Translate SAR Data into Optical Image Using IHS and Wavelet Transform Integrated Fusion

Although synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors function well at all times and under all weather conditions, the images they produce are not intuitively straightforward. A novel idea based on data fusion is introduced to translate SAR data into optical image in this paper. The proposed SAR-optical image translation is implemented using an intensity-hue-saturation (IHS) and wavelet transform integrated fusion (IHSW), so as to preserve as much as spatial details from SAR data, and minimize the spectral distortion of translated output. COSMO-SkyMed and ENVISAT-ASAR images are translated into optical images with the fusion of Landsat TM images, and the fusion results are compared with some conventional fusion methods, as well as the texture synthesis approach. Quality assessment of different fused outputs is carried out by using six quality indices. Visual and statistical comparisons of the final results indicate that the proposed approach achieves an effective translation from SAR to optical image and is superior to texture synthesis-based algorithm in terms of preserving spatial and spectral information. The proposed translation technique presents an alternative to improve the interpretability of SAR images.