A new intensity-hue-saturation fusion approach to image fusion with a tradeoff parameter

A useful technique in various applications of remote sensing involves the fusion of panchromatic and multispectral satellite images. Recently, Tu et al. introduced a fast intensity-hue-saturation (IHS) fusion method. Aside from its fast computing capability for fusing images, this method can extend traditional three-order transformations to an arbitrary order. It can also quickly merge massive volumes of data by requiring only resampled multispectral data. However, fast IHS fusion also distorts color in the same way as fusion processes such as the IHS fusion technique. To overcome this problem, the minimization problem for a fast IHS method was considered and the method proposed by Gonza´lez-Audı´cana et al. is presented as a solution. However, the method is not efficient enough to quickly merge massive volumes of data from satellite images. The author therefore uses a tradeoff parameter in a new approach to image fusion based on fast IHS fusion. This approach enables fast, easy implementation. Furthermore, the tradeoff between the spatial and spectral resolution of the image to be fused can be easily controlled with the aid of the tradeoff parameter. Therefore, with an appropriate tradeoff parameter, the new approach provides a satisfactory result, both visually and quantitatively.