The Local Mutual Information invariance: Application to change detection between multispectral images

This paper proposes an experimental analysis of the Local Mutual Information (LMI) invariance in the context of unsupervised change detection between multi-spectral images. The conversion from Digital Numbers to Surface Reflectance does not affect theoretically the LMI based change map under the assumption of homogeneous atmospheric conditions. Experiments are conducted with QuickBird bi-temporal images to assess the robustness of the LMI to conversion to Surface Reflectance. Results show that the probability estimation, upon which the LMI depends on, is critical for maintaining invariant LMI based change detection values.