Patent ID: 7184890

Claim:
A method for determining whether a data point of an imaging study indicates a presence of a shadow-covered ground point using data including visible, near-infrared, and short wavelength infrared data, the method comprising: acquiring one or more spectral data thresholds from at least one of a plurality of spectral data measurements and a plurality of spectral indices of a reference data point; selecting a data point from top of atmosphere data from an imaging study of an area potentially covered by a cloud shadow; deriving one or more spectral indices from the data point, the spectral indices being derived from at least one of visible, near infrared, and short wavelength infrared data; obtaining one or more spectral data measurements associated with the data point, the spectral data measurements including at least one of visible, near-infrared, and short wavelength infrared data; comparing at least one of the one or more obtained spectral data measurements and one or more derived spectral indices with one or more corresponding spectral data thresholds, the spectral data thresholds delineating between a shadow-covered ground point and a non-shadow-covered ground point; and classifying the data point as one of a shadow-covered ground point and a non-shadow covered ground based on the comparison with the spectral data thresholds.