GNR607
Principles of Satellite Image
Processing
Instructor: Prof. B. Krishna Mohan
CSRE, IIT Bombay
[email protected] Slot 14
Image Display and Data Formats
August 2025
IIT Bombay Slide 1
Lecture 5 Image Display and Data Formats
Contents of the Lecture
Display of Remotely Sensed Images
• False color composites
• Natural color composites
• Gray scale images
Interleaving Formats for Multiband Images
• BIL
• BSQ
• BIP
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 2
Image Display
Red Gun
Image Data
Green Gun
on Disk
Blue Gun
Image Display System
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IIT Bombay Slide 3
Concept of a Color Composite
• In order to generate a color display of a
satellite image on the monitor, we need to
choose
– Data to represent in red color
– Data to represent in green color
– Data to represent in blue color
• Such a display is known as a color
composite
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IIT Bombay Slide 4
False Color Composite
• A False Color Composite (FCC) is formed
when the data assigned to red / green / blue
color on the display is collected outside the
visible region
• A standard FCC comprises:
Wavelength of Data Display
– Near Infrared wavelength Red Color
– Red wavelength Green Color
– Green wavelength Blue color
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IIT Bombay Slide 5
Example of FCC
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 5a
Example of FCC
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
Point to Ponder…
• Why do the trees and other vegetation
appear red in color?
• Why does water appear so dark?
• Hint: Recall reflectance curves of major
land features
IIT Bombay Slide 6
Natural Color Composite
• A Natural Color Composite (NCC) is
formed when the data assigned to
red/green/blue is collected in the same
wavelengths
• For instance:
Wavelength of Data Display
– Red wavelength Red Color
– Green wavelength Green Color
– Blue wavelength Blue color
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 7
Natural Color Composite
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 7a
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
Point to ponder…
• What is the disadvantage if we choose to
work only with natural color composite
(also called true color composite) images?
IIT Bombay Slide 8
Black & White Image
• A black/white image is one that has no
color but only white, black and shades of
gray.
• The smallest value at a pixel is 0 (black)
• The largest value is 2L-1 (white)
• Intermediate values represent shades of
gray, from black increasing towards white
• For L=8, black = 0, white = 255
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IIT Bombay Slide 9
Gray Scale
black dark gray light gray white
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IIT Bombay Slide 10
Gray Scale Images
• Examples of gray scale images in R.S.
– An image of a single band of a multisp. image
– An image from radar sensor (SAR image)
– An image from panchromatic sensor
• How does this happen on a display
monitor?
When Red, Green and Blue display guns are fed
the same signal, the resulting display on the
screen will be black&white
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 11
Panchromatic Image
MUMBAI
Data: IRS-1C, PAN
Consists of
1024x1024 pixels.
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 11a
Panchromatic Image
Bangalore
Data: SPOT, PLA
Consists of 1024x1024
pixels.
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
Point to ponder…
• Panchromatic images are acquired with
highest spatial resolution compared to
multispectral images or images in any
single wavelength. What is the reason?
IIT Bombay Slide 12
Common Data Structures to
Store Multiband Data
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IIT Bombay Slide 13
Common Data Structures to
Store Multiband Data
• BIL – band interleaved by line
• BSQ – band sequential
• BIP – band interleaved by pixel
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IIT Bombay Slide 14
Image Acquisition
Optics Band 1
Band 2
Band 3
…
Width
equal to
pixel width Direction of
Ground satellite motion
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IIT Bombay Slide 15
BIL
• Band interleaved by line storage format
– MxN Image; K Bands; One row on ground
B11 B12 … B1N
B21 B22 … B2N
…
Bk1 Bk2 … BkN
• A single file on disk or CD contains M.K rows, each
having N columns; Every K rows in the file
correspond to ONE ROW ON THE GROUND
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IIT Bombay Slide 16
Band 1 Row1
… Image Size
BIL FILE Band K Row1 M rows
Band1 Row2 N columns
STRUCTURE
… K Bands
Band K Row2
…
Band 1 Row M
…
Band K Row M
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IIT Bombay Slide 17
BIL
• BIL is a popular format for storing
multispectral images, and supported by most
remote sensing software (ERDAS, PCI, …)
• Well suited when multiband data analysis is
required
• Lot of data I/O involved when access to a
single band image is needed on sequential
access systems. Moderate overhead on
random access systems
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IIT Bombay Slide 18
BSQ
• Band sequential method involves storing
one full single band image after another
B11 B12 … B1N
B21 B22 … B2N
…
BM1 BM2 … BMN
• The image for the second band, …, up to
Band K follow
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IIT Bombay Slide 19
BSQ FILE STRUCTURE
Band 1 Row 1
…
Band 1
Band 1 Row M
Band2 Row 1
Image Size … Band 2
Band 2 Row M
M rows …
N columns Band K Row 1
… Band K
K Bands
Band K Row M
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IIT Bombay Slide 20
BSQ
• Ideally suited when the multiband image is
processed one band at a time, such as
image enhancement, neighbourhood
filtering, etc.
