Performance analysis of textural features for characterization and classification of SAR images

A new method has been presented to compare the performance of textural features for characterization and classification of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images. In contrast to the conventional comparative studies based on classification accuracy, this method emphasizes the sensitivity of texture measures for grey level transformation and multiplicative noise of different speckle levels. Texture features based on grey level run length, texture spectrum, power spectrum, fractal dimension and co-occurrence have been considered. A number of image samples of built-up, barren land, orchard and sand regions were considered for the study. The interpretation of the results is expected to provide useful information for the remote sensing community, which employs textural features for segmentation and classification of satellite images.