New Semi Automated Mapping of Asbestos Cement Roofs Using Rule Based Object Based Image Analysis and Taguchi Optimization Technique From WorldView 2

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International Journal of Remote Sensing
ISSN: 0143-1161 (Print) 1366-5901 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tres20
New semi-automated mapping of asbestos

cement roofs using rule-based object-based image
analysis and Taguchi optimization technique from
WorldView-2 images
Mohamed Barakat A. Gibril, Helmi Z. M. Shafri & Alireza Hamedianfar
To cite this article: Mohamed Barakat A. Gibril, Helmi Z. M. Shafri & Alireza Hamedianfar
(2017) New semi-automated mapping of asbestos cement roofs using rule-based object-based
image analysis and Taguchi optimization technique from WorldView-2 images, International
Journal of Remote Sensing, 38:2, 467-491, DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2016.1266109
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING, 2017
VOL. 38, NO. 2, 467491
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2016.1266109
New semi-automated mapping of asbestos cement roofs

using rule-based object-based image analysis and Taguchi
optimization technique from WorldView-2 images
Mohamed Barakat A. Gibrila, Helmi Z. M. Shafria and Alireza Hamedianfara,b,c
a
Department of Civil Engineering and Geospatial Information Science Research Centre (GISRC), Faculty of
Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia; bDepartment of Surveying Engineering,
Estahban Branch, Islamic Azad University, Estahban, Iran; cYoung Researchers and Elite Club, Estahban
Branch, Islamic Azad University, Estahban, Iran
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The use of asbestos cement (AC) roong materials is a signicant Received 9 May 2016
concern because of their deleterious eects on human health and Accepted 16 November 2016
the environment. The main objective of this study was to map AC
roofs from WorldView-2 (WV-2) images using object-based image
analysis (OBIA). A robust Taguchi optimization technique was used
to optimize segmentation parameters for WV-2 images in hetero-
geneous urban areas. In this research, two subsets of WV-2 satel-
lite image sets were utilized to map AC roofs. Rule-based OBIA
framework was developed on the rst study area. Dierent super-
vised OBIA classiers, such as Bayes, k-nearest neighbour (k-NN),
support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF), were
tested on the rst image of the study areas to evaluate the
performance of a rule-based classier. Results of the supervised
classiers showed confusion between AC roof class and some
urban features, with overall accuracies of 72.21%, 77%, 81.75%,
and 82.02% for Bayes, k-NN, SVM, and RF, respectively. To assess
the transferability of the proposed method, the adopted classica-
tion framework was applied to larger subsets of WV-2 of the
second study area. The results of the proposed approach showed
outstanding performance, with overall accuracies of 93.10% and
90.74% for the rst and second classied images, respectively. The
McNemar test emphasized the statistical reliability of rule-based
result (in the rst site) compared with supervised classication
results. Therefore, the proposed framework of using rule-based
classication and Taguchi optimization technique provide an e-
cient and expeditious approach to mapping and monitoring the
presence of AC roofs and help local authorities in their decision-
making strategies and policies.
1. Introduction
Asbestos cement (AC) materials are considered as cancer-causing materials that aect
both human health and environment. Corrugated AC roong sheets are among the
CONTACT Helmi Z. M. Shafri helmi@upm.edu.my Department of Civil Engineering and Geospatial Information
Science Research Centre (GISRC), Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
468 M. B. A. GIBRIL ET AL.
widely used asbestos materials in the urban environment because of their low cost, and
they exhibit extraordinary properties in heat, sound, and electrical insulation. These
materials are susceptible to complex degradation by natural weathering, such as that
caused by water, sun, ice, wind, and acid rain, which results in the disaggregation of AC
materials and the release of toxic airborne asbestos bres (Campopiano et al. 2009).
Exposure to and inhalation of airborne asbestos bres (less than 5 m) for an extended
period result in various diseases, including asbestosis (scarring of the part of the lung
where gas exchange occurs), lung cancer (a malignant tumour that obstructs the
passage of air to the lungs), and mesothelioma (cancer of the lung lining and abdominal
cavity) (Ross and Nolan 2003; Whitwell, Scott, and Grimshaw 1977). The use of deterio-
rated AC roofs aects not only the occupants of a building but also the residents within
the vicinity (Chan and Vivek 2002; Satri Zen et al. 2013).
Given the catastrophic eects of asbestos on human health and the environment,
over 50 countries have prohibited the use of this material. Malaysia is an example of a
country that has partially banned the use of this material in government buildings and
all buildings being built by the government such as schools, hospitals, and clinics;
however, no law or regulation prohibits the use of asbestos in private housing (Satri
Zen et al. 2013). In fact, asbestos materials are still available in public markets, particu-
larly in rural and suburban areas. Thus, the demand for accurate and up-to-date
information on AC roof distribution is high because such information is used to create
or update databases and to monitor and support decision-making strategies and
policies.
Remote sensing is extensively used to map and monitor urban features because it
enables rapid and cost-eective data acquisition with a repetitive look over large areas
(Ban, Jacob, and Gamba 2014; Bhaskaran, Paramananda, and Ramnarayan 2010;
Samsudin et al. 2015). Owing to the spectral similarities between AC roofs and other
urban materials that share a similar spectral response, hyperspectral remotely sensed
data are generally used to detect the presence of AC roong materials. A group of
hyperspectral remote sensing studies have mapped the presence of AC roong materials
using a multispectral infrared (IR) and visible imaging spectrometer (an airborne hyper-
spectral sensor) and a pixel-based classier of spectral angle mapper (SAM) (Cilia et al.
2015; Fiumi, Congedo, and Meoni 2014; Frassy et al. 2014; Szab et al. 2014; Fiumi et al.
2012; Bassani et al. 2007; Marino, Panigada, and Busetto 2001; Fiumi 2001; Frassy et al.
2012). Although airborne hyperspectral systems provide the best possible spatial and
spectral resolutions for extracting AC roong materials (Hamedianfar et al. 2014b;
Samsudin, Shafri, and Hamedianfar 2016), they can be costly with a limited coverage
compared with low-cost multispectral satellite systems.
Very high resolution (VHR) satellite data provide a ne spatial resolution that reveals
more complex and detailed data than high-resolution images. Given that urban areas
possess diverse surface features that may be made from the same materials, such as
cement pavements, sidewalks, parking lots, and rooftops, the spectral response of these
surfaces may be similar in VHR images (Myint et al. 2011). With a high spatial resolution,
intra-class variability among classes increases, thereby decreasing the accuracy of land use
land cover (LULC) classication. Thus, using traditional pixel-based classications to classify
VHR images is unsuitable because it results in confusion among classes and the salt-and-
pepper problem in classication results (Blaschke et al. 2000). As a result, object-based
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING 469
image analysis (OBIA) is extensively used to mitigate this issue, which emulates the notion
of humans interpreting images by describing image components that utilize spectral,
spatial, textual, contextual, and topographic characteristics (Lang 2008).
OBIA starts by dividing an image into non-overlapping homogeneous segments or
objects, which is called image segmentation. These objects can then be classied using
supervised classiers or by employing logical rule sets based on rationales or expert
knowledge systems. Various studies have used OBIA to map urban land covers from
dierent VHR satellite image sets (Taherzadeh and Shafri 2013; Hamedianfar and Shafri
2015; Aguilar, Saldaa, and Aguilar 2013; Myint et al. 2011; Zahidi et al. 2015). Image
segmentation is the most important step in OBIA, which inuences the quality of OBIA
classication. Using the trial-and-error method to identify the optimum combination of
segmentation parameters is subjective, laborious, and time-consuming (Hamedianfar
and Shafri 2016). A fractional factorial design, namely, robust Taguchi statistical method,
is used to optimize segmentation parameters and minimize the number of experiments
and overall testing time to produce landslide and ood inventory maps (Moosavi, Talebi,
and Shirmohammadi 2014; Pradhan et al. 2015; Pradhan, Tehrany, and Jebur 2016).
Despite the eectiveness of using VHR imagery and the eciency of OBIA in urban
applications, no attempt has yet been made to focus on mapping AC roofs, particularly
from VHR image sets using the OBIA technique. Therefore, the objectives of this study
were (1) to develop a semi-automated framework to mapping AC roofs from the
WorldView-2 (WV-2) image using rule-based classication and Taguchi-based optimiza-
tion technique; (2) to compare and assess the performance of applying dierent super-
vised OBIA classiers such as random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), Bayes,
and k-nearest neighbour (k-NN); and (3) and to investigate the transferability of the
proposed framework to accurately map AC occurrences.
2. Study area and dataset

