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Abstract The spectral unmixing of mixed pixels is a key factor in remote sensing images, especially for hyperspectral imagery. A commonly used approach to spectral unmixing has been linear unmixing. However, the question of whether linear or nonlinear processes dominate spectral signatures of mixed pixels is still an unresolved matter. In this study, we put forward a new nonlinear model for inferring end‐member fractions within hyperspectral scenes. This study focuses on comparing the nonlinear model with a linear model. A detail comparative analysis of the fractions ‘sunlit crown’, ‘sunlit background’ and ‘shadow’ between the two methods was carried out through visualization, and comparing with supervised classification using a database of laboratory simulated‐forest scenes. Our results show that the nonlinear model of spectral unmixing outperforms the linear model, especially in the scenes with translucent crown on a white background. A nonlinear mixture model is needed to account for the multiple scattering between tree crowns and background. Acknowledgements This work is sponsored by ‘863’ program (2006AA12Z104) of China. The authors would like to thank the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for financial support and Mr Jinnian Wang for help with the experiments.
Fan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.