Multitemporal SAR Image Description: Application to Image Compression

• Main Authors: Grégoire Mercier, Marie-catherine Mouchot, Guy Cazuguel
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.28.2832; http://perso-iti.enst-bretagne.fr/~mercierg/articles/igarss98/igarss98.ps.gz

This paper presents a new method for compressing temporal series of SAR images. Well suited to noisy images, the algorithm requires a reference scene used as an input in the description process. This description is achieved through affine transformations, comparable to the ones used in fractal coding but applied here in a non-convergent way. Blocks in the image to be compressed are defined by a non-overlapping recursive partition. They are replaced by blocks taken from the reference image on which affine transformations, containing isometries and grey level adjustments, have been applied. Furthermore, the algorithm can take into consideration regions of interest specifying the local compression quality requested. Comparisons with classical compression algorithm, such as JPEG, EPIC or fractals, showed that our method gives better results especially at high compression rates. This algorithm was applied to a set of RADARSAT images acquired over Antarctica. Those images were compressed at .