Towards visual analytics for multi-sensor analysis of remote sensing archives

To better detect and study processes on the Earth's surface, scientists want to combine various satellite data and extract potentially interesting patterns from the combined data. This analysis approach is called multi-sensor analysis. In this paper, we present an interactive visual exploration solution for the first important step of multi-sensor analysis: the assessment and selection of remote sensing scenes. This solution is the first step towards a larger Visual Analytics (VA) approach that turns multisensor analysis into a transparent and interactive analysis method. We conduct our research in the context of GeoMultiSens, which is an interdisciplinary research project between remote sensing, computer science and VA experts. To demonstrate the utility of our visual exploration solution, we use a real-world scenario: the assessment and selection of scenes in order to study the change of forest cover in Europe. The application example indicates that interactive visual exploration facilitates a structured assessment of the quantity and quality of remote sensing scenes and enables scientists to exclude low-quality scenes from subsequent multi-sensor analysis.