• More overheads when all band values are
required at each pixel
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IIT Bombay Slide 21
BIP
• Band interleaved by pixel
– Commonly used for storing color images, with
red, green and blue values alternating
• RGBRGBRGB…
– Used in the early stages of Landsat data
distribution
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IIT Bombay Slide 22
BIP Structure
First Row
Band 1 Band 2 … Band K Band 1 Band 2 … Band K … Band K
Row 1 Row 1 Row 1 Row 1 Row 1 Row 1 Row 1
Pixel 1 Pixel 1 … Pixel 1 Pixel 2 Pixel 2 Pixel 2 Pixel N
Second Row
Band 1 Band 2 … Band K Band 1 Band 2 … Band K … Band K
Row 2 Row 2 Row 2 Row 2 Row 2 Row 2 Row 2
Pixel 1 Pixel 1 … Pixel 1 Pixel 2 Pixel 2 Pixel 2 Pixel N
…
Mth Row
Band 1 Band 2 … Band K Band 1 Band 2 … Band K … Band K
Row M Row M Row M Row M Row M Row M Row M
Pixel 1 Pixel 1 … Pixel 1 Pixel 2 Pixel 2 Pixel 2 Pixel N
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
Data supply formats…
IIT Bombay Slide 23
Formats for Distributing
Remotely Sensed Data
• Suppliers provide image data in different
formats:
– LGSOWG (super-structure format)
– Fast format
– HDF format
– GeoTiff format
– Proprietary software format (e.g., ERDAS IMG)
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IIT Bombay Slide 24
Superstructure Format
•Very exhaustive data format
•Levels of processing
•Level 0 (Raw data)
•Level 1 (Radiometrically corrected)
•Level 2 (Radiometrically and geometrically corrected)
•Digital File Volume consists of five files
•Some differences for mag. tapes and CD-ROMs
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IIT Bombay Slide 25
Digital File Volume
• Volume Directory File (Volume descriptor, File
Pointers and text record)
• Leader File (Descriptor, Header, ancillary,
Calibration, histogram, map projection, GCP,
annotation, Boundary, and Boundary annotation
Record)
• Image Data File (BIL or BSQ)
• Trailer File (Description and trailer records)
• Null volume File
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IIT Bombay Slide 26
CD Product Structure
CDINFO – a file describing the Satellite name, Product
Code, Path, Row, Date Of Pass, Sensor, Volume number
etc. It is basically gives the information about the contents
of CD. Typical content of a CDINFO file for P6 will look like
this.
Product1 – a folder containing files listed in the previous
slide
NOTE: Data were distributed in the past on magentic tapes prior to
CDs and DVDs. Even today 100 GB tapes are used for backups in
data centres
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IIT Bombay Slide 27
File Details
PRODUCT1- a directory containing following files.
VOLUME.SensorCode/DAT – the Volume Directory File.
LEADER.SensorCode/DAT - the Leader File.
IMAGERYb.SensorCode/DAT- the Imagery File.
TRAILER.SensorCode/DAT – the Trailer File.
NULL.SensorCode/DAT - the Null Volume File.
