Shadow detection and removal in RGB VHR images for land use unsupervised classification

Nowadays, high resolution aerial images are widely available thanks to the diffusion of advanced technologies such as UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and new satellite missions. Although these developments offer new opportunities for accurate land use analysis and change detection, cloud and terrain shadows actually limit benefits and possibilities of modern sensors.Focusing on the problem of shadow detection and removal in VHR color images, the paper proposes new solutions and analyses how they can enhance common unsupervised classification procedures for identifying land use classes related to the CO2 absorption.To this aim, an improved fully automatic procedure has been developed for detecting image shadows using exclusively RGB color information, and avoiding user interaction. Results show a significant accuracy enhancement with respect to similar methods using RGB based indexes.Furthermore, novel solutions derived from Procrustes analysis have been applied to remove shadows and restore brightness in the images. In particular, two methods implementing the so called "anisotropic Procrustes" and the "not-centered oblique Procrustes" algorithms have been developed and compared with the linear correlation correction method based on the Cholesky decomposition.To assess how shadow removal can enhance unsupervised classifications, results obtained with classical methods such as k-means, maximum likelihood, and self-organizing maps, have been compared to each other and with a supervised clustering procedure. © 2016 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS).