Change detection in optical remote sensing images with a fully object-level approach

In this paper, an efficient and accurate multilevel change detection method is presented, achieved by the combination of an unsupervised object-based correlation analysis and a supervised post-classification comparison. Before the change detection procedure, fast multitemporal segmentation is applied to provide object-level information on two registered images. Then the proposed object-based correlation analysis method is used to extract the potential changed areas efficiently and stably, which improves the accuracy of overall performance. Notably, all the procedures are highly automatic except for the necessary selection of training examples within all supervised algorithms. The experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our method compared with the four typical state-of-the-art change detection methods.