Object-based classification of remote sensing data for change detection Objective: A change detection approach based on an object-based classification

of remote sensing data This paper shows why object-based classification is better then pixel based classification in change detection

pixel based classification

Problem in pixel based classification

In second step All objects are classified into the classes

fully verified partly verified not found by using thresholds that can be defined interactively by the user. thresholds is data-dependent

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The problem of using thresholds is that they are datadependent. For example, the percentage of vegetation pixels varies significantly between data that are captured in summer or in winter. Other influencing factors are light and weather conditions, soil type, or daytime.

Therefore, we cannot use the same thresholds for different datasets In order to avoid the problem of defining data-dependent thresholds, we introduce an object-based supervised classification approach.

Object-based classification

We will combine all pixels of each object and classify them together. Training area are derived from database For the classification of groups of pixels, we have to define new measures that can be very simple (e.g., the mean grey value of all pixels of an object in a specific channel) but also very complex, like measures that describe the form of an object. problematic part of matching is now replaced by a single comparison of the classification result with the GIS database without using any thresholds.

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Divide all object classes into the five land-use classes: water,forest, settlement, greenland, and roads. The land-use class roads is only used in the first step in the process for the pixel based classification. Because of the linear shape, roads consist of many mixed pixels in a resolution of 2 m and have to be checked with other techniques. In order to analyse the spectral behaviour of objects, we calculate the mean grey value of each channel for all GIS objects. The result of the pixel grouping is like a smoothing of the data

Before and After smoothing ,distribution of objects

Different land-use classes cannot be distinguished only by their spectral behaviour but also by their different textures.

texture

we use a texture operator based on a co-occurrence matrix that measures the contrast in a 5x5 pixel window.(GLCM) In the case of object-based image analysis, the standard deviation of reflectance values across all the pixels in the object provides a good measure of texture.

variance
The best discrimination between land-use classes using the variance can be seen in the blue band. In the NIR band, all land-use classes have a similar distribution, which makes discrimination in this band impossible.

Using Pixel based classification

we can use the result of a pixel-based classification and count the percentage of pixels that are classified to a specific land-use class. An visualisation of the feature space of the object-based classification can be made with the combination of three object-based evaluations of the pixel-based classification.