SPATIAL AND SPECTRAL RESOLUTIONS

In general, the resolution is the minimum distance between two

objects that can be distinguished in the image.
 Objects closer than the resolution appear as a single object in the
image.
However, in remote sensing the term resolution is used to
represent the resolving power, which includes not only the
capability to identify the presence of two objects, but also their
properties.
In qualitative terms resolution is the amount of details that can be
observed in an image.
Thus an image that shows finer details is said to be of finer
resolution compared to the image that shows coarser details.
Four types of resolutions are defined for the remote sensing
systems.
 Spatial resolution
 Spectral resolution
Temporal resolution
 Radiometric resolution

Spatial resolution:
A digital image consists of an array of pixels. Each pixel contains
information about a small area on the land surface, which is
considered as a single object.
Spatial resolution is a measure of the area or size of the smallest
dimension on the Earth’s surface over which an independent
measurement can be made by the sensor.
It is expressed by the size of the pixel on the ground in meters
Fig. Examples of a coarse resolution and a fine resolution image
A measure of size of pixel is given by the Instantaneous
Field of View (IFOV).
The IFOV is the angular cone of visibility of the sensor, or
the area on the Earth’s surface that is seen at one particular
moment of time.
IFOV is dependent on the altitude of the sensor above the
ground level and the viewing angle of the sensor.
The size of the area viewed on the ground can be obtained
by multiplying the IFOV (in radians) by the distance from
the ground to the sensor.
This area on the ground is called the ground resolution or
ground resolution cell.
It is also referred as the spatial resolution of the remote
sensing system.
 A narrow viewing angle produces a smaller IFOV as shown in Fig.
It can be seen that viewing angle β being greater than the viewing
angle α, IFOVβ is greater than IFOVα.
IFOV also increases with altitude of the sensor as shown in Fig.
IFOVβ and IFOVα of the sensor at smaller altitude are less
compared to those of the higher altitude sensor.
FOV

IFOV
Fig. Schematic representation of feature identification at
different spatial resolutions
Fig. gives an example of how the identification of a feature (a
house in this case) varies with spatial resolution.
In the example, for the 30m resolution image, the signature
from the “house” dominates for the cell and hence the entire
cell is classified as “house”.
On the other hand, in the fine resolution images, the shape and
the spatial extent of the feature is better captured.
In the 5m resolution image, along the boundary of the feature,
some of the cells that are partially covered under the feature are
classified as “house” based on the dominance of the signals
from the feature.
In the very fine resolution image, the feature shape and the
spatial extent is more precisely identified.
Based on the spatial resolution, satellite systems can be classified
as follows.
 Low resolution systems (spatial resolution more than 1km ,
MODIS and AVHRR are some of the very low resolution sensors
used in the satellite remote sensing)
 Medium resolution systems(spatial resolution is 100m – 1km,
IRS WiFS (188m), band 6 i.e., thermal infrared band, of the
Landsat TM (120m),
 High resolution systems (spatial resolution approximately in
the range 5-100m are classified as high resolution systems.
Landsat ETM+ (30m), IRS LISS- III (23m MSS and 6m
Panchromatic) and AWiFS (56-70m), SPOT 5(2.5-5m
Panchromatic) are some of the high resolution sensors)
 Very high resolution systems (less than 5m spatial resolution.
GeoEye (0.45m for Panchromatic and 1.65m for MSS), IKONOS
(0.8-1m Panchromatic), and Quickbird (2.4-2.8 m) are examples
of very high resolution systems.)
Spectral resolution
Spectral resolution represents the spectral band width of
the filter and the sensitiveness of the detector.
 The spectral resolution may be defined as the ability of a
sensor to define fine wavelength intervals or the ability of a
sensor to resolve the energy received in a spectral
bandwidth to characterize different constituents of earth
surface.
The finer the spectral resolution, the narrower the
wavelength range for a particular channel or band.
Many remote sensing systems are multi-spectral, that record
energy over separate wavelength ranges at various spectral
resolutions.
For example IRS LISS-III uses 4 bands: 0.52-0.59 (green),
0.62-0.68 (red), 0.77-0.86 (near IR) and 1.55-1.70 (mid-IR).
Generally surface features can be better distinguished from multiple
narrow bands, than from a single wide band.
For example, in Fig. using the broad wavelength band 1, the features
A and B cannot be differentiated.
However, the spectral reflectance values of the two features are
different in the narrow bands 2 and 3. Thus, a multi-spectral image
involving bands 2 and 3 can be used to differentiate the features A
and B.
In remote sensing, different features are identified from the
image by comparing their responses over different distinct
spectral bands.
Broad classes, such as water and vegetation, can be easily
separated using very broad wavelength ranges like visible
and near-infrared.
However, for more specific classes viz., vegetation type,
rock classification etc, much finer wavelength ranges and
hence finer spectral resolution are required..
Radiometric resolution
Radiometric resolution of a sensor is a measure of how many grey
levels are measured between pure black (no reflectance) to pure
white.
In other words, radiometric resolution represents the sensitivity of
the sensor to the magnitude of the electromagnetic energy.
The finer the radiometric resolution of a sensor the more sensitive
it is to detecting small differences in reflected or emitted energy or
in other words the system can measure more number of grey levels.
Radiometric resolution is measured in bits.
Each bit records an exponent of power 2 (e.g. 1 bit = 21 = 2).
The maximum number of brightness levels available depends on
the number of bits used in representing the recorded energy.
 Radiometric Number of levels Example
resolution
1 bit 21 – 2 levels

