Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371

Geostatistical classi®cation for remote sensing: an

introduction
P.M. Atkinson a,*, P. Lewis b
a
Department of Geography, University of Southamptom, High®eld, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
b
Department of Geography, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, UK
Received 15 August 1998; accepted 13 January 1999

Abstract

Traditional spectral classi®cation of remotely sensed images applied on a pixel-by-pixel basis ignores the
potentially useful spatial information between the values of proximate pixels. For some 30 years the spatial
information inherent in remotely sensed images has been employed, albeit by a limited number of researchers, to
enhance spectral classi®cation. This has been achieved primarily by ®ltering the original imagery to (i) derive texture
`wavebands' for subsequent use in classi®cation or (ii) smooth the imagery prior to (or after) classi®cation. Recently,
the variogram has been used to represent formally the spatial dependence in remotely sensed images and used in
texture classi®cation in place of simple variance ®lters. However, the variogram has also been employed in soil
survey as a smoothing function for unsupervised classi®cation. In this review paper, various methods of
incorporating spatial information into the classi®cation of remotely sensed images are considered. The focus of the
paper is on the variogram in classi®cation both as a measure of texture and as a guide to choice of smoothing
function. In the latter case, the paper focuses on the technique developed for soil survey and considers the
modi®cation that would be necessary for the remote sensing case. 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Variogram; Classi®cation; Geostatistics; Smoothing; Texture

1. Introduction niques described in the main body of this paper

This paper reviews geostatistical techniques for the
classi®cation of remotely sensed images. Geostatistics
is a set of techniques for the analysis of spatial data.
All geostatistical techniques are characterised by their
dependence on a model of the spatial covariance func-
tion or, more frequently, the variogram. Since the tech-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1703-594617; fax: +44-
1703-593295.
E-mail address: pma@soton.ac.uk (P.M. Atkinson).
depend on the variogram, it is introduced here brie¯y.
For continuous variables, such as re¯ectance in a
given waveband, the experimental semivariance is
de®ned as half the average squared di€erence between
values separated by a given lag h, where h is a vector
in both distance and direction. Thus, the experimental
variogram gn (h) (sometimes referred to as the semivar-
iogram, but more generally abbreviated to variogram)
may be obtained from a=1,2, . . . ,P(h) pairs of obser-
vations {zn (xa), zn (xa+h)} de®ned on a support n at
locations {x, x+h} separated by a ®xed lag h:

0098-3004/00/$ - see front matter 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 9 8 - 3 0 0 4 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 1 7 - X
362 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
1 X
p…h†
gn …h† ˆ zn …xa † ÿ ‰zn …xa ‡ h†Š2 : …
2P…h† aˆ1
Curran (1998) and Woodcock et al. (1988a,b) pro-
vide readable introductions to the variogram while
Dungan (1998) reviews geostatistical techniques for
estimation and simulation in a remote sensing context.
Geostatistical techniques that utilise spatial infor-
mation in classi®cation can be split into two distinct
groups. In the ®rst, spatial information is used to pro-
vide data on texture. It is implicit in such approaches
that texture varies spatially across the image, and par-
ticularly between the classes of interest, so that data
on texture can be used to inform classi®cation. In the
second group, spatial information is used to smooth
the classi®ed image. The rationale for smoothing is
that inaccuracies that arise from simple spectral classi-
®cation applied on a pixel-by-pixel basis can be
reduced using the spatial dependence between neigh-
bouring pixels. Proximate pixels are likely to be similar
(where the spatial resolution is ®ne relative to the scale
of variation) and this dependence can be formalised
(e.g., in a modelled variogram) and utilised to increase
classi®cation accuracy. The goal is to choose a smooth-
ing function based upon this variogram model.
The two approaches (texture and smoothing) to
using the variogram in multivariate classi®cation are
considered separately in the following sections. First,
the principles of supervised spectral classi®cation are
revisited to provide a foundation and context within
which to regard geostatistical approaches.
2. Supervised classi®cation revisited
In this paper, model-based multivariate supervised
(e.g., maximum likelihood) classi®cation is the primary
interest. However, it may be instructive to consider
brie¯y empirical approaches for univariate classi®-
cation, following Carr's (1996) example.
2.1. Empirical approaches
One of the simplest approaches to supervised classi®-
cation is the minimum-distance-to-mean classi®er, also
referred to as the k-means or (here) c-means classi®er.
This classi®er utilises the Euclidean distances in (spec-
tral) feature space between (i) the pixels to be classi®ed
and (ii) the class means (obtained from training data).
