Color Coding of Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery

The purpose of our study was to investigate four types of coding strategies using the same Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. We digitized unclassified SAR imagery to include scenes from urban areas, seaports, oil refineries, industrial sites, an airfield, and power transmission lines. Two color and two black and white (BW) coding schemes were applied to the imagery. Five experienced radar interpreters were briefed and viewed 35 mm slides of the imagery. They judged image usefulness by reference to an interpretability scale. Analysis of the ratings showed that the BW codes received significantly higher interpretability ratings than the color codes.

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