INCREASED IMAGE QUALITY BY SYNTHESIZING SPACE PHOTOS WITH DIFFERENT EXPOSURES

• Main Authors: A. I. Altukhov, E. I. Shabakov, D. S. Korshunov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Saint Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO University) 2017-01-01
• Series: Naučno-tehničeskij Vestnik Informacionnyh Tehnologij, Mehaniki i Optiki
• Subjects: image synthesis; exposure; space image quality; thematic data processing; interpretation
• Online Access: http://ntv.ifmo.ru/file/article/16401.pdf

Subject of Research. The paper deals withan approach to the image quality improvement of the underlying surface, obtained by space-based facilities in the visible spectrum. The approach is based on the idea of the region image synthesis with different exposures. This enables to increase the dynamic range of image brightness and display bright and poorly lighted places on the result picture. The relevance of the proposed approach is confirmed by simulation results of objects image quality under a variety of lighting conditions. Linear ground resolution is selected as the quality indicator. Main Results. We have carried out behavior analysis of possible changes in the lighting conditions of the underlying surface in the range of onboard equipment swath of spacecraft observation.We have performed calculation of the terrain linear resolution in narrow spectral ranges of visible light for the space image fragments of the underlying surface with different illumination. It was concluded that the quality of satellite images is limited, since the parameters of onboard equipment monitoring are not selected individually for each object detected within the swath. We have proposed an approach to improve the image quality. Practical Relevance. The proposed approach to the processing of the Earth remote sensing data gives the possibility to obtain images suitable for interpretation with account for specific features of illumination area, as well as to improve the dataware accuracy during the survey support and mapping of areas.