Pan-Sharpening

Pan-sharpening is an advanced remote sensing and image processing technology that integrates a high-resolution panchromatic (PAN) image with low-resolution multispectral (MS) images to obtain high-quality multispectral images. The technique combines the spatial characteristics of panchromatic data with the multispectral data for image improvement while keeping its color and spectral properties. Pan-sharpening finds applications in GIS, satellite imaging, remote sensing, land use and land cover mapping, urban planning, agriculture, environmental monitoring, disaster assessment, and geographic spatial analysis. The Pan-sharpening technology enables the users to discover small details of the displayed images, improve quality of interpretation, and conduct advanced spatial analysis. Among popular pan-sharpening techniques are Brovey Transform, Gram-Schmidt and PCA analysis as well as IHS method of fusion. Pan-sharpening is known to play a significant role in cases when both high spatial resolution of the data and multispectral information about the studied area are necessary for completion of mapping tasks.