A support vector domain method for change detection in multitemporal images

This paper formulates the problem of distinguishing changed from unchanged pixels in multitemporal remote sensing images as a minimum enclosing ball (MEB) problem with changed pixels as target class. The definition of the sphere-shaped decision boundary with minimal volume that embraces changed pixels is approached in the context of the support vector formalism adopting a support vector domain description (SVDD) one-class classifier. SVDD maps the data into a high dimensional feature space where the spherical support of the high dimensional distribution of changed pixels is computed. Unlike the standard SVDD, the proposed formulation of the SVDD uses both target and outlier samples for defi…

Discovering single classes in remote sensing images with active learning

When dealing with supervised target detection, the acquisition of labeled samples is one of the most critical phases: the samples must be yet representative of the class of interest, but must also be found among a vast majority of non-target examples. Moreover, the efficiency of the search is also an issue, since the samples labeled as background are not used by target detectors such as the support vector data description (SVDD). In this work we propose a competitive and effective approach to identify the most relevant training samples for one-class classification based on the use of an active learning strategy. The SVDD classifier is first trained with insufficient target examples. It is t…

Introduction to the Issue on Advances in Remote Sensing Image Processing

The papers in this special issue span a wide range of problems arising in modern remote sensing data analysis and provide a snapshot in the state-of-the-art of remote sensing image processing. More advances are expected in the near future, mainly due to the increasing user demands in terms of spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions of data, and of products generated from these data by automatic processing techniques.

Hyperspectral Image Classification with Kernels

The information contained in hyperspectral images allows the characterization, identification, and classification of land covers with improved accuracy and robustness. However, several critical problems should be considered in the classification of hyperspectral images, among which are (a) the high number of spectral channels, (b) the spatial variability of the spectral signature, (c) the high cost of true sample labeling, and (d) the quality of data. Recently, kernel methods have offered excellent results in this context. This chapter reviews the state-of-the-art hyperspectral image classifiers, presents two recently proposed kernel-based approaches, and systematically discusses the specif…

An Automatic System for the Analysis and Classification of Human Atrial Fibrillation Patterns from Intracardiac Electrograms

This paper presents an automatic system for the analysis and classification of atrial fibrillation (AF) patterns from bipolar intracardiac signals. The system is made up of: 1) a feature- extraction module that defines and extracts a set of measures potentially useful for characterizing AF types on the basis of their degree of organization; 2) a feature-selection module (based on the Jeffries-Matusita distance and a branch and bound search algorithm) identifying the best subset of features for discriminating different AF types; and 3) a support vector machine technique-based classification module that automatically discriminates the AF types according to the Wells' criteria. The automatic s…

Semi-Supervised Remote Sensing Image Classification based on Clustering and the Mean Map Kernel

This paper presents a semi-supervised classifier based on the combination of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for Gaussian mixture models (GMM) and the mean map kernel. The proposed method uses the most reliable samples in terms of maximum likelihood to compute a kernel function that accurately reflects the similarity between clusters in the kernel space. The proposed method improves classification accuracy in situations where the available labeled information does not properly describe the classes in the test image.

Mean Kernels for Semi-Supervised Remote Sensing Image Classification

A Support Vector Domain Description Approach to Supervised Classification of Remote Sensing Images

This paper addresses the problem of supervised classification of remote sensing images in the presence of incomplete (nonexhaustive) training sets. The problem is analyzed according to two different perspectives: 1) description and recognition of a specific land-cover class by using single-class classifiers and 2) solution of multiclass problems with single-class classification techniques. In this framework, we analyze different one-class classifiers and introduce in the remote sensing community the support vector domain description method (SVDD). The SVDD is a kernel-based method that exhibits intrinsic regularization ability and robustness versus low numbers of high-dimensional samples. T…

Recent Advances in Techniques for Hyperspectral Image Processing

International audience; Imaging spectroscopy, also known as hyperspectral imaging, has been transformed in less than thirty years from being a sparse research tool into a commodity product available to a broad user community. Currently, there is a need for standardized data processing techniques able to take into account the special properties of hyperspec- tral data. In this paper, we provide a seminal view on recent advances in techniques for hyperspectral image processing. Our main focus is on the design of techniques able to deal with the high-dimensional nature of the data, and to integrate the spa- tial and spectral information. Performance of the discussed techniques is evaluated in …

Semisupervised Kernel Feature Extraction for Remote Sensing Image Analysis

This paper presents a novel semisupervised kernel partial least squares (KPLS) algorithm for nonlinear feature extraction to tackle both land-cover classification and biophysical parameter retrieval problems. The proposed method finds projections of the original input data that align with the target variable (labels) and incorporates the wealth of unlabeled information to deal with low-sized or underrepresented data sets. The method relies on combining two kernel functions: the standard radial-basis-function kernel based on labeled information and a generative, i.e., probabilistic, kernel directly learned by clustering the data many times and at different scales across the data manifold. Th…

Semisupervised nonlinear feature extraction for image classification

Feature extraction is of paramount importance for an accurate classification of remote sensing images. Techniques based on data transformations are widely used in this context. However, linear feature extraction algorithms, such as the principal component analysis and partial least squares, can address this problem in a suboptimal way because the data relations are often nonlinear. Kernel methods may alleviate this problem only when the structure of the data manifold is properly captured. However, this is difficult to achieve when small-size training sets are available. In these cases, exploiting the information contained in unlabeled samples together with the available training data can si…