In the univariate case, a training site is selected which
belongs to a desired class and the values for all pixels
at the site are averaged to obtain the class mean. This
procedure is repeated for all other classes of interest.
Each pixel in the remainder of the image may then be
allocated to the class mean to which it is nearest in
univariate feature space. In a simple empirical
1†
approach presented by Carr (1996) this allocation is
executed through the prior construction of a simple
look-up table such that any pixel value will have as-
sociated with it the destination class without the need
to compare the distances to all class means. This pro-
cedure is readily extended to multivariate feature space
where the distances to class means may be obtained by
Euclidean geometry.
A second popular method of supervised classi®-
cation is maximum likelihood (ML) classi®cation
based on Bayes' Theorem. ML classi®cation proceeds
by selecting the largest posterior probability rather
than the minimum distance. In the univariate case, the
simple empirical method for ML classi®cation
described by Carr (1996) proceeds as for c-means
classi®cation except that for each training site the com-
plete distribution of values is retained and a histogram
computed in place of the mean. For 8-bit remotely
sensed imagery, each histogram (per class) has 256
bins. The number of occurrences in each bin relative to
the total number of occurrences determines the con-
ditional probability distribution (conditional because it
is per class). Once the conditional probability distri-
butions are computed, the simpli®ed equation for
determining class membership probability, as derived
from Bayes' Theorem, is:
p…z j c†
p…c j z† ˆ …2†
X
t
p…z j r†
rˆ1
where p(cvz ) is the conditional probability of having
class c given pixel value z, p(zvc ) is the conditional
probability that pixel value z belongs to class c and
there are r = 1, . . . ,t classes. A pixel is then allocated
to the class with which it has the highest posterior
probability of membership. This empirical approach
depends on there being sucient training data to
characterise fully the probability distributions for each
class. In practice, it is more common to replace the
probability distribution with a probability density
function with parameters (mean, variance and covari-
ance between wavebands) estimated from the training
data. The model-based approach is described in the
next section.
2.2. Model-based approaches
In remote sensing the observation vectors are
commonly treated as random variables characterised
by a multivariate Gaussian distribution. A multivari-
ate mean is determined for each class and the
Euclidean distance metric used in c-means classi®-
cation is replaced by the Mahalanobis distance, a
 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371 363

standardized statistical distance from which the a
posteriori probability of class membership can be
obtained using Bayes' Theorem. The maximum like-
lihood classi®cation is achieved by allocating each
pixel to the class with which it has the highest a
posteriori probability of membership.
It is useful to view multivariate, and in particular
ML, classi®cation as a series of stages from the initial
remotely sensed image to the classi®ed image, each of
which contains potentially useful spatial information
for classi®cation purposes (see Fig. 1). For example,
start with the remotely sensed image of K wavebands.
The information in the image can be viewed in (spec-
tral) feature space (each waveband providing a dimen-
sion or axis) instead of geographical space. In this
feature space it is possible to compute Euclidean dis-
tances from each pixel to each of the class means
(obtained from training data) using simple geometry.
This could provide an image of t distances to each
class mean. Since the distributions of the training data
are likely to form ellipsoids in feature space the Eucli-
dean metric is often replaced with the Mahalanobis
distance Mci which takes into account the variance±co-
variance matrix Vc associated with a given class c:
Mci ˆ …zk …xi † ÿ ukc †T Vÿ1
c …zk …xi † ÿ ukc †Š …3†
where zk (xi) is the vector of {k = 1, . . . ,K } waveband
values at pixel locations xi and ukc is the vector of
means in K wavebands for class c. In Fig. 1, the var-
iance±covariance matrices per class are represented
graphically by probability contours. It is clear that
whereas the pixel to be classi®ed is closer to the Veg-
etation class mean, it is more likely to be classi®ed as
Tarmac2 when the variance±covariance matrix is

Fig. 1. Stages in maximum likelihood classi®cation: (1) original imagery, (2) Mahalanobis distances, (3) probabilities derived from
probability density function (pdf), (4) a posteriori probabilities derived from Bayes theorem and (5) ®nal classi®ed image.
364 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
taken into account. This provides a second image of t
Mahalanobis distances (Fig. 1). From the Mahalanobis
distances it is possible to determine an estimated
(Gaussian) probability density function for each class
of interest. This can be expressed as in Eq. (4):
1 example, the variance within a local moving window
p…z…xi † j c† ˆ K=2
exp‰ÿ1=2Mci Š …
…2p† j Vc j1=2
where p(z(xi)vc ) is the probability density for pixel z(xi)
at location xi as a member of class c (Foody et al.,
1992; Thomas et al., 1987). This provides a third
image, this time of t probabilities one for each class.
