Data Fusion of Aerial Images Collected by Matrix Camera and Line Scanner of Different Resolution

The information collected through the airborne remote sensing are useful for many scientific and practical works. In order to use collected information and existing knowledge of the observed object in the most efficient way for the purpose of solving specific problems, we have to examine their characteristics and if possible fuse them. This article is motivated by the existence of two operative digital sensor systems in Croatia that collect information at different wavelengths and with different methods of taking images. The first sensor is the digital matrix (staring) camera, for three visible channels (V: 0.4–0.5 μm, 0.5-0.6 μm, 0.6-0.7 μm), for near infrared channel (NIR: 0.7-1.0 μm) and the second sensor is the longwave thermal infrared (TIR: 8-14 μm) parallel scan camera. This paper will analyze the possibility of fusing information provided by above sensors, of one not very accessible area (mountainous terrain, with large differences of heights). Digital sensor systems yield multispectral images with different spatial and radiometric resolutions, geodetic and photogrammetric data (geographic maps, GPS data, ortophoto maps, geocoded mosaics), the insight in the field situation (ground truth) and other accessible sources provide inputs for fusion. It will also consider influence of the fusion on the results of classification of mosaics developed on multi-sensor, multi-spectral and multi-resolution digital images from above mentioned two sensor systems. The mosaics made on the basis of the above-mentioned sensor systems have been separately made, and later on the multi-spectral mosaics containing the information from all 5 channels will be created. Spatial and geometrical quality of multi-sensor and multi-spectral images and mosaics were analysed in earlier works, so this article will not deal with this matter, but will use the results of those earlier analyses. The work is an integral part of the research conducted in the scientific project ARC funded by the European Commission.