Multispectral and Panchromatic Data Fusion Assessment Without Reference

This paper introduces a novel approach for evaluating the quality of pansharpened multispectral (MS) imagery without resorting to reference originals. Hence, evaluations are feasible at the highest spatial resolution of the panchromatic (PAN) sensor. Wang and Bovik's image quality index (QI) provides a statistical similarity measurement between two monochrome images. The QI values between any couple of MS bands are calculated before and after fusion and used to define a measurement of spectral distortion. Analogously, QI values between each MS band and the PAN image are calculated before and after fusion to yield a measurement of spatial distortion. The rationale is that such QI values should be unchanged…

• CN
  Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales
• MD
  Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca