An estimation of seasonal true color of vegetation cover for satellite image mosaic using color transfer cube (CTC)

The motive of this study is to provide a same true color tone for adjacent satellite images to be a seamless mosaic of continental scale. Selection of satellite images taken on the very same seasons is essential to avoid the mismatching of true color tone between adjacent scenes. In the case that no appropriate couple of images for this purpose is found, some appropriate methods to make same tones between two images should be applied. Several color shift of leaves in the mountainous area varies with the elevation, namely depends on the elevation. Applying the above principle for color transfer cube (CTC), a case study of color matching between two temporal images at Mt. Fuji area in an autumn season was made successfully. This technique was applied to make a large scale of satellite image mosaic of Japan and vicinity.