Interpolation Of Data Gaps Of SLC-Off Landsat ETM+ Images Using Algorithm Based On The Differential Operators

Abstract

The scan-line corrector (SLC) of the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) sensor failed in May 2003, and this abnormal functioning of SLC resulted in about 22% of the pixels per scene without being scanned. By filling the un-scanned gap by a good technique will help in more use of ETM+ data for many scientific applications. While there have been a number of approaches developed to fill in the data gaps in ETM+ imagery, each method has shortcomings, especially they require SLC-on (images acquired before SLC-off anomaly) imagery for the same location to fill the gaps in SLC-off (images acquired after SLC anomaly) image. To overcome such shortcomings this study proposes an alternative interpolation method based on the partial derivative. This case study shows that this technique is very much useful to interpolate the missing pixel values in the SLC-off ETM+ data.