Creating a RGB Composite with SAGA | Zlatko Horvat http://zlatkohorvat.

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Zlatko Horvat
GIS and Remote Sensing

Creating a RGB Composite with SAGA

The Landsat bands must be imported into SAGA.
Open Saga and select: ModulesFileGDAL/ORGGDAL:Import Raster or in the Workspace click:
ModulesImport/Export GDAL/ORG GDAL:Import Raster
(Import raster dialog box appears).
Select the Files row and click Browse button.
(The Open dialog box appears).
Browse and select the Landsat satellite image files (bands 1-5 and 7), and click Open.
Click Okay button.
(The Landsat layers are imported).

In order to create a satellite image showing the visible spectral information three bands have to be combined into
a single composite image. This is easy to do if you have the appropriate software such as SAGA or almost any GIS
and remote sensing image processing packages.
If the Modules view is not displayed click the Modules tab in the Workspace pane and click on the plus sign left to
the Grid Visualisation. Double click the RGB Composite module.
(The settings page for Module RGB Composite appears).
Click on the Grid system row.
The grid system parameter is used to identify the grid system (e.g. 30; 8341x 7221y; 505800x 4990200y)
The rest of the settings are for choosing the three grid data layers to represent the spectral reflectance values for
three bands (Red, Green and Blue).
Using the output parameter Composite as create, the output grid data layer will be named as first free number
for grid layers (7 in this example) we can change that grid layer latter. Also, we can choose an existing grid data
layer.
Click Okay

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If the Data tree view is not displayed click the Data tab in the Workspace pane. Double click on the newly created
7 grid layer.
(The Add layer to selected map appears).
Select the New map view.
Repeat the entire procedure for the true color (321) band combination, or any combination of your choice.

True and false color infrared composites are the two most popular composites.

False Color Composite.

The near infrared band (band 4) is assigned to red, the red band (band 3) is assigned to green and the green band
(band 2) is assigned to blue. In this color composite vegetation displays in shades of red. Conifer and deciduous
vegetation can be differentiated. Urban areas are cyan blue, and soils vary from dark to light browns.

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True color composite

The red band (band 3) is assigned to red, the green band (band 2) is assigned to green, and the blue band (band 1)
is assigned to blue. In true color composite vegetation displays in shades of green, water in darker shades of blue,
soil in light to dark shades and urban areas are mixed and tend toward bright light shades.

More about Landsat band combinations:

http://web.pdx.edu/~emch/ip1/bandcombinations.html
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/compositor/

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