A new approach to quantifying abundances of materials in multispectral images

The authors tested a new technique for mapping abundances of materials using multispectral images which they call Foreground-Background Analysis (FBA). The method maximizes the contrast between sets of foreground and background spectra while simultaneously minimizing the variability within these sets. Spectral variability introduces errors in the fractions (abundance) of endmembers when simple mixture models (2-5 endmembers) are applied to complex natural surfaces. FBA was tested using CCD-camera measurements of known materials in the laboratory and included variations in illumination geometry. Lower abundance uncertainties were obtained using FBA than with simple mixture models