NDVI-Based Lacunarity Texture for Improving Identification of Torreya Using Object-Oriented Method

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a very useful feature for differentiating vegetation and non-vegetation in remote sensed imagery. In the light of the function of NDVI and the spatial patterns of the vegetation landscapes, we proposed the lacunarity texture derived from NDVI to characterize the spatial patterns of vegetation landscapes concerning the “gappiness” or “emptiness” characteristics. The NDVI-based lacunarity texture was incorporated into object-oriented classification for improving the identification of vegetation categories, especially Torreya which was the targeted tree species in the present research. A three-level hierarchical network of image objects was defined and the proposed texture was integrated as potential sources of information in the rules base. A knowledge base of rules created by classifier C5.0 indicated that the texture could potentially be applied in object-oriented classification. It was found that the addition of such texture improved the identification of every vegetation category. The results demonstrated that the texture could characterize the spatial patterns of vegetation structures, which could be a promising approach for vegetation identification.