To use the above probabilities in maximum likeli-
hood classi®cation (and particularly in the presence of
non-equal a priori probabilities) these must be con-
verted to a posteriori probabilities using Bayes' Theo-
rem. The a posteriori probability of a pixel z(xi)
belonging to class c, L(cvz(xi)), may be obtained from
Bayes' Theorem as before using Eq. (2) which may
now be written more fully to include the a priori prob-
abilities (Eq. (5)):
Pc
p…z…xi † j c†
L…c j z…xi †† ˆ …
X
t
Pr
p…z…xi † j r†
rˆ1
where Pc is the a priori probability of membership of
class c. This creates a fourth image of t a posteriori
probabilities (Fig. 1). The maximum likelihood classi®-
cation is achieved by allocating pixels to their most
likely class of membership. This results in a ®nal ®fth
image of {c = 1, . . . ,t } classes.
It is notable that fuzzy approaches to classi®cation
are equivalent to omitting the ®nal step, presenting the
investigator with the posterior probabilities of member-
ship (or alternatively fuzzy memberships) to each class
for each pixel. Fuzzy classi®cation has become increas-
ingly popular in remote sensing in recent years as more
remote sensing researchers realise the ubiquity of the
solution o€ered (see, for example, Foody, 2000; Smith
et al., 2000). However, the accuracy and utility of
fuzzy classi®cation can also be increased using spatial
information: geostatistical approaches are not
restricted to hard classi®cation.
Each of the ®ve di€erent images described above
contains useful information for classi®cation purposes
and we shall return to this point later in the discussion
of this paper. We now turn our attention to the ®rst of
the two approaches for incorporating spatial infor-
mation into the classi®cation procedure, referred to as
texture classi®cation.
3. Texture classi®cation
There are many possible approaches to texture
classi®cation (see, for example, Chen et al., 1997a;
Haralick et al., 1973). These generally involve the com-
putation of further image layers or `wavebands' of tex-
ture information using an image ®lter. Thus, for
4†
could be computed and used as an additional image
layer to increase the accuracy of multivariate classi®-
cation (see Haack and Bechdol, 2000). A range of
techniques (e.g., neural networks) can then be used to
perform the classi®cation (Chen et al., 1997b; Raghu
et al., 1995).
Recently, research has focused on the variogram
computed within a local window as a measure of tex-
ture. Carr and Miranda (1998) compare this measure
with more `traditional' co-occurrence-based measures.
They found that the texture measure that achieved
greatest accuracy depended upon the nature of the
data and texture. Variogram approaches provide the
focus of this section. In general, two approaches for
texture classi®cation which utilise the variogram may
be distinguished. In the ®rst, the actual values of the
sample variogram at discrete lags are used directly. In
the second, the variogram is modelled and the model
5† coecients are used. These two approaches are
reviewed brie¯y in this section.
3.1. The sample variogram in texture classi®cation
The use of actual semivariance estimates in texture
classi®cation was made popular in the ®eld of remote
sensing by Miranda et al. (1992, 1996, 1998), Miranda
and Carr (1994) and Carr (1996). In all of these papers
variations on the same algorithm were implemented,
referred to generally as the semivariogram textural
classi®er (STC). The basis of the approach is described
below.
A window of ®xed size is de®ned and is used to
extract representative l by m areas for each class for
use in training the classi®er. Miranda and Carr (1994)
used a window of 22  22 pixels. Within each window
a kernel of r by s pixels is de®ned and is moved over
the window allowing semivariances for lags of up to r
ÿ 1 or s ÿ 1 (whichever is the larger) to be estimated
per window. Miranda and Carr found that, for their
particular study, a kernel of 7  7 pixels allowed su-
ciently accurate estimation of the semivariance while
keeping the risk of the kernel straddling a class bound-
ary small. The mean semivariance (and the standard
deviation of semivariance) per lag computed within the
7  7 pixel kernel over the entire image provided the
information on which class allocation was based. This
information was provided as (r ÿ 1, s ÿ 1)max `wave-
 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
bands' (features), one for each lag. To these features,
the original image wavebands could be added allowing
a combined spectral and textural classi®cation.