7 bit 27 – 128 levels IRS 1A & 1B

8 bit 28 – 256 levels Landsat TM

11 bit 211 – 2048 levels NOAA-

AVHRR

Table . Radiometric resolution and the corresponding brightness

levels
Thus, if a sensor used 11 bits to record the data, there would be
211=2048 digital values available, ranging from 0 to 2047.
 However, if only 8 bits were used, then only 28=256 values
ranging from 0 to 255 would be available.
Thus, the radiometric resolution would be much less.
 Image data are generally displayed in a range of grey tones, with
black representing a digital number of 0 and white representing
the maximum value (for example, 255 in 8-bit data).
By comparing a 2-bit image with an 8-bit image, we can see that
there is a large difference in the level of detail discernible
depending on their radiometric resolutions.
In an 8 bit system, black is measured as 0 and white is measured
as 255. The variation between black to white is scaled into 256
classes ranging from 0 to 255.
 Similarly, 2048 levels are used in an 11 bit system
Finer the radiometric resolution, more the number of grey
levels that the system can record and hence more details
can be captured in the image.
As radiometric resolution increases, the degree of details
and precision available will also increase.
However, increased radiometric resolution may increase
the data storage requirements.
Fig. Comparison of a coarse resolution 2-bit image with a fine
resolution 8-bit image
In an image, the energy received is recoded and represented
using Digital Number (DN).
The DN in an image may vary from 0 to a maximum value,
depending up on the number of gray levels that the system
can identify i.e., the radiometric resolution.
Thus, in addition to the energy received, the DN for any pixel
varies with the radiometric resolution.
For the same amount of energy received, in a coarse
resolution image (that can record less number of energy level)
a lower value is assigned to the pixel compared to a fine
resolution image (that can record more number of energy
level).
Therefore when two images are to be compared, they must be
of same radiometric resolution
Temporal Resolution
Temporal resolution describes the number of times an object
is sampled or how often data are obtained for the same area
The absolute temporal resolution of a remote sensing system
to image the same area at the same viewing angle a second
time is equal to the repeat cycle of a satellite.
The repeat cycle of a near polar orbiting satellite is usually
several days, eg., for IRS-1C and Resourcesat-2 it is 24 days,
and for Landsat it is 18 days.
However due to the off-nadir viewing capabilities of the
sensors and the sidelap of the satellite swaths in the adjacent
orbits the actual revisit period is in general less than the
repeat cycle.
The actual temporal resolution of a sensor therefore depends
on a variety of factors, including the satellite/sensor
capabilities, the swath overlap, and latitude.
Because of some degree of overlap in the imaging swaths of
the adjacent orbits, more frequent imaging of some of the
areas is possible.
From the Figure it can be seen that the sidelap increases with
latitude.
Towards the polar region, satellite orbits come closer to each
other compared to the equatorial regions.
Therefore for the polar region the sidelap is more and more
frequent images are available for the polar region.
Fig. Sidelap in a typical near polar satellite orbit
In addition to the sidelap, more frequent imaging of any particular
area of interest is achieved in some of the satellites by pointing their
sensors to image the area of interest between different satellite
passes. This is referred as the off-nadir viewing capability.
For example: using pointable optics, sampling frequency as high as
once in 1-3 days are achieved for IKONOS, whereas the repeat cycle
of the satellite is 14 days.
Images of the same area of the Earth's surface at different periods of
time show the variation in the spectral characteristics of different
features or areas over time.
Such multi-temporal data is essential for the following studies.
• Land use/ land cove classification
• Temporal variation in land use / land cover
• Monitoring of a dynamic event like
– Cyclone
– Flood
– Volcano
– Earthquake
 Fig. Landsat TM images of the Mississipi River during non-
flood
period and during the great flood of 1993
Fig. False Color Composites (FCC) of the Krishna River Basin
generated from the MODIS data for different months in 2001.