Performance analysis of multi-spectral and panchromatic image fusion techniques based on two wavelet discrete approaches

During the past few years, many fusion algorithms have been proposed to combine a high-resolution panchromatic image with a low-resolution multi-spectral image to generate a high-resolution multi-spectral image. Among them, the wavelet-based algorithm has gained its popularity due to its ability of multi-resolution decomposition. More specifically, the wavelet transform is first applied to images. The wavelet coefficients are then combined based on a certain rule to produce the fused image. In this paper, we evaluated the performances of both the wavelet transform discrete approaches and the coefficient combination methods when they are applied to fuse multi-spectral and panchromatic images. For the discrete approaches of the wavelet transform, Mallat and “à trous” algorithms are chosen. For the coefficient combination, the additive wavelet method, the additive wavelet intensity method and the additive wavelet principal component method are selected. To evaluate the spectral quality of the fused images, correlation coefficient and Q_avg index are used as a local and global measure, respectively. Meanwhile, average gradient and standard deviation are used to evaluate the spatial quality. Our experiments show that keeping the combination method the same, the “à trous” algorithm works better than the Mallat algorithm for the fusion purpose. In addition, if keeping the wavelet discrete algorithm the same, the combination methods mentioned above are found to have different advantages between the spatial resolution improvement and the spectral quality preservation.