False Color Fusion for Multi-band SAR Images Based on Contourlet Transform

Abstract

A false color image fusion method for multi-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images based on contourlet transform is presented. It works in the following way: firstly, the flexible multiresolution, high directionality and anisotropy of contourlet transform are used for implementing the multiscale decomposition for SAR images. In the contourlet transform domain, an edge information measurement rule is used to merge the directional subbands, and an averaging rule is used to merge the lowpass subbands. Then, a hybrid high boost filter algorithm is proposed to produce the red, green and blue color channels of red-green-blue (RGB) model based on the gray fused image. Finally, the false color fused image is displayed in the RGB color space. This method translates the gray information into color information available to human visual system and enhances the spectral resolution for SAR images. Experimental results is confirmed the validity of the proposed method.