Color Adaptation and Cloud Removal between Satellite Images via Optimal Transport

Abstract

Cloud-contaminated pixels exist ubiquitously in satellite images, which limit the usability of satellite images and increase the difficulty of image analysis. To reconstruct these pixels, a basic idea is to transfer cloud-free pixels from corresponding multi-temporal images to the target image, and the performance of this category of methods depends on the quality of information transfer between images. We propose in this work a novel pixel reconstruction method based on optimal transport. Our method first conducts an adaptive col-or transfer between multi-temporal images and then replaces cloud-contaminated pixels by transferred cloud-free pixels. The proposed method fully explores the potential of optimal transport to generate a more adaptive color transfer plan and thus ensure a high quality information transfer between images. Compared with other widely used methods, visual and statistical results on Landsat and MODIS images demonstrate the capacity of our method.