Where b=Band number. In case of PAN ‘b’ will not be
present. and SensorCode=Three Character Sensor Code
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IIT Bombay Slide 28
CD Product Structure
Options possible:
One CD containing one full scene
One scene stored onto two CDs
Two scenes stored on one full CD
All possibilities are accommodated by the
superstructure format
Most commercial software vendors read this format
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IIT Bombay Slide 29
IRS Sensors
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IIT Bombay Slide 29a
Extension to TIFF
GeoTIFF format
Supports additional tags to represent geographic
information like datum, projection, lat-long coordinates
etc.
Supports storing multiband data (>3 bands) in a single
file
Open format (not proprietary)
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 30
Typical Data of interest
• Image dimensions (in rows, cols)
• Latitude-longitude extents of scene
• Sun angle (to interpret shading differences, shadows
etc.)
• Number of bands
• Type of processing done on the raw data
• Full scene in one CD / multiple CDs / multiple scenes on
single CD or
• Direct download from supplier’s website
• Ground Control Points
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 31
Some Sample Calculations
Given pixel area on ground: l x b metre2,
Size of image: M x N
Area of image on ground: L x B km2
Number of bands: K
Format of storage: BIL
Extract from the full image a sub-image covering a
rectangular window of
Area L1 x B1 (L1 < L, B1 < B)
OR
Size M1 x N1 (M1 < M, N1 < N) given the corner locations
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
Point to ponder…
• What is the problem if we have images of
different bands in separate files instead of
interleaving?
IIT Bombay Slide 32
Image Size and Ground Area
One pixel; l metres x b
metres
M Rows
L kms
N Columns; B kms
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IIT Bombay Slide 33
Area of Sub-image
• Number of rows in the sub-image = L1 / l
• Number of cols in the sub-image = B1/b
• What are the coordinates of the window?
L1
B1
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IIT Bombay Slide 34
Sub-image Extraction
• The user must specify the location of the sub-
image in the overall image
• This may be done using interactive facility such
as given the left top coordinate, extract a sub-
image of L1xB1 area, a window of M1 x N1 etc.
• Work out an algorithm to extract this assuming
BIL / BSQ / BIP organization of the data
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 35
Algorithm
• Open the input image for read and output image for write
operations
• Skip the pixels up to the left top corner of the sub-image
• From the left-top corner, copy desired pixels into a
separate array
• Store this array in an output file
• Close the image files
• Remember – this should be done for K bands, stored
in BIL/BSQ/BIP form
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IIT Bombay Slide 36
Example
• Given a SPOT-1 multispectral image
covering an area of size 25km x 25km,
extract the middle 10km x 10km window
• Assume BSQ form of storage for input as
well as output
• SPOT-1 acquired the image in three
spectral bands
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 37
Disk File Size of the image
• Rows x Cols x Bands x Bytes per pixel
• For the SPOT window,
– 500 x 500 x 3 x 1 = 750000 bytes ~ 750 KB
• In case of Ikonos image, storage is 2 bytes per pixel,
4 metres resolution, 4 bands
• 10 km x 10 km Ikonos multispectral image size on
disk = 10000/4 x 10000/4 x 4 x 2
• = 10000 x 5000 bytes ~ 50 MB
• Size of panchromatic image =
– 10000 x 10000 x 2 = 10000 x 20000 bytes ~200 MB
• NOTE THE DIFFERENCE IN SIZE OF DATA!
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
IIT Bombay Slide 37
Images to cover entire globe
• Surface area of Earth = 5.1 x 108 km2
• One Landsat scene covers 185 km x185 km
• If entire Earth is covered by Landsat images without
overlap, number of scenes required =
5.1 x 108 / (185)2 = ~ 14902
• At 270MB/scene, ~3.84 TB
• If covered by images having sidelap and overlap,
more images are required
GNR607 B. Krishna Mohan
Point to ponder…
• Given that Landsat satellite thematic sensor
collects data in six multispectral bands at spatial
resolution of 30 metres and one band in thermal
region with spatial resolution of 120 metres,
what may be the reason for the coarser
resolution of the thermal sensor?
Contd…