The study areas are located on two subsets from Kajang and Bangi towns in the Hulu
Langat District (eastern part of Selangor State between Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya
districts in Malaysia; Figure 1(a)). The rst study area is approximately 3 km2 and is
located at 2 59 54 N, 101 45 54 E and 2 58 46 N, 101 46 54 E; the second study
area is approximately 7 km2 and is located at 2 58 6 N, 101 44 26.5 E and 2 56 15.5
N, 101 44 26.5 E (World Geodetic System 1984). Both study areas are characterized by
various urban land cover features and surface materials, including vegetation, bodies of
water, bare soil, road pavements, and diverse roong materials (e.g. AC, concrete, dark
concrete, and clay tiles).
The VHR WV-2 satellite image sets were acquired over the study areas in 2010, with
eight multispectral bands ranging from 0.40 to 1.05 m, 1.85 m multispectral spatial
resolution, and 0.5 m panchromatic resolution, covering 0.450.80 m. Table 1 shows
the characteristics of WV-2 imagery.
3. Methodology
The methodology of this study is depicted in Figure 2. The rst (training and developing
the rule sets) and second (testing the applicability of the proposed rulesets) study
Figure 1. (a) Locations of the study areas in Malaysia, (b) WV-2 imagery over the Kajang area in red
greenblue (RGB) bands used as the rst image to develop rule sets, (c) WV-2 imagery over the
Bangi area in RGB bands used to validate the rule sets.
Table 1. Characteristics of WV-2 imagery.

Spectral bands Wavelength (m) Spatial resolution (m)
Coastal blue 0.400.45 1.85
Blue 0.450.51 1.85
Green 0.510.58 1.85
Yellow 0.5850.625 1.85
Red 0.630.69 1.85
Red-edge 0.7050.745 1.85
NIR1 0.770.895 1.85
NIR2 0.861.04 1.85
Pan 0.450.80 0.5
images were preprocessed. Multiresolution segmentation (MRS) was optimized and

applied. Dierent OBIA supervised algorithms were compared. Rule sets for AC roof
detection were developed using the properties of the rst image. The transferability of
the proposed rule sets on the second study image and eventually eld verication and
accuracy assessments were investigated.
3.1. Field surveys

An extensive reconnaissance campaign was conducted during the preliminary stage of
analysis using global positioning system (GPS) receivers to determine the versatility of
roong materials in the study areas and the distribution of AC roofs (Figure 3). Visual
Figure 2. Methodology owchart.
Figure 3. AC corrugated roof.

