Patent ID: 8594375

Claim:
A method for identifying cloudy pixels in a target image, comprising: acquiring the target image, the target image comprising pixels associated with geographic coordinates, the geographic coordinates being associated with at least one feature; retrieving a cloud-free image from a cloud-free database, the cloud-free image corresponding with the target image and containing coincident geographic coordinates associated with a coincident feature; automatically matching the at least one feature of the target image with the coincident feature of the cloud-free image; based on the matching, automatically determining a cloud presence probability for each pixel in the target image; automatically producing a probability raster image based on the cloud presence probability for each pixel in the target image; using the probability raster image, automatically determining a cloud fraction, the cloud fraction being a ratio of high probability cloud pixels and total number of pixels; automatically computing a confidence measure; establishing a cloud fraction threshold and a confidence measure threshold; automatically measuring the cloud fraction against the cloud fraction threshold to obtain a cloud fraction result; automatically measuring the confidence measure against the confidence measure threshold to obtain a confidence measure result; and using the cloud fraction result and the confidence measure result, determining whether the target image contains cloudy pixels.