{"id":{"repo_id":"vt","oai_identifier":"oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/99861"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/vt/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/99861","repository":{"repo_id":"vt","name":"Virginia Tech","base_url":"https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Land Cover Quantification using Autoencoder based Unsupervised Deep Learning","abstract":"This work aims to develop a deep learning model for land cover quantification through hyperspectral unmixing using an unsupervised autoencoder. Land cover identification and classification is instrumental in urban planning, environmental monitoring and land management. With the technological advancements in remote sensing, hyperspectral imagery which captures high resolution images of the earth's surface across hundreds of wavelength bands, is becoming increasingly popular. The high spectral information in these images can be analyzed to identify the various target materials present in the image scene based on their unique reflectance patterns. An autoencoder is a deep learning model that can perform spectral unmixing by decomposing the complex image spectra into its constituent materials and estimating their abundance compositions. The advantage of using this technique for land cover quantification is that it is completely unsupervised and eliminates the need for labelled data which generally requires years of field survey and formulation of detailed maps. We evaluate the performance of the autoencoder on various synthetic and real hyperspectral images consisting of different land covers using similarity metrics and abundance maps. The scalability of the technique with respect to landscapes is assessed by evaluating its performance on hyperspectral images spanning across 100m x 100m, 200m x 200m, 1000m x 1000m, 4000m x 4000m and 5000m x 5000m regions. Finally, we analyze the performance of this technique by comparing it to several supervised learning methods like Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF) and multilayer perceptron using F1-score, Precision and Recall metrics and other unsupervised techniques like K-Means, N-Findr, and VCA using cosine similarity, mean square error and estimated abundances. The land cover classification obtained using this technique is compared to the existing United States National Land Cover Database (NLCD) classification standard.","abstract_html":"This work aims to develop a deep learning model for land cover quantification through hyperspectral unmixing using an unsupervised autoencoder. Land cover identification and classification is instrumental in urban planning, environmental monitoring and land management. With the technological advancements in remote sensing, hyperspectral imagery which captures high resolution images of the earth's surface across hundreds of wavelength bands, is becoming increasingly popular. The high spectral information in these images can be analyzed to identify the various target materials present in the image scene based on their unique reflectance patterns. An autoencoder is a deep learning model that can perform spectral unmixing by decomposing the complex image spectra into its constituent materials and estimating their abundance compositions. The advantage of using this technique for land cover quantification is that it is completely unsupervised and eliminates the need for labelled data which generally requires years of field survey and formulation of detailed maps. We evaluate the performance of the autoencoder on various synthetic and real hyperspectral images consisting of different land covers using similarity metrics and abundance maps. The scalability of the technique with respect to landscapes is assessed by evaluating its performance on hyperspectral images spanning across 100m x 100m, 200m x 200m, 1000m x 1000m, 4000m x 4000m and 5000m x 5000m regions. Finally, we analyze the performance of this technique by comparing it to several supervised learning methods like Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF) and multilayer perceptron using F1-score, Precision and Recall metrics and other unsupervised techniques like K-Means, N-Findr, and VCA using cosine similarity, mean square error and estimated abundances. The land cover classification obtained using this technique is compared to the existing United States National Land Cover Database (NLCD) classification standard.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Manjunatha Bharadwaj, Sandhya"],"institution":"Virginia Tech","degree_name":"Master of Science","degree_level":"masters","degree_discipline":"Computer Engineering","degree_department":"Electrical and Computer Engineering","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":["Abbott, A. Lynn","Lattimer, Brian Y."],"committee_members":["Williams, Ryan K."],"year":2020,"date_issued":"2020-08-27","date_published":"2020-08-27","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:20:40Z","subjects":["Deep learning (Machine learning)","Autoencoder","Land Cover","Hyperspectral Imagery","Spectral Unmixing","Reflectance Spectra"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["In Copyright"],"rights_urls":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["vt_gsexam:27237"],"render_values":[{"text":"vt_gsexam:27237","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99861","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.committeechair","label":"Committee Chair","values":["Abbott, A. 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Land cover identification and classification is instrumental in urban planning, environmental monitoring and land management. With the technological advancements in remote sensing, hyperspectral imagery which captures high resolution images of the earth's surface across hundreds of wavelength bands, is becoming increasingly popular. The high spectral information in these images can be analyzed to identify the various target materials present in the image scene based on their unique reflectance patterns. An autoencoder is a deep learning model that can perform spectral unmixing by decomposing the complex image spectra into its constituent materials and estimating their abundance compositions. The advantage of using this technique for land cover quantification is that it is completely unsupervised and eliminates the need for labelled data which generally requires years of field survey and formulation of detailed maps. We evaluate the performance of the autoencoder on various synthetic and real hyperspectral images consisting of different land covers using similarity metrics and abundance maps. The scalability of the technique with respect to landscapes is assessed by evaluating its performance on hyperspectral images spanning across 100m x 100m, 200m x 200m, 1000m x 1000m, 4000m x 4000m and 5000m x 5000m regions. Finally, we analyze the performance of this technique by comparing it to several supervised learning methods like Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF) and multilayer perceptron using F1-score, Precision and Recall metrics and other unsupervised techniques like K-Means, N-Findr, and VCA using cosine similarity, mean square error and estimated abundances. The land cover classification obtained using this technique is compared to the existing United States National Land Cover Database (NLCD) classification standard."]