimum distance to mean classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

8.10

Maximum likelihood classication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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

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List of Figures
9.5

Layers of B&W and colour lm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

9.6

Spectral sensitivity curves of B&W lms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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 identication 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 ltered 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

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List of Figures
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 proles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

12.1

Illustration of Plancks 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 res in Wuda, China . . . . . . . . 459

13.1

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

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List of Figures
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-oor 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

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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

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List of Tables
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 Envisats instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
A.12 Characteristics of Envisat, ASAR and MERIS . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

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List of Tables
A.13 Envisat-MERIS band characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
B.1 Relevant SI units in the context of remote sensing . . . . . . . . . 587
B.2 Unit prex notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
B.3 Common units of length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
B.4 Constants and non-SI units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

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Preface
Principles of Remote Sensing is written to be primarily used as textbook for the introductory module on Earth Observation of all ITC degree courses and for several short diploma or certicate courses. Together with the complementary book
Principles of Geographic Information Systems it can also serve as a basic reference on geoinformatics for a wide disciplinary user range from urban and regional planning, civil engineering and geo-engineering, management of natural
resources, environmental protection, disaster management and defense, water
management and earth resources exploration to land administration and governance. The book presents the basic principles of geospatial data acquisition
limiting 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 very
wide user spectrum and the restriction that a novice student of geoinformatics
can learn the selected basics in three weeks. The structure of the book follows the
classical set-up of rst reviewing the necessary physics before discussing sensor
technology and introducing common image processing techniques. The title Remote Sensing has been kept for historical reasons; the book is now in its forth
edition.
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29

Preface

You may wonder why ITC has been producing its own introductory textbook
while there are already many books on the subject available on the market. PoRS
is different in various aspects. First of all, it has been developed for the specic
ITC student population, thereby taking into account their entry level and knowledge of English language. Being used at the beginning of the courses it tries to
stimulate conceptual and abstract thinking without overloading it with formulae. The book relates to the typical ITC application disciplines and is, therefore,
not limited to traditional sectorial remote sensing; it includes photogrammetric
subjects and an introduction into techniques of data acquisition for subsurface
characteristics. Finally, compared to other introductory books, which often focus on the technique, PoRS also introduces processes. In this sense, it provides
a frame to refer to when more detailed subjects are dealt with later in the programme.

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Preface

How to use the material

Principles of Remote Sensing has been produced both as a hardcopy textbook and
as an electronic document. In this way, the student is offered the optimal combination to study the subject and to use the book as a general reference. Each
chapter gives a summary and provides questions for self testing. The book comprises a glossary, an index and a bibliography. The electronic document (PDF
format) enables fast navigation and quick referencing.

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31

Preface

Acknowledgements
Lucas Janssen was the editor of the rst edition of Principles of Remote Sensing. In
2000 he wrote in his preface to the book:
This textbook is the result of a process to dene and develop material for a
core curriculum. This process started in 1998 and was carried out by a working
group comprising of Rolf de By, Michael Weir, Cees van Westen, myself, chaired
by Ineke ten Dam and supported by Erica Weijer. This group put many efforts
in the denition and realization of the earlier version of the two core textbooks.
Ineke was also supervising the process leading to this result. My fellow working
group members are greatly acknowledged for their support.
This textbook could not have materialized without the efforts of the (co) authors of the chapters: Wim Bakker, Ben Gorte, John Horn, Christine Pohl, Colin
Reeves, Michael Weir and Tsehaie Woldai. Many other colleagues contributed
one way or another to either the earlier version or this version of Principles of Remote Sensing: Paul Hofstee, Gerrit Huurneman, Yousif Hussin, David Rossiter,
Rob Soeters, Ernst Schetselaar, Andrew Skidmore, Dhruba Shrestha and Zoltn
Vekerdy.
The design and implementation of the textbook layout, of both the hardcopy and
electronic document, is the work of Rolf de By. Using the LATEX typesetting system, Rolf realized a well structured and visually attractive document to study.
Many of the illustrations in the book have been provided by the authors, supported by Job Duim and Gerard Reinink. Final editing of the illustrations was

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32

Preface
done by Wim Feringa who also designed the cover.
Michael Weir has done a tremendous job in checking the complete textbook on
English spelling and grammar. We know that our students will prot from this.
The work on this textbook was greatly stimulated through close collaboration
with the editor of Principles of Geographic Information Systems, Rolf de By.

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33

Preface

Preface to the fourth edition

Gerrit Huurneman was the editor of the second edition of PoRS. Gerrit added a
new chapter on atmospheric aspects, and revised and updated the entire text, in
particular the information on multispectral scanners, the chapter that becomes
outdated most quickly. Three years later it was Norman Kerle, who took up
the editorial work for the third edition. Norman updated again the chapter on
scanners and accomplished a complete overhaul of the chapter on radiometric correction. Moreover, he had new sections and chapters added, which accounted for new developments and could serve as reference material for more
specic concepts and methods beyond sole core matter. The chapters on laser
scanning, thermal remote sensing, and the one on imaging spectrometry were
entirely new.
The third edition served as textbook for ve years while ICT continued to rapidly
develop. Taking into account the suggestions of many ITC colleagues I decided
to regroup several chapters to better map technological innovation to ITCs
courses. Updating, focusing and homogenizing were the aims of the revision
for the 4th edition, not further extending the content of the book. The previous
chapters on scanners and digital aerial cameras are now merged and specications of current sensors have migrated to an Appendix. The new chapter is more
focused on sensor system characteristics. I have added the basic principles of
sensing to the physics chapter, which as a whole has become more quantitative.
The previous chapters on radiometric correction and image enhancement have
been rearranged to a core chapter on visualization and radiometric corrections.
The chapter on visual image interpretation has become shorter, now describing

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34

Preface
the principles of interpretation and the general approach rather than elaborating
on application examples.
The chapters not belonging to the core subjects of all ITC courses are grouped
in 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 specic choice.
I have made a major effort to homogenize the terminology and signicantly extend the glossary. You nd there not only the denitions of disciplinary terms
but also where deemed appropriate a sharpened or more elaborate description of a notion than in the text body of the book. New is the list of abbreviations
and list of formulae. If you should doubt the English here and there, take it as
the Europeanized version of English. Finally, many of the corrigenda have been
xed for the softcopy version of the book.
I would like to thank my colleagues, who made many valuable suggestions for
updating the book, in particular Markus Gerke, Chris Hecker, Norman Kerle,
Monika Kuffer, Georges Vosselman, Michael Weir, and Eduard Westinga the
latter 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 her
generous and dedicated support revising the book would have been impossible.
Lastly I would like to thank my wife, Gerti, for tolerating me getting carried

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35

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

Klaus Tempi, Enschede, September 28, 2008

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Common core

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