information related to roof types and AC roong conditions was also obtained. After the
analysis, a second eld visit was conducted to validate the results of the developed OBIA
rule sets for both study areas using GPS.
3.2. Supervised classications

Supervised classiers rely on prior knowledge of various LULC classes in an image, which
can be known through eld surveys, eld or laboratory measurements, or from any
existing data (Marino, Panigada, and Busetto 2001). Some of the known information on
AC roofs and other land uses through the eld survey obtained by GPS receivers was
overlapped with the generated image objects and used to train classication algorithms
(teaching areas for the algorithms) to recognize and classify the rst image. Four
supervised OBIA classiers, namely, SVM, RF, Bayes, and k-NN, were tested to classify
the rst image into nine urban and land cover features, namely, AC roofs, clay roofs,
asphalt, bare soil, waterbodies, shadow, grass, trees, and other roofs. These classiers
were included to evaluate the result of rule-based OBIA. Figure 4 presents the spectral
heterogeneity and diversity of some urban and land cover features in the WV-2 image.
The next paragraph provides a short note on the aforementioned classiers.
SVM is a non-parametric statistical supervised machine-learning algorithm that
analyses data and recognizes patterns based on a decision plane that denes the
decision boundary that separates objects with dierent class memberships
Figure 4. Spectral heterogeneity of dierent land cover classes in WV-2 imagery.

Figure 5. Denition of proposed rule sets based on selected properties of WV-2 data.
SD: standard deviation.:
(eCognition Developer 2014). Radial basis function (RBF), the most popular kernel
type, was used in this study. The parameters of RBF, namely, penalty parameter (C)
and kernal function parameter (), were optimized by using L25 Taguchi orthogonal
array. RF is an ensemble machine-learning algorithm that works based on the bag-
ging method and classication and regression tree, in which each tree contributes
with a single vote to determine the most frequent class in a dataset (Breiman 2001).
Some bootstrap samples are rst selected from the training samples; the classier
output is then determined by a majority vote of the trees (Gislason, Benediktsson,
and Sveinsson 2004). k-NN is the simplest machine-learning algorithm that classies
image objects based on the closest training object in the feature space. The Bayes
classication algorithm is a probabilistic classier based on Bayes theorem that
assumes that the presence or absence of a certain feature of a class is unrelated to
the presence or absence of any other particular feature (eCognition Developer 2014).
This algorithm requires a small amount of training samples to estimate statistical
parameters, including the means and variances of variables.
3.3. OBIA
OBIA emulates the manner by which humans perceive and recognize real-world objects.
The analysis starts by segmenting an image into homogeneous regions or objects that
approximately represent real-world objects (Blaschke, Lang, and Hay 2008). This
approach is based on the rationale that the information in an image should be inter-
preted as meaningful objects instead of single pixels (Petropoulos, Vadrevu, and
Kalaitzidis 2013). Image objects are then classied based on spectral, spatial, textural,
and contextual data (Petropoulos, Vadrevu, and Kalaitzidis 2013).
3.3.1. Image segmentation

Image segmentation is the rst and most crucial step in OBIA, in which the results of
image classications highly depend on it. Image segmentation is the process of aggre-
gating spectrally similar and neighbouring image pixels into adjacent, homogeneous,
and non-intersecting objects (Baatz and Schpe 2000). In this study, MRS was applied,
which is the most widely used algorithm in the literature, and it is proven to be highly
eective in producing meaningful objects in several remote sensing applications
(Neubert, Herold, and Meinel 2008).
MRS is a region-growing algorithm that begins with a single-pixel image object as a
seed and then merges small neighbouring image objects in several subsequent pro-
cesses to produce large objects until the predened local threshold of homogeneity
criterion is satised (Benz et al. 2004). This algorithm is controlled by scale and homo-
geneity (shape and compactness) criteria. The scale parameter is the most crucial
parameter in segmenting remotely sensed images; a high-scale value generates large
image objects (undersegmentation), whereas a small-scale value produces small image
objects (oversegmentation) (Gibril et al. 2016; Hamedianfar and Shafri 2015). The homo-
geneity criterion is computed based on a combination of the colour and shape proper-
ties of the rst and resultant image objects of the intended merging (Deniens 2014). In
this study, the Taguchi optimization technique was used to obtain the best combination
of the aforementioned parameters.
3.3.2. Taguchi-based optimization technique

Determining the suitable values of the scale and homogeneity (shape and compactness)
segmentation parameters for heterogeneous urban areas to generate meaningful
objects is a complex and time-consuming process because the MRS algorithm is sensi-
tive to changes in homogeneity parameters and a large number of possible combina-
tions exist that can be examined. For instance, the possible combinations of scale, shape,
and compactness for ve levels require (35 = 243) choices for segmentations, which
need considerable time and eort. Thus, utilizing an optimization technique to deter-
mine the MRS optimum parameters can improve its performance and reduce the
processing time and eort. In this study, the robust statistical Taguchi method was
utilized to optimize MRS parameters and the parameters of SVM classier. The Taguchi
statistical technique employs a fractional factorial orthogonal array to study a large
number of parameters with a small number of experiments. Taguchi orthogonal array
distributes the parameters in a balanced approach, where the columns represent an
independent variable that is orthogonal to others, to ensure a fair comparison of all
variables in all levels, and evaluates each parameter independently (Aggarwal et al.
2008). The use of Taguchi orthogonal array reduces the number of experiments of
possible combinations to a limited number of runs and makes the design of experiment
very easy and consistent. In case of using L25 (35) orthogonal array of MRS parameters
for 5 levels, the number of experiments are minimized to 25 combinations for testing
(see Tables 2 and 3). In this study, the Taguchi method was used to optimize the
segmentation parameters for the WV-2 images in a complex heterogeneous urban area.
Table 2. Dened possible levels for MRS parameters.

