The use of high-pass filters and the inpainting method to clouds removal and their impact on satellite images classification

Abstract

This paper proposes a new technique to smooth undesirable elements of the atmosphere, such as fogs, clouds and shadows, which damage and lead to loss of image data. In our approach, an efficient way to detect clouds and shadows is presented. The method applies constants related to such undesirable elements, as well as a High boost Filter in the homomorphic filtering for scattered clouds removal. We highlight the use of the Inpainting method, which replaces contaminated pixels using a nearest neighbor interpolation. Beside this, the proposed algorithm adopts a morphologic opening of the image that aims to suppress some isolated occurrences in the scene. The results are evaluated by Kappa coefficient and PSNR index, proving the good performance of the method. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.