A novel method for spectral-spatial classification of hyperspectral images with a high spatial resolution

Abstract

In this research, a new method for spectral-spatial classification of hyperspectral images based on hierarchical segmentation algorithm is introduced. Among the various spectral-spatial classification algorithms, the marker-based hierarchical segmentation algorithm has so far achieved the best results in combination with the support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithm. In the proposed method adopted in this research, the dimensions of the hyperspectral image were reduced via the minimum noise fraction (MNF) algorithm. Then, five spatial/texture features of wavelet transform, Gabor transform, mean, entropy, and contrast were extracted from the obtained bands. Later on, the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network and SVM classification algorithms were applied to the obtained spectral and texture features, and their results were combined. The resulting map was then used to select the markers and to combine them with the marker-based hierarchical segmentation algorithm using the majority voting rule. The proposed method was applied to three hyperspectral images, Pavia, Telops, and Washington DC Mall. The results of the experiments demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over the initial marker-based hierarchical algorithm. Quantitatively, it was better by 8, 12, and 9% for the Pavia, Telops, and Washington DC Mall datasets regarding the Kappa coefficient parameter, respectively.