Level Scale Shape Compactness
1 5 0.01 0.01
2 6 0.03 0.03
3 7 0.05 0.05
4 8 0.07 0.07
5 9 0.09 0.09
Table 3. L25 orthogonal array, POF, and S:N ratio for MRS parameters.
Number of L25 combination of MRS parameters First study area Second study area
experiments Level Scale Shape Compactness POF S:N POF S:N
1 5 0.01 0.01 1.214 1.682 1.987 5.962
2 5 0.03 0.03 0.460 6.743 1.264 2.035
3 5 0.05 0.05 0.765 2.330 1.057 0.485
4 5 0.07 0.07 1.011 0.095 1.087 0.723
5 5 0.09 0.09 1.589 4.022 1.410 2.987
6 6 0.01 0.03 0.991 0.080 1.827 5.235
7 6 0.03 0.05 1.262 2.023 1.157 1.263
8 6 0.05 0.07 0.882 1.093 1.084 0.699
9 6 0.07 0.09 0.901 0.905 1.234 1.829
10 6 0.09 0.01 0.913 0.791 0.841 1.500
11 7 0.01 0.05 1.101 0.836 1.044 0.373
12 7 0.03 0.07 0.404 7.879 0.977 0.203
13 7 0.05 0.09 0.766 2.319 0.553 5.139
14 7 0.07 0.01 0.891 1.005 0.394 8.098
15 7 0.09 0.03 0.281 11.025 0.841 1.501
16 8 0.01 0.07 0.649 3.750 0.852 1.387
17 8 0.03 0.09 0.697 3.141 1.185 1.476
18 8 0.05 0.01 0.539 5.363 0.639 3.891
19 8 0.07 0.03 0.518 5.713 0.695 3.157
20 8 0.09 0.05 0.550 5.188 0.743 2.584
21 9 0.01 0.09 1.163 1.311 1.167 1.344
22 9 0.03 0.01 0.345 9.253 0.743 2.585
23 9 0.05 0.03 0.718 2.875 0.730 2.738
24 9 0.07 0.05 0.074 22.563 0.735 2.671
25 9 0.09 0.07 0.290 10.749 0.354 9.025
The procedure of applying the Taguchi technique to optimize MRS parameters in this
study is explained in the following steps. First, the possible range of MRS parameters was
dened to extract urban features. MRS was tested to generate a suitable preliminary range
of values of the scale and homogeneity parameters. For instance, a preliminary test showed
that scale parameter >9 resulted in undersegmenting objects of roong materials because
AC roofs are in a small shape, whereas scale parameters <5 resulted in oversegmenting
image objects. Therefore, the optimum scale value might be between 9 and 5 (see Table 2).
Second, Taguchi orthogonal array was generated to specify the number of experiments,
which depends on the numbers of levels and parameters. In this study, ve levels were
dened for the three parameters of MRS; therefore, L25 orthogonal array was selected
(Table 3). Third, an experiment was conducted, and the segmentation performance was
evaluated. Finally, the optimal combination was selected for further processing.
To evaluate the segmentation parameter, the plateau objective function (POF), pro-
posed by Espindola et al. (2006), was measured for each experiment to assess the
segmentation quality for the 25 runs in the orthogonal array. POF is a combination of
the weighted variance and spatial autocorrelation to evaluate the intersegment homo-
geneity and heterogeneity of image objects.
Kappa coecient () was calculated for all possible combinations to optimize the
parameters of the SVM kernel. In the following step, signal-to-noise ratio (S:N) ratio was
employed to evaluate the results of every experiment. A high S:N ratio indicated a highly
optimal parameter. Thus, the S:N ratio with higher the better characteristic was selected
in this investigation, which could be calculated by the following formula:
X
1 1
S : N 10 log10 ; (1)
n yi2
where n is the number of repetitions under equivalent test conditions (i.e. n = 1 in this
study), and y symbolizes the POF values measured from each segmentation test and
for SVM parameters. The optimum combination of MRS and SVM parameters was
eventually selected from the graph and the table of the mean of S:N ratio (shown in a
later part of this paper).
3.4. Rule-based classication and rule set development to detect AC roong

Given that each object generated through image segmentation has dierent spectral,
spatial, and textural values, rule-based feature extraction seeks to classify image objects
by sets of logical rules dened based on the knowledge and reasoning of the analyst to
extract features of interest (Hamedianfar and Shafri 2014; Xu 2013). The development of
appropriate rule sets to discriminate AC roong materials from LULC classes requires
meticulous observation of several spectral indices, layer values, and geometrical and
textural attributes to identify the relationship between the image object values of AC
roofs and those of other spectrally similar materials.
Spectral indices are commonly used to extract LULC features and are formulated
based on the dierence in spectral reectance between two spectral bands of a
particular index (Wolf 2010). In this study, the potential of using dierent spectral indices
was investigated to reduce the spectral similarities between AC roofs and other imper-
vious surface materials. The normalized dierence vegetation index (NDVI) (Rouse et al.
1974) is eective in delineating vegetation and is extensively used to monitor and detect
vegetation and land cover changes (Singh et al. 2012). This index can be formulated
based on near-IR (reectance of band 7) and red (reectance of band 5) spectral bands
in WV-2 imagery as follows:
RNIR1 B7 RRedB5
NDVI : (2)
RNIR1 B7 RRedB5
NDVI provides values ranging from 1 to 1. Positive values indicate vegetation,

