An Integrated Image Fusion Technique for Boosting the Quality of Noisy Remote Sensing Images

Abstract

To better identify the objects in remote sensing images, the multispectral images with high spectral resolution and low spatial resolution, and the panchromatic images with high spatial resolution and low spectral resolution need to be fused. Many fusion techniques are discussed in the recent years to obtain images with high spectral resolution and also high spatial resolution. In this paper an image fusion technique, based on integrating both the Intensity-Hue-Saturation (IHS) and the Discrete Wavelet Frame Transform (DWFT), is proposed for boosting the quality of remote sensing images. A panchromatic and multispectral image from Landsat-7(ETM+) satellite has been fused using this new approach. Experimental results show that the proposed technique improves the spectral and spatial qualities of the fused images. Moreover, when this technique is applied to noisy and de-noised remote sensing images it can preserve the quality of the fused images. Comparison analyses between different fusion techniques are also presented and show that the proposed technique outperforms the other techniques.