Several di€erent methods of supervised classi®cation
could be used to allocate pixels on the basis of the tex-
ture information provided by the semivariances at
di€erent lags. Miranda and Carr (1994) used a paralle-
lepiped classi®er because it was simple and computa-
tionally ecient. They used the standard deviation to
de®ne decision boundaries for each class. Where
boundaries overlapped a c-means classi®er was induced
as described earlier. The approach was extended to
maximum likelihood classi®cation in Carr (1996). Also,
Miranda and Carr (1994) and Carr (1996) chose to
adopt the simple empirical look-up table classi®er
described earlier in this paper. The approach could
readily be extended to the parametric equivalent,
which is also described above.
Carr (1996) summarises the earlier work involving
the STC and provides Fortran 77 code (two programs,
MXTEXT for univariate classi®cation and MXMULT
for multivariate classi®cation) to execute several vari-
ations of the STC classi®er including empirical c-
means and ML classi®cation. Lark (1996) applied this
approach to aerial photographs, while Chica-Olmo
and Abarca-HeÂrnandez (2000) provide an example in
this issue.
3.2. Variogram model coecients in texture
classi®cation
The second approach to using the variogram in tex-
ture classi®cation involves assuming some kind of
form or model for the sample variogram and obtaining
the coecients of the model for use as features in
classi®cation in place of the semivariances themselves.
Ramstein and Ra€y (1989) were the ®rst to automate
such an approach in a remote sensing context, while
Herzfeld and Higginson (1996) have automated a simi-
lar approach for the classi®cation of elevation on the
mid-Atlantic sea¯oor. The general approach is
described brie¯y below.
Ramstein and Ra€y (1989) selected a kernel of size
11  11 pixels for their particular study and used it to
estimate a non-linear parameter a ' (equal to approxi-
mately one third of the e€ective range) for every pixel.
They suggested that least squares model ®tting for
every pixel would be possible, although prohibitive in
terms of computer time. Instead they proposed an ap-
proximation of a ' based on the exponential form of
model given by Eq. (6):
g…h† ˆ c0 ‡ c1 ‰1 ÿ exp…ÿh=a 0 †Š
g…0† ˆ 0 …6†
365
where h is the lag distance and c0 is the nugget var-
iance, c1 is the structured variance and a' is the non-
linear parameter: the parameters of the exponential
model. Given the theoretical value of the covariance C
(equal to c0+c1) where the variation is second-order
stationary (Eq. (7)):
1h i
C ˆ lim g…h† ˆ lim mean…z…xi ‡ h† ÿ …z…xi ††2
h41 h412 x2V
ˆ mean z2 …xi † …7†
x2V
From Eqs. (6) and (7) one obtains Eq. (8):
" #
1 ÿ g…h†
a 0 ˆ ÿh= log : …8†
mean z2 …xi †
x2w
Ramstein and Ra€y used the approximation given by
Eq. (8) to estimate a ' for each pixel in a Landsat The-
matic Mapper channel 3 image of the urban area of
Strasbourg, France. The resulting univariate feature
(one waveband representing a ') was then used as a
single discriminating variable in a classi®cation pro-
cedure. Ramstein and Ra€y found that the non-linear
coecient provided much better discrimination
between land cover classes than other linear coecients
such as C. The utility of this approach depends on the
appropriateness of the exponential model for all pixel-
centred kernel locations. However, Ramstein and
Ra€y found that it produced visually appealing results
when used to classify land cover in the urban area of
Strasbourg. Ramstein and Ra€y's research suggests
that approaches based solely on semivariance values
may miss vital information: approaches based on the
range should not be overlooked.
Herzfeld (1993) adopted the modelling approach to
texture classi®cation and developed it speci®cally for
sea¯oor classi®cation. This amounted to de®ning, in
the ®rst instance, several di€erent target sea¯oor
classes such as `sediment pond', `inside corner moun-
tains' and `abyssal hill terrain'. The sample variograms
obtained for these training areas representing each
class were then examined for di€erences between
classes. The analysis involved both the calculation of
anisotropic variograms and residual variograms (from
a trend m (h)), also referred to as the centred or
detrended variogram. A similar kind of analysis was
performed by Wallace et al. (2000) to discriminate
between vegetation communities in the Mojave desert.
It appeared from Herzfeld (1993) that sucient
di€erences existed between the variograms of di€erent
classes to merit automated classi®cation. Herzfeld and
Higginson (1996) automated a classi®cation procedure
based on several estimated variogram coecients
which were designed speci®cally to exploit the di€er-
ences most relevant to sea¯oor classi®cation and, in
366 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
particular, several coecients which exploited class
speci®c periodicity in the variogram. Herzfeld and Hig-
ginson combined linear and non-linear coecients to
form a feature vector for each pixel upon which classi-
®cation was based.