whereas negative values denote non-vegetated areas, water, impervious surfaces, and
others.
The ratio G index developed by Salehi et al. (2012) was successfully used to classify
buildings and roads from QuickBird imagery. This ratio describes the amount of the
green reectance band, which contributes to the total brightness of an image object.
Ratio G can be expressed from WV-2 reectance bands as follows:
RGreenB3
Ratio : (3)
RBlueB2 RGreenB3 RRedB5 RNIR1 B7
The best approach to classify WV-2 image objects is to use rule sets that generate
initial generic land cover classes. Multiple rules should then be developed to detect AC
roofs, minimize confusion with unwanted features, and provide accurate mapping of AC
roong materials. Figure 5 shows the created rules to identify AC roofs and LULC classes
based on the properties of WV-2 images and knowledge-based expert system.
3.5. Accuracy assessment

3.5.1. Standard confusion matrix
Accuracy assessment is a measure that provides a statistical output to verify the quality
of classication results. Error matrix is the most widely used method for assessing
accuracy; it provides appropriate accuracy measures to compare dierent classication
techniques (Foody 2002; Nichol and Wong 2008). An error matrix can be dened as a
cross-tabulation of the classes of the classied imagery and the reference data (Gupta
2003), which oers a form of site-specic assessment of the correspondence or correct-
ness degree of the classied image and the objects on the ground (Foody 2002). Overall,
accuracy, producers accuracy, users accuracy, and are generally computed from an
error matrix (Congalton and Green 1993). In this study, stratied random samples were
selected from the data obtained by GPS as reference data to check the reliability of the
classication results.
3.5.2. McNemar test

In this study, McNemar test was performed to evaluate if rule-based classier had the
same error rate compared with supervised OBIA algorithms and check whether the rule-
based result is signicant compared with OBIA supervised outputs. This test determines
whether the statistical dierences in the classication accuracies are quantitatively
signicant (Hamedianfar et al. 2014a). This statistical test is a non-parametric approach
based on the 2 statistics of a 2 2 matrix (Foody 2004). The McNemar test indicates the
statistical dierence by measuring a z-score under the null hypothesis that the classica-
tions are not similar. A z-score larger than 1.645 shows a 95% condence of quantitative
signicance (p-value of 0.05) for the one-tailed test of whether one classication output
is accurate than the other. The mathematical expression for this test is
fij fji
z p (4)
fij fji
where fij represents the number of ground-truth pixels correctly classied by classica-
tion i but erroneously classied by classication j. fji indicates the number of ground
truth pixels correctly classied in classication j but incorrectly classied in classication
i. These information were extracted from confusion matrices.
4. Results and discussion

4.1. Results of Taguchi optimization technique
The use of L25 Taguchi orthogonal array to optimize MRS parameters, namely, scale,
shape, and compactness, reduced the number of experiments from 243 combinations to
only 25 tests. Table 3 lists the available combinations that needed to be examined. Thus,
25 segmentation outcomes for the 25 combinations of MRS parameters for either of the
study areas were assessed by measuring their POF and S:N ratios, as shown in Table 3. As
depicted in Figure 6, the optimal combination of the MRS parameters for both of the
study areas is the highest S:N ratio. The optimum combination for MRS for the rst study
area was as follows: (i) scale of 6; (ii) shape parameter equal to 0.01; and (iii)
Figure 6. Main eects plot (data means) for S:N ratios for MRS parameters: (a) rst study area, and
(b) the second study area.
compactness parameter equal to 0.09. The best combination for the second study area
was 5, 0.01, and 0.09 for scale, shape, and compactness, respectively. The visual assess-
ment of the segmentations yielded by the Taguchi optimization technique conrmed
the reasonable accuracies in delineating urban features. The optimum combination for
SVM parameters was the value of 11 and 1 for C and , respectively, as shown in
Figure 7.
4.2. Results of OBIA supervised classication

The optimized segments of the rst study image were classied by employing dierent
OBIA supervised classiers to assess the performances of detecting AC roofs by SVM, RF,
Figure 7. Main eect plot (data means) for S:N ratios for SVM parameters.
k-NN, and Bayes. All supervised OBIA algorithms were conducted by selecting some
training samples to dene classes, including AC roofs, clay roofs, asphalt, shadow, bare
soil, waterbodies, grass, trees, and other roofs. Confusion matrices were generated to
assess the eciency of OBIA supervised classiers to map AC roofs. Table 4 displays the
results of four supervised classiers on the rst study area. The RF classier provided the
highest result (with an overall accuracy of 82.02%), followed by SVM (81.75%), k-NN
(77%), and Bayes (72.21%) (Figure 8).
4.3. Results of OBIA rule-based classication of rst image

As stated, the rst study area was used as a training image to develop rule sets for
identifying AC roong materials. Figure 9 presents the classication output of the
training image. The error matrix and its components, including overall accuracy, ,
producers accuracy, and users accuracy, are provided in Table 5. The classication
result of extracting AC roofs from WV-2 satellite imagery using the developed rule sets
was promising. The presence or absence of AC roofs was detected with an overall
accuracy of 93.10% and a of 0.92. Table 5 also shows the classication of the study
area, including AC roofs and other LULC classes.
4.4. Result of McNemar test

