A comparative study on radiometric normalization using high resolution satellite images

Remotely sensed multitemporal, multisensor data are often required in Earth observation applications. A common problem associated with the use of multisource image data is the grey value differences caused by non-surface factors such as different illumination, atmospheric, or sensor conditions. Such differences make it difficult to compare images using the same colour metric system. Image normalization is required to reduce the radiometric influences caused by non-surface factors and to ensure that the grey value differences between temporal images reflect actual changes on the surface of the Earth. A variety of image normalization methods, such as pseudoinvariant features (PIF), dark and bright set (DB), simple regression (SR), no-change set determined from scattergrams (NC), and histogram matching (HM), have been published in scientific journals. These methods have been tested with either Landsat TM data, MSS data or both, and test results differ from author to author. However, whether or not existing methods could be adopted for normalizing high resolution multispectral satellite images, such as IKONOS and QuickBird, is still open for discussion because of the dramatic change in spatial resolution and the difference of available multispectral bands. In this research, the existing methods are introduced and employed to normalize the radiometric difference between IKONOS and QuickBird multispectral images taken in different years. Some improvements are introduced to the existing methods to overcome problems caused by band difference and to achieve more stable and better results. The normalized results are compared in terms of visual inspection and statistical analysis. This paper examined whether or not existing methods can be directly adopted for image normalization with high resolution satellite images, and showed how these methods can be modified for use with such images.