Simulating images of passive sensors with finite field of view by coupling 3-D radiative transfer model and sensor perspective projection.pdfVIP

Remote Sensing of Environment 162 (2015) 169–185 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Remote Sensing of Environment journal homepage: /locate/rse Simulating images of passive sensors with ?nite ?eld of view by coupling 3-D radiative transfer model and sensor perspective projection Tiangang Yin ?, Nicolas Lauret, Jean-Philippe Gastellu-Etchegorry Centre dEtudes Spatiales de la BIOsphere - CNES, CNRS, IRD, Universite de Toulouse, 18 avenue, Edouard Belin, bpi 2801, 31401 Toulouse cedex 9, France article info Article history: Received 28 July 2014 Received in revised form 17 February 2015 Accepted 20 February 2015 Available online 11 March 2015 Keywords: Radiative transfer Perspective projection DART Field of view Camera Cross-track scanner Airborne UAV Pushbroom imager Hot spot abstract Comparison of actual and simulated remotely sensed data is dif?cult if simulated data are not realistic in terms of both radiometry and geometry. This paper presents a modeling approach that considers the multi-directional acquisition within sensor ?eld of view (FOV) in order to simulate realistic images of Earth surfaces, as acquired by passive sensor with a ?nite FOV. In this approach, the DART (Discrete Anisotropic Radiative Transfer) 3-D radiative transfer model (RTM) is coupled with 3-D perspective projection. Current RTMs assume that all parts of the studied landscape are viewed along the same direction, although all passive imagers acquire energy in a FOV with a nonzero solid angle. In addition, they cannot account camera model and its image projection geometry (e.g., perspective projection for camera and parallel-perspective projection for cross-track imager). This situation is particularly problematic for airborne acquisition with low sensor altitude and wide FOV. Our new modeling approach solves this problem: rays that enter a sensor can come from various directions. For that, during ray tracking, each passive sensor acquisition is simulated for the exact view direction,