A McNemar test was performed to provide a detailed accuracy assessment of the
results for the rst study site. Table 6 shows the result of the McNemar test. This test
indicates the z-scores comparing the rule-based OBIA classication to classication
using supervised OBIA algorithms such as Bayes, k-NN, SVM, and RF. The z-scores of
the classication comparisons between the rule-based classier and supervised OBIA
classiers are much higher than 1.645 at 95% condence level. Therefore, rule-based
classication signicantly outperformed the other four supervised OBIA algorithms.
Rule-based OBIA was statistically more accurate than supervised OBIA algorithms
and provided a reliable result for the same classication task. This result conformed
to the nding of the previous study (Hamedianfar and Shafri 2014) when the rule-
based OBIA was compared with the supervised OBIA based on SVM algorithm.
Therefore, the developed OBIA rule sets were used in validation phase in second
image subset.
4.5. Results of OBIA rule-based classication of second image

To investigate the transferability of the developed rule sets to other study areas, the rule
sets with the same characteristics and thresholds were applied to the second study area,
which was slightly larger in terms of size than the rst image. Despite the simplicity of
the adopted rule sets, higher accuracy was achieved, and most of AC roofs in the second
study area were correctly identied with an overall accuracy of 90.74%, producers
accuracy of 98.61%, and users accuracy of 92.66% of AC class. Nevertheless, some
parts of several AC roofs were not identied well because of their dierence in colour
or their deterioration status. Figure 10 shows the classication output of the second
study area, and Table 7 shows the error matrix assessment.
480
Table 4. Accuracy assessments of supervised OBIA classiers.

Asbestos Clay Other roofs Asphalt Bare soil Trees Grass Shadow Waterbodies Total Producers accuracy Users accuracy
Bayes method
Overall accuracy = (26939/37307) = 72.21%; k = 0.67
Asbestos 3405 0 914 0 0 2 0 4 0 4325 75.92 78.73
Clay 0 1820 325 0 0 0 0 0 0 2145 59.77 84.85
Other roofs 800 1011 5013 500 12 306 0 0 230 7872 63.71 63.68
Asphalt 280 177 1607 8056 0 182 728 188 0 11,218 91.79 71.81
Bare soil 0 37 8 219 1594 0 0 0 0 1858 99.25 85.79
Trees 0 0 1 2 0 3192 2811 0 0 6006 86.13 53.15
M. B. A. GIBRIL ET AL.
Grass 0 0 0 0 0 0 223 0 0 223 5.93 100

Shadow 0 0 0 0 0 24 0 2806 0 2830 93.6 99.15
Water 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 830 830 78.3 100
Total 4485 3045 7868 8777 1606 3706 3762 2998 1060 37,307
k-NN classication
Overall accuracy = (28,726/37,307) = 77.00%; k = 0.732
Asbestos 3268 0 1924 569 0 251 0 4 0 6016 72.87 54.32
Clay 0 2431 61 0 0 61 0 0 0 2553 79.84 95.22
Other roofs 1217 242 4209 823 0 0 0 0 1 6492 53.5 64.83
Asphalt 0 0 709 7383 0 0 0 0 0 8092 84.12 91.24
Bare soil 0 372 497 0 1606 0 0 0 0 2475 100 64.89
Trees 0 0 4 2 0 3316 936 0 0 4258 89.48 77.88
Grass 0 0 0 0 0 62 2826 0 0 2888 75.12 97.85
Shadow 0 0 464 0 0 16 0 2628 0 3108 87.66 84.56
Water 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 366 1059 1425 99.91 74.32
Total 4485 3045 7868 8777 1606 3706 3762 2998 1060 37,307
SVM:
Asbestos 4485 37 2890 88 0 255 0 0 0 7755 100 57.83
Clay 0 2546 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2546 83.61 100
Other roofs 0 177 4169 1161 0 0 73 4 230 5814 52.99 71.71
Asphalt 0 0 51 7528 0 61 73 0 0 7713 85.77 97.6
Bare soil 0 285 754 0 1606 0 0 0 0 2645 100 60.72
Trees 0 0 4 0 0 2928 101 0 0 3033 79.01 96.54
Grass 0 0 0 0 0 462 3515 0 0 3977 93.43 88.38
Shadow 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2994 103 3097 99.87 96.67
Water 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 727 727 68.58 100
Total 4485 3045 7868 8777 1606 3706 3762 2998 1060 37,307
(Continued )
Table4. (Continued).
RF classication:
Asbestos 3606 0 1869 6 0 2 101 0 0 5584 80.4 64.58
Clay 0 2583 0 0 0 61 0 0 0 2644 84.83 97.69
Other roofs 879 0 4572 820 0 0 0 4 1 6276 58.11 72.85
Asphalt 0 0 669 7949 0 0 0 0 0 8618 90.57 92.24
Bare soil 0 285 754 0 1606 0 0 0 0 2645 100 60.72
Trees 0 0 4 2 0 3639 1069 0 0 4714 98.19 77.2
Grass 0 0 0 0 0 0 2592 0 0 2592 68.9 100
Shadow 0 177 0 0 0 4 0 2994 0 3175 99.87 94.3
Water 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1059 1059 99.91 100
Total 4485 3045 7868 8777 1606 3706 3762 2998 1060 37,307
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING
481
Figure 8. Mapping of AC roofs using: (a) Bayes, (b) k-NN, (c) SVM, and (d) RF classiers.
5. Discussion
Previous studies on detecting AC roong were conducted using airborne hyperspec-
tral data and pixel-based classication techniques, particularly the SAM classier
(Cilia et al. 2015; Fiumi, Congedo, and Meoni 2014; Frassy et al. 2014; Szab et al.
2014; Fiumi et al. 2012; Bassani et al. 2007; Marino, Panigada, and Busetto 2001;
Fiumi 2001; Frassy et al. 2012). However, previous studies showed that pixel-based
classiers are not ecient to extract intra-urban land cover classes, such as roong
types (Taherzadeh and Shafri 2013; Hamedianfar et al. 2014). In addition, given the
limitation in using low-cost satellite data and the cost of airborne hyperspectral data,
VHR satellite data could be a palpable solution to overcome this challenge. One of
the major constraints of mapping urban environment is that urban areas possess
diverse surface features that share the same spectral response, that is cement roads,
sidewalks, parking lots, rooftops, and AC roofs (Myint et al. 2011). With a VHR
Figure 9. AC roofs detected in the rst study area using rule-based classication.
resolution, which has a limited number of spectral bands, the intra-class variability
among classes increases, which may decrease the classication accuracy; thus, pre-
vious studies on detecting AC roong were mostly conducted using airborne hyper-
spectral data. Given the limitation in using low-cost hyperspectral satellite data to
identify AC roong materials, this study investigated the potential of using VHR
images to map the presence of AC roofs from WV-2 imagery using object-oriented
image analysis.
Considering that the accuracy of OBIA depends on segmentation quality, this study
used the robust Taguchi statistical technique to optimize MRS parameters in a complex
and heterogeneous urban area. The use of Taguchi technique to optimize MRS para-
meter reduced the number of experiments signicantly to a fewer number of experi-
ments to be tested by using the orthogonal array experimental design. Although the
study areas represent a complex and heterogeneous urban environment with roong
materials that vary in size and structure, the optimization of MRS using the robust
Taguchi technique resulted in a well delineation of the boundaries of roong materials
and other impervious surfaces.
Four OBIA supervised classiers, namely, k-NN, Bayes, SVM, and RF, were applied to
identify AC roofs. These supervised classiers were conducted by selecting a set of
objects as training samples for nine urban and land cover features to train the classiers.
The parameters of the SVM classier were optimized through the Taguchi optimization
method. Misclassication was observed within AC roofs, dark concrete roofs, and small
objects near the rooftops or asphalt that contained a mixture of shadow, small trees, and
asphalt in all supervised classiers. Classication errors between roong materials and
484
Table 5. Error matrix for rule-based classication of rst image.