The uses of variogram model coecients noted
above all relate the texture measure empirically to class
properties to provide a classi®cation. It is worth noting
that such measures have also been related both empiri-
cally, and using physically-based scene models, to con-
tinuous variables such as tree size and density in
forested areas. St-Onge and Cavayas (1995), for
example, related forest structural parameters empiri-
cally to directional variogram properties. Jupp (1997)
describes a physically-based model for variance and
variograms as a function of viewing and illumination
angles based on geometric optics. Any such mapping
from variogram characteristics to continuous variables
could be applied to classi®cation. There are two par-
ticular points of note in such work: (i) directional
(rather than omnidirectional) variograms are typically
used and (ii) physically-based models can describe how
the variogram changes as the viewing and illumination
angles change.
3.3. Problems with variogram-based texture
classi®cation
The main problem with using the variogram as a
measure of texture is that the homogeneous regions of
di€erent texture within the image must be suciently
large to allow computation of the variogram up to a
reasonable number of lags. In many cases, the parcels
of interest in the image are too small relative to the
spatial resolution of the imagery. Berberoglu et al.
(2000) address this issue by computing texture within
parcels de®ned a priori using vector data.
The main problem with variogram model-based
approaches to texture classi®cation is that automatic
®tting of (non-linear) models to variograms is unreli-
able. Thus, the choice of variogram model may be
inappropriate for certain regions of the image or for
certain classes and the coecients of the model ®tted
to the local variogram may be misleading.
4. Smoothing the classi®cation
In the preceding section the variogram was used to
provide information on texture for use in classi®cation.
This is di€erent to the common use of the variogram
in geostatistics, that is, as a spatial weighting function
in kriging (Matheron, 1965, 1971). In kriging, the
objective is to smooth or average local values based on
the variogram (or other structure function) to estimate
optimally an unknown value. In kriging, the variogram
is used to determine optimal weights li to apply to n
sample data {z(xi), i = 1,2,3, . . . ,n ) to form a
weighted linear combination z(x0) which estimates
some unknown value z(x0), thus:
X
n
z …x0 † ˆ li z…xi †: …9†
iˆ1
The advantage and main attraction of kriging is that it
estimates optimally by referring to the variogram
(model) estimated from the data themselves. It would
be attractive also if this advantage could be transferred
to multivariate classi®cation. Two sets of authors have
used the variogram in the kriging sense as a spatial
weighting function in unsupervised, multivariate classi-
®cation (Bourgaullt et al., 1992; Oliver and Webster,
1989). While supervised classi®cation is the primary
goal, these two papers are reviewed brie¯y before con-
sidering the potential problems of applying the
approach to supervised classi®cation in remote sensing.
4.1. Oliver and Webster's original idea
Some 10 years ago Oliver and Webster (1989) pro-
posed and demonstrated a geostatistical basis for the
spatial weighting of multivariate classi®cation for ap-
plication in soil survey. Their approach was particu-
larly suited to sample data provided as a regular lattice
or complete cover in the form of a raster array. It
would seem, therefore, that their approach might also
be suitable for classi®cation in remote sensing.
Oliver and Webster's (1989) proposal built on the
work of others, notably Webster and Burrough (1972)
who ®rst introduced the idea of modifying the dissimi-
larity matrix by a non-linear function of separating
distance in geographical space. However, whereas
Webster and Burrough chose non-linear functions
(inverse distance square and exponential) arbitrarily,
Oliver and Webster's proposal was to use a function
obtained from the data themselves. The method is
described brie¯y as follows.
