Information enhancement, metrics, and data fusion in spectral and polarimetric images of natural scenes

In order to understand the phenomenology of optimum data acquisition and analysis and to develop an understanding of capabilities, field measurements of multiband, polarimetric data can substantially assist in developing a methodology to collect and to exploit feature signatures. In 1999, Duggin showed that images obtained with an 8-bit camera used as a polarimeter could yield additional information to that contained in a radiometric (S0) image. It should be noted that Walraven and Curran had performed some very fine experiments almost two decades earlier, using photographic film, and North performed careful polarimetric measurements of the skydome using a four-lens polarimetric film camera and convex mirror in 1997. There have been a number of papers dealing with polarimetric field measurements since that time. Recently, commercial color cameras have become available that have 12-bit depth per channel. Here, we perform radiometric and chromatic calibrations and examine the possible use of a Nikon D200 10.2 mega pixel, 3 channel, 12-bit per channel camera fitted with a zoom lens as a potential field imaging polarimeter. We show that there are still difficulties in using off-the-shelf technology for field applications, but list some reasons why we need to address these challenges, in order to understand the phenomenology of data collection and analysis metrics for multiple data streams.