Assessing cloud segmentation in the chromacity diagram of all-sky images

DOI: 
10.3390/rs12111902
Publication date: 
29/06/2020
Main author: 
Krauz L.
IAA authors: 
Blažek, M.
Authors: 
Krauz L., Janout P., Blažek M., Páta P.
Journal: 
Remote Sensing
Publication type: 
Letter
Volume: 
12.0
Number: 
1902
Abstract: 
All-sky imaging systems are currently very popular. They are used in ground-based meteorological stations and as a crucial part of the weather monitors for autonomous robotic telescopes. Data from all-sky imaging cameras provide important information for controlling meteorological stations and telescopes, and they have specific characteristics different from widely-used imaging systems. A particularly promising and useful application of all-sky cameras is for remote sensing of cloud cover. Post-processing of the image data obtained from all-sky imaging cameras for automatic cloud detection and for cloud classification is a very demanding task. Accurate and rapid cloud detection can provide a good way to forecast weather events such as torrential rainfalls. However, the algorithms that are used must be specifically calibrated on data from the all-sky camera in order to set up an automatic cloud detection system. This paper presents an assessment of a modified k-means++ color-based segmentation algorithm specifically adjusted to the WILLIAM (WIde-field aLL-sky Image Analyzing Monitoring system) ground-based remote all-sky imaging system for cloud detection. The segmentation method is assessed in two different color-spaces (L*a*b and XYZ). Moreover, the proposed algorithm is tested on our public WMD database (WILLIAM Meteo Database) of annotated all-sky image data, which was created specifically for testing purposes. The WMD database is available for public use. In this paper, we present a comparison of selected color-spaces and assess their suitability for the cloud color segmentation based on all-sky images. In addition, we investigate the distribution of the segmented cloud phenomena present on the all-sky images based on the color-spaces channels. In the last part of this work, we propose and discuss the possible exploitation of the color-based k-means++ segmentation method as a preprocessing step towards cloud classification in all-sky images. © 2020 by the authors.
Database: 
SCOPUS
URL: 
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85086448215&doi=10.3390%2frs12111902&partnerID=40&md5=5584952e685f5a9893cfe4467af52c5a
Keywords: 
All-sky images; Cloud classification; Cloud detection; Cloud segmentation; Ground-based; K-means++; WILLIAM; WILLIAM meteo database