The similarity matrix may be constructed for all
pairs of observations i and j (pixels) on which K prop-
erties (wavebands) have been measured using a simi-
larity coecient such as Gower's (1971) coecient
(Eq. (10)):
X
K
…1ÿ j zik ÿ zjk j =rk †wijk
kˆ1
Sij ˆ …10†
X
K
Wijk
kˆ1
where sij is a measure of the similarity between pixels i
and j, zik is the pixel value at i for class k, rk is a class-
 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
speci®c constant and wijk is a weight. This matrix may
then be converted to dissimilarity by (Eq. (11)):
dij ˆ ‰2…1 ÿ sij †Š 1=2
: …11†
The objective is to modify this dissimilarity matrix to
take account of both the geographical proximity
between pixels and the form of spatial variation. This
may be achieved by multiplying the dissimilarity by a
function of geographical distance (Eq. (12)):
d ij ˆ dij
f …xi ÿ xj †: …12†
If the function were the exponential model (Eq. (6))
then the modi®cation would take the following form
(Eq. (13)):
c1 c0
d ij ˆ dij
‰1 ÿ exp…ÿhij =a 0 †Š ‡ dij
: …13†
c0 ‡ c1 c0 ‡ c1
The modi®ed dissimilarity matrix may be used in unsu-
pervised classi®cation whether that be based on hier-
archical clustering or non-hierarchical dynamic
clustering (Oliver and Webster, 1989).
Oliver and Webster applied their method to three
small data sets on soil properties to demonstrate its
utility as a tool in classi®cation, particularly for soil
management purposes. The unsupervised algorithm
chosen was a form of non-hierarchical dynamic cluster-
ing that operates on orthogonal principal coordinates
rather than directly on the original dissimilarity matrix.
Because of the need to extract a single spatial weight-
ing function from the multivariate feature space the
modelled variogram of the ®rst (or ®rst few) principal
component(s) was used in the modi®cation (Eqs. (12)
and (13)). This seems to undermine somewhat the
unbiasedness desired for such an approach. Further
ambiguity was introduced by the suggestion of the
authors that the range a of the model could be varied
to achieve di€erent amounts of smoothing as desired.
For example, a larger range (which yields smoother
results) may be more appropriate for management pur-
poses. Again, this falls somewhat short of the objective
of an unbiased and even optimal solution as is the case
with kriging.
4.2. Modi®cations to the method
Bourgaullt et al. (1992) proposed to replace the var-
iogram of the ®rst (few) principal component(s) with
the multivariate variogram (Eq. (14)) and the multi-
variate covariogram (or covariance function) (Eq. (15))
de®ned as follows:
2G…h† ˆ E‰…Z…x† ÿ Z…x ‡ h††M…Z…x† ÿ Z…x ‡ h††T Š …14†
367
K…h† ˆ E‰…Z…x† ÿ m†M…Z…x ‡ h† ÿ m†T Š …15†
where, Z(x) is a row vector of p second-order station-
ary random functions, m=E[Z(x)], and M is a p by p
positive de®nite symmetric matrix used as metric in the
calculation of (dis)similarities.
Bourgaullt et al. also based the dissimilarities matrix
on the Mahalanobis distance (Eq. (3)). Unfortunately,
despite o€ering what would appear to be a less ambig-
uous method for selecting a variogram model, Bour-
gaullt et al. (1992) introduced a further ambiguity in
that the multivariate variogram and covariogram,
despite being computed from common data, produced
di€erent classi®cation results.
Although not discussed by Bourgaullt et al., the
above can be attributed to what might be termed the
`local' and `global' operation of the two measures.
Essentially, modi®cation of the dissimilarity by the
(multivariate) variogram does not modify the contri-
bution of points that lie beyond the range of spatial
correlation. In the method of Bourgaullt et al., a mean
spatially modi®ed dissimilarity is calculated: if all
points considered in the calculation of this were further
than the range from a candidate point then the
weighted dissimilarity would be the same as the
unweighted value. If a mean spatially-modi®ed simi-
larity measure was used, however, with the spatial
modi®cation performed using a multivariate co-vario-
gram which tends to zero beyond the range then only
points within the range would contribute positively to
the estimate of the mean. These measures are non-line-
arly related, so no linear transformation of modi®ed
similarity to modi®ed dissimilarity will produce equiv-
alent results using the two methods in the general case.
The former is `global' in the sense that it includes con-
tributions from all points while the latter is `local' in
that only points within the range contribute. Further,
in the `global' case, the e€ect of spatial modi®cation
will depend on the image extent considered, as it will
vary according to the proportion of observations
which lie within the range.
4.3. Alternative smoothing approaches
Many alternative approaches to smoothing in super-
vised classi®cation have been employed. These range
from simple low-pass ®ltering of remotely sensed ima-
gery to more intricate processing (e.g., see the graph-
theoretic approach adopted by Barr and Barnsley,
2000). Some of these alternative approaches are dis-
cussed in this section.
