Band to Band Co-Registration of SWIR Images
Makoto Ono* a n d Tomoo Yamazaki*
a n d Kazuhiko Yoshida**
*Mitsubishi Electric Corp. 325 Kamimachiya Kamakura, Japan
**Earth Resources Satellite Data Analysis Center, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
This paper deals with a correlation method to
estimate amount of parallax of a short wave
infrared radiometer which has a multi-spectral linear
detector array assembly located on a focal plane.
With equally spaced pre-resampled image data by
FIT method, band to band corresponding point
was found as a peak of inner product of two image
vectors of which element are local pixel value. By
applying the approach on actual JERS-1 SWIR
(short wave infrared radiometer) images, amount of
parallax was evaluated with the accuracy of 0.136
pixels as standard deviation value.
Introduction
The detector arrays of CCD which are used
in SWIR to have been launched on JERS-1 is
parallelly allocated with small separation on a focal
plane to receive four band in 1.6 to 2.4 micrometer
wavelength. Due to the design, images obtained
from this sensor has relative geomemc distortion
between different band images caused by parallax
and relative sensor motion during the time interval
for passing over the same point on the ground.
This paper deals with the elimination of the
effect. The approach to eliminate the effect is first
find matching point between a pair of band within
the four bands by area correlation. Then estimate the
attitude of the sensor and parallax from the matched
point data. This paper is limited on the estimation of
point to point matching accuracy. Final process is to
resample the original image data with a newly
proposed FFT-NN method.
Parallax
The simplified model of the SWIR sensor is
presented as the part A in Fig. 1. Detector arrays
,each of which receives different spectral band
energy, are located on a plane. In this allocation,
relative position of a imaged points corresponding
to a ground point in a frame of the image does not
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coincide if the ground point has altitude from the sea
level. This mechanism is illustrated also in Fig. 1.
The amount of mutual image point shift
depends on both detector location and altitude of the
observed ground points. Fig. 2 shows the actual
detector allocation and calculated shift of image due
to the parallax effect of mountain altitude for the
case of JERS-1 SWIR.
Search of Corresponding points between
two images
Search of corresponding points between
two image bands are done by small area matching
through correlation calculation. In this approach,
key requirements are that the correlation is good and
the correlated results does not indicate false points.
To satisfy the requirements, we have
adopted correlation equation as inner product of two
image vectors of which elements are radiometric
value of pixels in the small area.
By using simulated SWIR images taken by an
airborne imager, band to band correlation
calculation were performed with satisfactory
resuldl).
Since the launch of JERS-I, we have tested
the approach for actual SWIR images taken by the
imager onboard. Fig. 3 is a part of band 6 image of
SWIR taken over Argentine.
Pre-resampling by F F T method a n d
calculation of matching point
When the attitude of the sensors and shift of
pixel due to the parallax is determined, it is strait
forward to resample images to perform band to band
registration, Though the method is simple, like
nearest neighbor resampling, bi-linear resampling or
bi-cubic resampling, they are some times not
preferred due to that it distort the radiometric value by
untolerable amount. To avoid these approach, we
have adopted FFT NN method. The processing flow
of FFT-NN method is ; first Fourier transform the
original N point data by FFT.Then put the spectral
 value of N point into a N*M point array. Here other
than the original N point should be zero filled. After
this the array is inversely Fourier transformed also by
FlT. The result is resampled data with 1/M sub pixel
spacing, of which every M th data is exactly equal to
the original data. By finding nearest point data from
these resampled data, we can eliminate distortion of
the image and perform band to band registration.
Fig. 4 shows the result of displacement
calculation. Displacement from reference point is glay
scaled to map the value for each pixel.
Evaluation of accuracy
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have proposed an
approach to eliminate parallax effect of SWIR
imager. This technique is applied to actual E R S - I
data processing. And also the technique is
applicable to the data to be taken by SWIR which
will be launched on EOS satellite in NASA's
project. It is very important that the approach
enables sensor design very simple because
possibility of multi band detector allocation on a
single focal plane reduces many component like
multiple cooler to single, or eliminate band
separation mirrors, and so on.

To evaluate absolute accuracy of point to Acknowledgement: part of the work was done
point matching, digital terrain model is required. under the contract on the JERS-1 ground signal
Unfortunately, we did not have such data for the processor development funded by the Ministry of
tested area. Instead, we have evaluated the error by International Trade and Industry.
using geometric allocation characteristics of the
SWIR. Since the arrays to cover each band of the
SWlR is separeted with equal spacing for adjacent Reference
arry, and since the attitude of the satellite is quite (1)M. Ono,T. Yamazaki and S. Masuda,'Band to
stable for the case of JERS-1, amout of relative pixel band registration of short wave infrared
shift due to parallax is proportional to mutual distance radiometer',Proc. The 18th Intnatl. Symposium on
of the arrays. With using this nature, error of the sSpace Technology and Science, 1992,Kagoshima.
estimation is evaluated as the displacement from an
predicted matching point which is calculated from one
pair of band multiplied by the ratio of array distances
for the band pairs.
Fig. 5 shows the resultant evaluation error
from the method. Standard deviation of the error is
0.136 pixels, which is root ware sum of two error
distance of which sources are pairs of spectral band
images.

Along Track
~ Direction

Band A Observes Foot of a Mountauin.

Band B Observes - . Band A Observes the Top of the Mountain.

A
the Top of the
Mountain
and the fool of it.

/ I - - Desired
Position
of Mapping
Athe Top of a
I
Mountai n Mountain

Fig.] Mechanism of Parallax.

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 Parallax(m)
.lox10 fin Band5

Fig. 2 Detector allocation and amount of parallax

due to ground altitude from sea level.

Fig. 3 Band 6 image of tested area(Argentine). B5B7 jnra11,2u B S B h paralla?~

Fig. 4 Estimated parallax of test area
(gray scale coded).

D76/2-D86
Number of
puds
7MaO
Best Fit Normal Distribution
Mmo

50000

4owo
30WO

X)WO
Error Distribution(256*5 12 size image)
10000

0
- * * * - *N -o *h -
’ ; ? ;
Displacemant(pixels)

Fig. 5 Error distribution of matching point

location.

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