Abstract
In recent years, many automatic classification approaches have been employed. An automatic classification method can be effective, time-saving and can produce objective results due to the exclusion of operator intervention. This paper proposes a classification method based on automated training for high resolution multispectral images using ancillary data. Generally, it is problematic to automatically classify high resolution images using ancillary data, because of the scale difference between the high resolution image and the ancillary data. In order to overcome this problem, the proposed method utilizes the classification results of a Landsat image as a medium for automatic classification. For the classification of a Landsat image, a maximum likelihood classification is applied to the image, and the attributes of ancillary data are entered as the training data. In the case of a high resolution image, a K-means clustering algorithm, an unsupervised classification, was conducted and the result was compared to the classification results of the Landsat image. Subsequently, the training data of the high resolution image was automatically extracted using regular rules based on a RELATIONAL matrix that shows the relation between the two results. Finally, a high resolution image was classified and updated using the extracted training data. The proposed method was applied to QuickBird and SPOT-5 images of non-accessible areas. The result showed good performance in accuracy assessments. Therefore, we expect that the method can be effectively used to automatically construct thematic maps for non-accessible areas and update areas that do not have any attributes in geographic information system.
