Comparison of histogram and spatiograms for content based retrieval of remote sensing images

Abstract

The problem of content-based retrieval of remotely sensed images presents a major challenge not only because of the surprisingly increasing volume of images acquired from a wide range of sensors but also because of the complexity of images themselves. In this paper, a software system for content-based retrieval of remote sensing images, using spatiograms is introduced. In addition, we also compare our results with histogram based content retrieval. Finally we illustrate the effect and relation of quantization bins on the retrieval efficiency of histogram & spatiogram based content retrieval system. Bhattacharyya coefficient is obtained in order to make comparisons between histogram & spatiogram of two images. Experimental results show that the integration of spatial information in histogram improves the image analysis of remote sensing data and the proposed method is simple, accurate and costs much less time than the traditional ones. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.