Fusion between Satellite and Geophysical images in the study of Archaeological Sites

In this work various image fusion techniques are used between one satellite (Quickbird) and one geophysical (electric resistivity) image to create various combinations with higher information content than the two original images independently. The resultant images provide more information about possible buried archaeological relics. The examined archaeological area is located in mainland Greece near the city of Boetia at the acropolis of Gla. The acropolis was built on a flat-topped bedrock outcrop at the north-eastern edge of the Kopais basin. When Kopais was filled with water, Glas was emerging as an island. At the end of 14th century the two palaces of Thebes and Orchomenos jointly utilized a large scale engineering project in order to transform the Kopais basin into a fertile plain. They used the acropolis to monitor the project, and as a warehouse to storage the harvest. To examine the Acropolis for potential archaeological remnants we use one Quickbird satellite image that covers the surrounding area of Gla. The satellite image includes one panchromatic (8532x8528 pixels) and one multispectral (2133x2132 pixels) image, collected on 30th of August 2011, covering an area of 20 square kilometers. On the other hand, geophysical measurements were performed using the electric resistivity method to the south west part of the Acropolis. To combine these images we investigate mean-value fusion, wavelets fusion, and curvelet fusion. In the cases of wavelet and curvelet fusion we apply as the fusion criterion the maximum frequency rule. Furthermore, the two original images, and excavations near the area suggest that the dominant orientations of the buried features are north-south and east-west. Therefore, in curvelet fusion method, in curvelet domain we enhance the image details along these specific orientations, additionally to the fusion. The resultant fused images succeed to map linear and rectangular features that were not easily visible in the original images. Among the various methods that we use, curvelet based fusion with a-priori orientation information exhibited the best performance, providing sharper and clearer images having also reduced the surrounding noise allowing a more accurate mapping of the potential targets.