An important alternative to the spatial weighting of
multivariate classi®cation based on the variogram is
the Gibbs sampler. Based on Bayes' Theorem, it allows
one to incorporate information in neighbouring pixels
into the spectral classi®cation procedure. The Gibbs
368 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
sampler updates iteratively the predicted class of a
pixel (chosen at random) conditional upon the pre-
vious values of all other pixels (and particularly neigh-
bouring pixels). The iteration is stopped when the
sequence converges to a (suciently) stable solution.
In some sense then, this solution may be regarded as
optimal (SchroÈder et al., 2000). However, it is only op-
timal in that the ®t achieved using the Gibbs sampler
attains maximum pseudo likelihood for the given
choice of spatial weighting function and kernel size
(Augustin et al., 1996). In most instances, it is necess-
ary to experiment with di€erent choices for the weight-
ing function and kernel size to search for a generally
optimal solution.
van der Meer (1996, 1999) used indicator kriging
(Goovaerts, 1997) applied to multivariate data to
obtain a classi®cation for all pixels in a remotely
sensed image. The approach involved de®ning indi-
cator variables for each feature (waveband) in an
image and obtaining variograms for each indicator.
These variograms were then used in block indicator
kriging to estimate the average value of each indicator
for a block or area of pixels centred on the pixel to be
classi®ed. This amounts to smoothing of the tra-
ditional classi®er. However, importantly the spatial in-
formation (weighting function) incorporated into the
classi®cation via the variogram is derived from the
form of spatial variation in the variable itself as is
desired. The ambiguity in this approach would appear
to come from the initial selection of indicator cut-o€s
and the size of blocks (i.e., the amount of smoothing).
Further, extrapolation at the tails of the distribution
can alter the results substantially.
The above indicator approach is similar to an
approach known as regionalised classi®cation (Bohling,
1997; Harf and Davis, 1990; Moline and Bahr, 1995).
Regionalised classi®cation is, in fact, nothing more
than the interpolation to unobserved sites of the inputs
to or the outputs from some traditional classi®er
applied to sparse data. However, papers on regiona-
lised classi®cation have been useful for pointing out
that di€erent stages in the classi®cation process can be
interpolated (or in the present case smoothed). For
example, one could interpolate the feature vectors and
then proceed with classi®cation at all sites. Alterna-
tively, one could interpolate the Mahalanobis dis-
tances, or the probabilities for use in ML classi®cation.
This choice, which is entirely general, represents an im-
portant decision for investigators wishing to devise
strategies for incorporating spatial information into a
classi®cation.
Following on from the above theme, Palubinskas et
al. (1995) applied a smoothing algorithm to the fuzzy
(for example, a posteriori Bayesian probabilities) out-
puts from the classi®cation of a remotely sensed
image. The algorithm was modi®ed locally to account
for di€erences in class homogeneity. There is much
overlap between such an approach and those discussed
above.
There are many algorithms available for segmenting
remotely sensed images (Haralick and Shapiro, 1985).
While a review of this literature is beyond the scope of
the present paper, it is worth pointing out that segmen-
tation is fundamentally di€erent to traditional spectral
classi®cation because spatial contiguity is an explicit
goal of segmentation whereas it is only implicit in
classi®cation. There are many approaches to segmenta-
tion including those based on edge detection (most
often based on some high-pass ®lter) and those based
on region-growing (based on the growth of hom-
ogenous regions conditional upon similarities between
the pixel to be merged and previously merged pixels).
There exist many examples of segmentation applied to
remotely sensed imagery (Janssen and Molenaar, 1995;
Khodja and Mengue, 1996; Lemoigne and Tilton,
1995; Lobo et al., 1996; Ryherd and Woodcock, 1996).
Segmentation routines involving region-growing al-
gorithms may be based on the similarities between var-
iograms or the coecients of variogram models (Lloyd
and Atkinson, 1998) resulting in segmentation based
on variogram texture.
5. Discussion: spatial weighting for remote sensing
classi®cation
5.1. Selecting an appropriate space
One of the ®rst decisions facing the analyst wishing
to use a spatial weighting in smoothing a classi®er for
remote sensing is in which space should the spatial
(geographical) weighting be determined and applied?
The work on regionalised classi®cation of Harf and
Davis (1990), Moline and Bahr (1995) and Bohling
(1997) (among others) illustrates clearly that there are
many possible spaces in which the smoothing can take
place. These include (see Fig. 1):
1. multivariate feature space (for example, the actual
values in the wavebands),
2. Euclidean distance-to-means in multivariate feature
space,
3. Mahalanobis distance-to-means in multivariate fea-
ture space,
4. probabilities (per class),
5. a posteriori probabilities (per pixel) and
6. the classi®ed image.
