Development of a Multispectral Video System and its Application in Forestry

A 4-camera aerial multispectral video system was developed and evaluated in forest and land cover classification. The system is a low-cost alternative to aerial photographic and other electro-optical scanning systems. It is capable of imaging in narrow spectral bands in the visible and near IR. Both black-and-white band-sequential imagery and colour/false colour imagery are generated. In classification of land cover types, several classifiers and radiometric image processing procedures were evaluated to determine potential improvements in classification accuracy. Results showed that accurate classification of stand types and uniform cover types was possible if the data were processed to reduce noise, reduce spatial variations in image brightness due to optical and bi-directional reflectance effects, and add image texture information.