Automated Analysis of Multiresolution Satellite Images: Multiresolution Methods or Prior Data Fusion?

Several earth observation satellites acquire a panchromatic band with very high resolution and three or more spectral bands with lower resolution. Pan-sharpened versions of the spectral bands are in many cases available to the end users. In this study we assess the suitability of pan-sharpened images for automated analysis, as compared to resampled versions of the original spectral bands or the use of methods developed specifically for multiresolution data sets. We limit ourselves to supervised classification and concentrate on features at the highest resolution level. Tests on real and simulated satellite data indicate that pan-sharpened images are well suited for such analysis.