The purpose of our study was to investigate four types of coding strategies using the same Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. We digitized unclassified SAR imagery to include scenes from urban areas, seaports, oil refineries, industrial sites, an airfield, and power transmission lines. Two color and two black and white (BW) coding schemes were applied to the imagery. Five experienced radar interpreters were briefed and viewed 35 mm slides of the imagery. They judged image usefulness by reference to an interpretability scale. Analysis of the ratings showed that the BW codes received significantly higher interpretability ratings than the color codes.
HalseyR.M.ChapanisA.On the number of absolutely identifiable spectral hues. J. Optical Society of America, 1951, 41, 1057–1058.
3.
HarneyR.C.MartinJ.S.SullivanD.R.Quasi-Three-Dimensional Display of Infrared Radar Images Using Range/Intensity Color Mapping, MIT Technical Note 1978–44, 1978.
4.
SnyderH.L.ShedivyM.E.MaddoxM.E., Quality Metrics of Digitally Derived Imagery and their Relation to Interpreter Performance: III. Subjective Scaling of Hard-Copy Digital Imagery, Report HFL-3, 1981, Dept. of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
5.
TedfordW.H.BergquistS.LFlynnW.E.The size-color illusion, J. of General Psychology, 1977, 97, 145–149.
6.
TrumboB.E.A theory for coloring divoirate statistical maps, American Statistician, 1981, 35, 220–226.
