Assessing the spatial resolution distance of satellite images: SuperDove versus Landsat 8

Abstract

ABSTRACT The remote sensing community usually confuses the Spatial Resolution Distance (SRD) of satellite images with their Ground Sampling Distance (GSD). This misconception has been highlighted by assessments of Planet’s CubeSat images conducted independently by NASA and ESA, which found that their SRD is about five times larger than their GSD. The discrepancies between different metrics to compute the SRD have contributed to the confusion between SRD and GSD. A recently developed spatial resolution metric computed in terms of the imaging sensor’s Point Spread Function (PSF), named the Spatial Resolution Function (SRF), allows a comprehensive assessment of the SRD as a function of the resolving contrast generated in the image, when there are two-point sources in the scene. The SRF shows under what conditions the GSD is a good approximation to the SRD and provides a tool to assess the predictions of other metrics used to compute the SRD. We use the SRF to compute the SRD of images captured by Landsat 8 and Planet’s SuperDove satellites. The PSF of these sensors is calculated by using the specifications and measurements provided by their operators. The SRD predictions of the SRF metric agree with NASA and ESA findings, showing that the average SRD of SuperDove and Landsat 8 images is 4.9 and 1.4 times larger than their GSD, respectively. The stability of the SRD of these images is assessed by computing the degradation (increase) of SRD resulting from an increase of atmospheric turbulence and spacecraft vibrations. We conclude that the confusion between SRD and GSD has led to the development of CubeSat images with a small GSD whose SRD is several times larger than their GSD. These CubeSat images have an intrinsically unstable SRD in the space environment, a property that explains the numerous radiometric inconsistencies reported by their users.