Enhanced Back-Projection as Postprocessing for Pansharpening

• Main Authors: Junmin Liu, Jing Ma, Rongrong Fei, Huirong Li, Jiangshe Zhang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-03-01
• Series: Remote Sensing
• Subjects: Pansharpening; back-projection; image fusion; postprocessing; modulation transfer function
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/11/6/712

<i>Pansharpening</i> is the process of integrating a high spatial resolution panchromatic image with a low spatial resolution multispectral image to obtain a multispectral image with high spatial and spectral resolution. Over the last decade, several algorithms have been developed for pansharpening. In this paper, a technique, called <i>enhanced back-projection</i> (EBP), is introduced and applied as postprocessing on the pansharpening. The proposed EBP first enhances the spatial details of the pansharpening results by <i>histogram matching</i> and <i>high-pass modulation</i>, followed by a <i>back-projection</i> process, which takes into account the <i>modulation transfer function</i> (MTF) of the satellite sensor such that the pansharpening results obey the <i>consistency</i> property. The EBP is validated on four datasets acquired by different satellites and several commonly used pansharpening methods. The pansharpening results achieve substantial improvements by this postprocessing technique, which is widely applicable and requires no modification of existing pansharpening methods.