},{"key":"dc:description.abstractgeneral","label":"General Abstract","values":["This work aims to develop an automated deep learning model for identifying and estimating the composition of the different land covers in a region using hyperspectral remote sensing imagery. With the technological advancements in remote sensing, hyperspectral imagery which captures high resolution images of the earth's surface across hundreds of wavelength bands, is becoming increasingly popular. As every surface has a unique reflectance pattern, the high spectral information contained in these images can be analyzed to identify the various target materials present in the image scene. An autoencoder is a deep learning model that can perform spectral unmixing by decomposing the complex image spectra into its constituent materials and estimate their percent compositions. The advantage of this method in land cover quantification is that it is an unsupervised technique which does not require labelled data which generally requires years of field survey and formulation of detailed maps. The performance of this technique is evaluated on various synthetic and real hyperspectral datasets consisting of different land covers. We assess the scalability of the model by evaluating its performance on images of different sizes spanning over a few hundred square meters to thousands of square meters. Finally, we compare the performance of the autoencoder based approach with other supervised and unsupervised deep learning techniques and with the current land cover classification standard."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Master of Science"]},{"key":"dc:format.medium","label":"Dc Format Medium","values":["ETD"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Land Cover Quantification using Autoencoder based Unsupervised Deep Learning"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.committeechair":["Abbott, A. 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The high spectral information in these images can be analyzed to identify the various target materials present in the image scene based on their unique reflectance patterns. An autoencoder is a deep learning model that can perform spectral unmixing by decomposing the complex image spectra into its constituent materials and estimating their abundance compositions. The advantage of using this technique for land cover quantification is that it is completely unsupervised and eliminates the need for labelled data which generally requires years of field survey and formulation of detailed maps. We evaluate the performance of the autoencoder on various synthetic and real hyperspectral images consisting of different land covers using similarity metrics and abundance maps. The scalability of the technique with respect to landscapes is assessed by evaluating its performance on hyperspectral images spanning across 100m x 100m, 200m x 200m, 1000m x 1000m, 4000m x 4000m and 5000m x 5000m regions. Finally, we analyze the performance of this technique by comparing it to several supervised learning methods like Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF) and multilayer perceptron using F1-score, Precision and Recall metrics and other unsupervised techniques like K-Means, N-Findr, and VCA using cosine similarity, mean square error and estimated abundances. The land cover classification obtained using this technique is compared to the existing United States National Land Cover Database (NLCD) classification standard."],"dc:description.abstractgeneral":["This work aims to develop an automated deep learning model for identifying and estimating the composition of the different land covers in a region using hyperspectral remote sensing imagery. With the technological advancements in remote sensing, hyperspectral imagery which captures high resolution images of the earth's surface across hundreds of wavelength bands, is becoming increasingly popular. As every surface has a unique reflectance pattern, the high spectral information contained in these images can be analyzed to identify the various target materials present in the image scene. An autoencoder is a deep learning model that can perform spectral unmixing by decomposing the complex image spectra into its constituent materials and estimate their percent compositions. The advantage of this method in land cover quantification is that it is an unsupervised technique which does not require labelled data which generally requires years of field survey and formulation of detailed maps. The performance of this technique is evaluated on various synthetic and real hyperspectral datasets consisting of different land covers. We assess the scalability of the model by evaluating its performance on images of different sizes spanning over a few hundred square meters to thousands of square meters. Finally, we compare the performance of the autoencoder based approach with other supervised and unsupervised deep learning techniques and with the current land cover classification standard."],"dc:description.degree":["Master of Science"],"dc:format.medium":["ETD"],"dc:identifier.other":["vt_gsexam:27237"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99861"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:publisher":["Virginia Tech"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright"],"dc:rights.uri":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dc:subject":["Deep learning (Machine learning)","Autoencoder","Land Cover","Hyperspectral Imagery","Spectral Unmixing","Reflectance Spectra"],"dc:title":["Land Cover Quantification using Autoencoder based Unsupervised Deep Learning"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Engineering"],"thesis:degree_level":["masters"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science"],"thesis:institution_name":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:20:40Z"}