Retrieval of remotely sensed imagery using spectral information content

The retrieval of images in professional remote sensing databases is based on world-oriented information like for example the location of the scene, the utilised scanner, and the date of acquisition. However, these descriptions are not meaningful for many users who have a limited knowledge about remote sensing but nevertheless have to work with satellite imagery. Therefore the retrieval of an appropriate scene is often almost impossible since adequate techniques are not provided by the database systems. This paper proposes the content-based retrieval for satellite imagery using the query-by-example approach. The main contribution is the reliable and scanner independent technique for the feature extraction and representation. The entire approach is unsupervised to stay abreast of the daily increasing huge data volume.