Small format optical sensors for measuring vegetation indices in remote sensing applications: A comparative approach

In this paper we report the comparative study of two types of digital cameras to be used for vegetation index measurement. Using either a dedicated multispectral JAI AD-80-GE camera or a custom dual Canon S3IS camera system, we obtained RGB and NIR images and processed them to obtain vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI and two-band EVI). Since no radiometric calibration is available for both systems, normalized reflectance images are not available and we have to determine relative gain factors for the various bands in order to get likely vegetation indices. Moreover, the two camera system requires image registration. Experimental results are provided.