Patent ID: 8660359

Claim:
A method performed by a computing device to estimate surface radiance from a multispectral image of a surface, the multispectral image having pixels with an observed radiance for bands of a spectrum, the method comprising: providing an initial estimate of one or more atmospheric parameters; for each pixel, calculating a temperature and a black body radiance for each band based on the initial estimate of the one or more atmospheric parameters and the observed radiance of that pixel; for each pixel, calculating a temperature deviation measuring variability in the temperatures for the bands of that pixel; for each band, identifying a first pixel with a low temperature deviation; identifying a second pixel with a low temperature deviation but with a temperature at that band that is different from the temperature at that band of the first pixel; and calculating the one or more atmospheric parameters for that band based on the observed radiances and the black body radiances of the first pixel and the second pixel; and for each band of each pixel, calculating a surface radiance for that band of that pixel based on the observed radiance for that band of that pixel and the one or more atmospheric parameters for that band.