Aspects of multi-scale analysis for managing spectral and temporal coverages of space-borne high-resolution images

In this work, a multi-resolution procedure based on a generalized Laplacian pyramid with rational scale factor is proposed to merge data of any resolution and represent them at any scale. The pyramidal data fusion approach is shown to be superior to a similar scheme based on the discrete wavelet transform, according to a set of parameters established in the literature. Not only fused images look sharper than their original versions, but also textured regions are enhanced without losing their spectral signatures. Landsat Thematic Mapper ans SPOT Panchromatic images are fused together. The resulting bands capture multi-spectral features at an increased spatial resolution, thereby expediting automatic analyses for contextual interpretation of the environment.