Rule-based classication
Asbestos 4485 0 98 0 0 0 0 0 0 4583 100 97.86
Clay 0 2679 0 0 0 61 0 0 0 2740 87.98 97.77
Other roofs 0 366 6735 447 0 2 0 4 1 7555 85.6 89.15
Asphalt 0 0 851 8286 0 0 0 75 0 9212 94.41 89.95
Bare soil 0 0 179 0 1606 0 0 0 0 1785 100 89.97
Trees 0 0 5 2 0 3433 130 0 0 3570 92.63 96.16
Grass 0 0 0 0 0 210 3632 0 0 3842 96.54 94.53
Shadow 0 0 0 42 0 0 0 2919 103 3064 97.36 95.27
Water 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 956 956 90.19 100
Total 4485 3045 7868 8777 1606 3706 3762 2998 1060 37,307
Table 6. Result of McNemar test at 0.05 signicance level and

95% signicance interval.
Classication 1 Classication 2 z-Score Signicant?
Rule-based RF 3481 Yes
Rule-based SVM 4086 Yes
Rule-based k-NN 5808 Yes
Rule-based Bayes 7790 Yes
Figure 10. AC roofs detected in second area using rule-based classication.
asphalt were also stated in previous research when supervised OBIA was applied using
the SVM algorithm to classify WV-2 image (Hamedianfar and Shafri 2014).
Therefore, a set of rules was proposed for detecting AC roong using spectral indices,
layer values, and geometrical attributes, including NDVI, ratio G, the mean of the coastal
band, brightness values, and geometrical rectangular t criterion. Several factors were
considered to identify the optimum range of the thresholds of every rule to separate AC
roofs from spectrally similar materials based on the reasoning and the experts knowledge-
base system. These factors included the variance in colours among AC roofs caused by age
and the eects of sun, rain, wind, and roof structure (e.g. at or convex roofs). Accordingly,
the proposed rule sets exhibited excellent performance in detecting AC roofs from WV-2
imagery by recognizing all AC roofs in the rst study area with an overall accuracy of
93.10% and a of 0.92. To ensure the transferability of these rule sets, they were reapplied
to a second image, which was taken from a dierent district that was twice larger than the
486
Table 7. Rule-based classication accuracy for second image (Bangi area).

