Introducing co-clustering for hyperspectral image analysis

This work introduces the use of co-clustering for hyperspectral image analysis. Co-clustering is able to simultaneously group samples (rows) and spectral bands (columns). This results in blocks, which do not only share spectral information (classical one way clustering) but also share sample information. Here, we propose using a co-clustering algorithm based on Information Theory — the optimal co-clustering is obtaining minimizing the loss of information between the original and the co-clustered images. A hyperspectral image (160000 samples and 40 bands) is used to illustrate this study. This image was clustered into 150 groups (50 groups of samples and 3 spectral groups). After that, blocks of the spectral groups was independently classified to assess the effectiveness of the co-clustering approach for hyperspectral band selection applications. Furthermore, the results were also compared with state-of-art methods based on morphological profiles, and the covariance matrix of the original hyperspectral image. Good results were achieved, showing the effectiveness of the Co-clustering approach for hyperspectral images in spatial-spectral classification and band selection applications.