Advanced cloud cover assessment for panchromatic images

摘要

Cloud cover assessment system and method provides for automatically determining whether a target digital image acquired from remote sensing platforms is substantially cloud-free. The target image is acquired and compared to a corresponding known cloud-free image from a cloud-free database, using an optimized feature matching process. A feature matching statistic is computed between pixels in the target image and pixels in the cloud-free image and each value is converted to a feature matching probability. Features in the target image that match features in the cloud-free image exhibit a high value of feature matching probability, and are considered unlikely to be obscured by clouds, and may be designated for inclusion in the cloud-free database.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving a panchromatic image; comparing the panchromatic image to a second image from a database of images, the second image having cloud-free regions; matching a first feature from the panchromatic image to a second feature from the second image, wherein the second feature is located in one of the cloud-free regions of the second image; and identifying a cloudy region in the panchromatic image based on the matching of the first feature to the second feature.