Rule-based classication (second image)
Asbestos Clay Other roofs Asphalt Bare Soil Trees Grass Shadow Water Bodies Total Producers accuracy Users accuracy
Asbestos 1844 0 0 146 0 0 0 0 0 1990 98.61 92.66
Clay 0 4265 0 0 221 0 0 0 0 4486 88.07 95.07
Other roofs 25 11 14,699 518 330 0 0 0 0 15,583 86.5 94.33
Asphalt 0 0 486 4469 0 0 0 0 0 4955 87.06 90.19
Bare soil 0 567 918 0 8545 0 0 0 0 10,030 93.92 85.19
Trees 0 0 0 0 2 7456 6 3 0 7467 89.89 99.85
Grass 0 0 798 0 0 839 4344 0 0 5981 99.86 72.63
Shadow 1 0 92 0 0 0 0 2343 470 2906 99.87 80.63
Water 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5259 5259 91.8 100
Total 1870 4843 16,993 5133 9098 8295 4350 2346 5729 58,657
rst study area. The developed rule sets were transferable and yielded an overall accuracy
of 92% and a of 0.89. These rule sets were transferable because of their versatility and the
broadness of the proposed threshold ranges that included the values of dierent AC roofs
in various colours and conditions. The advantage of these rule sets is that they can be
applied to detect AC roofs separately without classifying the rest of LULC classes and,
consequently, higher accuracy could be achieved if only two classes (AC and non-AC) were
considered. This study also involved a comprehensive eld survey in validating the relia-
bility of the result obtained from the proposed rule sets. GPS receivers were used along
with the outputs to stake out and validate some selected classied AC roofs as well as
assess the result with the statistical error matrix. The classication result of extracting AC
roofs from WV-2 satellite imagery using the proposed method was promising, which
proved the potential of employing WV-2 satellite data to map and quantify AC roofs
accurately through the proposed approach.
6. Conclusion
This study aimed to map the presence of AC roofs by using rule-based OBIA and Taguchi
optimization technique, as well as evaluating the performance of dierent supervised
OBIA classiers. The amalgamation of the robust Taguchi optimization technique and
rule-based and object-based approach was used for the rst time to map AC roofs from
WV-2 images. Segmentation, which is a key step in OBIA, was implemented by MRS in
eCognition Developer software (Munich, Germany). MRS parameters were optimized by
using Taguchi orthogonal array, which was found eective in searching for the optimum
combination in both of the study areas by implementing a limited number of
experiments.
Dierent supervised classiers, including Bayes, k-NN, SVM, and RF, were applied to
classify the rst image into nine urban and land cover features (AC roofs, clay roofs, asphalt,
bare soil, waterbodies, shadow, grass, trees, and other roofs). Although some classiers
provided fair results, misclassication between AC roofs and spectrally similar materials was
encountered. Consequently, the OBIA framework was proposed and applied to the rst
study area using rule-based classication and Taguchi optimization technique to discrimi-
nate between AC roofs and spectrally similar materials. The applicability of the adopted
approach was then tested in the second study area, followed by eld verication. The
McNemar test highlighted the statistical signicance of the designed rule sets and rule-
based classiers compared with supervised OBIA results in the test site. The classication
result of mapping AC roofs from WV-2 satellite imagery using the dened rule sets was
promising, which conrmed the potential of using WV-2 satellite data to map and quantify
AC roofs accurately. The presence or absence of AC roofs was detected in the rst and
second images, with overall accuracies of 93.10% and 90.74%, respectively. Field verica-
tion was nally conducted to ensure the reliability of the proposed method using GPS.
The advantage of using this method was that it allowed the semi-automated
processing of VHR imagery to generate accurate maps of AC roof occurrence. This
study introduced an eective tool that could help governments and authorities in
their decision-making strategies, policy-making, and developing plans to monitor
and eliminate AC roofs. Multidisciplinary research could also be performed by
integrating the data obtained from the proposed method with other data obtained
from dierent departments to enable health and environmental modelling and risk
assessment.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Ministry of Education Malaysia and the Universiti Putra Malaysia for
providing research grants through the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme and the Research
University Grant Scheme. The comments from anonymous reviewers, which have helped improve
the quality of this manuscript, are highly appreciated.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme [03-02-14-1529FR];
Research University Grant Scheme [Grant Number 9377200].
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New Semi Automated Mapping of Asbestos Cement Roofs Using Rule Based Object Based Image Analysis and Taguchi Optimization Technique From WorldView 2

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New Semi Automated Mapping of Asbestos Cement Roofs Using Rule Based Object Based Image Analysis and Taguchi Optimization Technique From WorldView 2

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New semi-automated mapping of asbestos

Article in International Journal of Remote Sensing January 2017

Mohamed Barakat Abdelfatah Helmi Shafri

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Wetlands: Monitoring and Modeling View project

ISSN: 0143-1161 (Print) 1366-5901 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tres20

New semi-automated mapping of asbestos

Mohamed Barakat A. Gibril, Helmi Z. M. Shafri & Alireza Hamedianfar

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2016.1266109

Published online: 11 Dec 2016.

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New semi-automated mapping of asbestos cement roofs

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

2. Study area and dataset

Table 1. Characteristics of WV-2 imagery.

images were preprocessed. Multiresolution segmentation (MRS) was optimized and

3.1. Field surveys

Figure 2. Methodology owchart.

Figure 3. AC corrugated roof.

3.2. Supervised classications

Figure 4. Spectral heterogeneity of dierent land cover classes in WV-2 imagery.

3.3.1. Image segmentation

3.3.2. Taguchi-based optimization technique

Table 2. Dened possible levels for MRS parameters.

3.4. Rule-based classication and rule set development to detect AC roong

NDVI provides values ranging from 1 to 1. Positive values indicate vegetation,

3.5. Accuracy assessment

3.5.2. McNemar test

4. Results and discussion

4.2. Results of OBIA supervised classication

4.3. Results of OBIA rule-based classication of rst image

4.4. Result of McNemar test

4.5. Results of OBIA rule-based classication of second image

Table 4. Accuracy assessments of supervised OBIA classiers.

Grass 0 0 0 0 0 0 223 0 0 223 5.93 100

Table 5. Error matrix for rule-based classication of rst image.

Table 6. Result of McNemar test at 0.05 signicance level and

Figure 10. AC roofs detected in second area using rule-based classication.

Table 7. Rule-based classication accuracy for second image (Bangi area).

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