Adaptive region-based post-classification framework for land-cover mapping improvement using very high spatial resolution optical imagery

Land cover mapping using remote sensing optical images with a very high spatial resolution (VHSR) plays an important role in observing the Earth's surface. However, classification maps are usually affected by salt-And-pepper noise because VHSR optical images usually have a low resolution of ground targets in terms of spectral reflectance. An adaptive region-based post-classification framework (ARPF) is proposed for improving the initial classification map while using a VHSR optical image to further smooth the noise of initial classified maps. First, different from several traditional methods using a single classifier, our proposed ARPF needs more than four different initial classification maps acquired from different classifiers or image features. Second, an adaptive region around each pixel of the gray image is generated with two predefined parameters, and each adaptive region is applied to refine the corresponding pixel of each initial classified map. Finally, all the refined classified maps are merged to obtain the final classification map by coupling adaptive region and majority voting rules. In our experiments, three optical images with VHSR are used to evaluate the proposed ARPF. Compared with three typical relevant post-classification methods, the proposed ARPF can provide a classification map with less noise in visual performance and achieve higher quantitative accuracy while having an advantage in the constant detail of ground targets.