Abstract
Extracting endmembers from remotely sensed images of vegetated areas can present difficulties. In this research, we applied a recently developed endmember-extraction algorithm based on Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to the problem of semi-autonomous estimation of vegetation endmembers from a hyperspectral image. This algorithm, referred to as Support Vector Machine-Based Endmember Extraction (SVM-BEE), accurately and rapidly yields a computed representation of hyperspectral data that can accommodate multiple distributions. The number of distributions is identified without prior knowledge, based upon this representation. Prior work established that SVM-BEE is robustly noise-tolerant and can semi-automatically and effectively estimate endmembers; synthetic data and a geologic scene were previously analyzed. Here we compared the efficacies of the SVM-BEE and N-FINDR algorithms in extracting endmembers from a predominantly agricultural scene. SVM-BEE was able to estimate vegetation and other endmembers for all classes in the image, which N-FINDR failed to do. Classifications based on SVM-BEE endmembers were markedly more accurate compared with those based on N-FINDR endmembers.
