Towards the Definition of a Flexible Hyperspectral Processing Chain: Preliminary Case Study Using High-Resolution Urban Data

In this paper, we describe a first approximation to the relevant issue of defining a part of the hyperspectral processing chain in a flexible manner. An ultimate goal of our study is to objectively quantify the impact of different (standard and new) processing stages on the generation of a realistic, user-oriented product in the context of an urban land cover mapping problem by means of hyperspectral data, selected in this work as an application case study for demonstration purposes. Although the proposed study is linked to a specific application domain, our experimental results reveal interesting considerations that may help image analysts in defining customized processing chains based on parameters which can be identified and objectively evaluated a priori, such as available sensor resolution or ancillary information. In addition, our study also demonstrates the importance of incorporating information related to both the spatial and the spectral domain in the different steps that comprise the hyperspectral processing chain; particularly when such chain can take advantage of the combined use of both sources of information as it is the case in the considered urban characterization application.