Quality Assessment of Fused Image of Modis and Palsar

It is a current need of research to extensively use the freely available satellite images. The most commonly available satellite images are Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). The problems with these images are their poor spatial resolution that restricts their use in various applications. This restriction may be minimized by application of the fusion techniques where high resolution image will be used to fuse with low resolution images. Another important aspect of fusion of different sensors data as optical and radar images (where both can provide the complimentary information), and the resultant fused image after fusion may give enhanced and useful information that may be beneficial for various applications. Therefore, in this paper an attempt has been made to fuse the full polarimetric Phased Array type L-band SAR (PALSAR) image with MODIS image and assess the quality of fused image. PALSAR image has a advantage of availability of data in four different channels. These four channels are HH (Transmitted horizontal polarization and received also in horizontal polarization), HV (Transmitted horizontal polarization and received vertical polarization), VH (Transmitted vertical polarization and received horizontal polarization) and VV (Transmitted vertical polarization and received vertical polarization), which provides various landcover information. The curvelet based fusion technique has been applied to MODIS Bands 1 and 2 and PALSAR (HH, HV and VV) bands for assessing the effect of fusion in land cover distinction. The three major land covers i.e., agriculture, urban and water are considered for evaluation of fusion of these images for the Roorkee area of India. The results are quite encouraging, and in near future Received 27 February 2010, Accepted 30 June 2010, Scheduled 14 August 2010 Corresponding author: D.Singh ([email protected]). 192 Harish Kumar and Singh it may provide a better platform for the maximize the use of MODIS images.