The spatial weighting function could be estimated in
any one of these spaces and used to aid classi®cation.
 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
5.2. A geostatistical basis for supervised classi®cation?
For several reasons Oliver and Webster's (1989)
approach without modi®cation is unlikely to be of
much utility for the classi®cation of remotely sensed
imagery. First, in remote sensing unsupervised classi®-
cation is used less frequently than supervised classi®-
cation and for the latter there is no dissimilarity
matrix. The equivalent to the dissimilarity matrix, the
distances between the pixel values and the class means
expressed in terms of some distance metric in feature
space, do not have a spatial dimension (they are not
expressed as a function of lag). Each class mean is
de®ned over the whole image, not for a single pixel
located in geographical space. These distances are,
therefore, less readily modi®ed by a function de®ned in
geographical space and the variogram cannot be
employed in the same way as for unsupervised classi®-
cation. The most straightforward approach would be
to use the (multivariate) variogram as a smoothing
function directly on the images of distances-to-class-
means (Fig. 1). However, the simple application of the
variogram as a smoothing function (that is, convolu-
tion of the images of distances with a kernel-based
weighting function) is unlikely to result in optimal use
of the spatial correlation in the image. The Gibbs sam-
pler discussed above is attractive in this regard because
of the lack of an explicit structure function.
Second, the data sets must be small for the algor-
ithm to be e€ective (for example, one of the data sets
analysed by Oliver and Webster consisted of 6  14
cells) and in remote sensing the data sets are typically
large (commonly in excess of 1000  1000 pixels).
Despite the problems discussed above, supervised
classi®cation does have the advantage of removing the
need to compare distances between all pixels and all
other pixels (involving nearly 500,000,000,000 compari-
sons for an image of 1000  1000 pixels, which would
be prohibitive in most cases). Therefore, small data
sets are not a prerequisite for supervised classi®cation.
Finally, the variogram is de®ned as a parameter of a
RF model which is stationary in the squared di€er-
ences between pairs of locations separated by a given
lag h (referred to as the intrinsic hypothesis). For
many remotely sensed images the entire scene is not
readily modelled in such a way. In particular, for land-
scapes a€ected by human activity (for example, agri-
cultural ®elds, forest stands, urban areas and so on)
the objective of classifying an entire image using a
single variogram is ultimately ¯awed because the
stationary RF model is unjusti®ed. Where a stationary
variogram model cannot reasonably be considered, but
rather the model should be allowed to vary smoothly
across the image, the objective should be to adopt
(probably non-parametric) approaches which do not
369
depend on a stationary variogram. It should be noted
that the Gibbs sampler does not necessarily help in
this regard. The Gibbs sampler is a generally appli-
cable ®tting procedure most useful for Markov chains.
It does not necessarily allow for non-stationarity
although it can be used to ®t models which do so to
some extent (for example, Brunsdon, 2000). In most
implementations, the result of the Gibbs sampler will
be a maximum pseudolikelihood ®t for a selected
smoothing function and kernel size ®xed over the
entire image. A potential solution is provided by a per-
parcel classi®er that utilises a priori knowledge in the
form of digital vector boundaries to segment the region
of interest into distinct parcels prior to classi®cation.
Within each parcel the spatial weighting could be
applied independently. The per-parcel classi®er would
also limit naturally the number of data to a tolerable
value.
6. Conclusions
Most techniques that use the variogram to classify
remotely sensed images have their shortcomings. For
example, texture classi®ers based on the variogram
work only where the homogenous regions of each class
in the image are suciently large, homogenous and
di€erent texturally between classes. Even then there is
no guarantee that the extra data on texture will yield
useful information (above that provided by the original
imagery). Approaches that use the variogram for
smoothing in classi®cation may be divided into two
groups: those based on simple ®ltering of the image (at
any stage in the classi®cation process) and the method
of Oliver and Webster (1989) in which the variogram
is used to modify the dissimilarities in unsupervised
classi®cation. The former approaches do not deliver
the optimality associated with geostatistical techniques
such as kriging. The latter approach holds much prom-
ise, but problems will need to be overcome if it is to be
applied in remote sensing.
Acknowledgements
This paper was written while PMA was on leave at
the School of Mathematics, University of Wales, Car-
di€. The authors thank Professor Giles Foody for use-
ful information relating to this paper and are grateful
to the referees for their comments.
370 P.M. Atkinson, P. Lewis / Computers & Geosciences 26 (2000) 361±371
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