A random forest (RF) classifier is an ensemble classifier that produces multiple decision trees, using a randomly selected subset of training samples and variables. This classifier has become popular within the remote sensing community due to the accuracy of its classifications. The overall objective of this work was to review the utilization of RF classifier in remote sensing. This review has revealed that RF classifier can successfully handle high data dimensionality and multicolinearity, being both fast and insensitive to overfitting. It is, however, sensitive to the sampling design. The variable importance (VI) measurement provided by the RF classifier has been extensively exploited in different scenarios, for example to reduce the number of dimensions of hyperspectral data, to identify the most relevant multisource remote sensing and geographic data, and to select the most suitable season to classify particular target classes. Further investigations are required into less commonly exploited uses of this classifier, such as for sample proximity analysis to detect and remove outliers in the training samples.

Random forest in remote sensing: A review of applications and future directions

Land cover monitoring using remotely sensed data requires robust classification methods which allow for the accurate mapping of complex land cover and land use categories. Random forest (RF) is a powerful machine learning classifier that is relatively unknown in land remote sensing and has not been evaluated thoroughly by the remote sensing community compared to more conventional pattern recognition techniques. Key advantages of RF include: their non-parametric nature; high classification accuracy; and capability to determine variable importance. However, the split rules for classification are unknown, therefore RF can be considered to be black box type classifier. RF provides an algorithm for estimating missing values; and flexibility to perform several types of data analysis, including regression, classification, survival analysis, and unsupervised learning.

In this paper, the performance of the RF classifier for land cover classification of a complex area is explored. Evaluation was based on several criteria: mapping accuracy, sensitivity to data set size and noise. Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper data captured in European spring and summer were used with auxiliary variables derived from a digital terrain model to classify 14 different land categories in the south of Spain. Results show that the RF algorithm yields accurate land cover classifications, with 92% overall accuracy and a Kappa index of 0.92. RF is robust to training data reduction and noise because significant differences in kappa values were only observed for data reduction and noise addition values greater than 50 and 20%, respectively. Additionally, variables that RF identified as most important for classifying land cover coincided with expectations. A McNemar test indicates an overall better performance of the random forest model over a single decision tree at the 0.00001 significance level.

An assessment of the effectiveness of a random forest classifier for land-cover classification

Machine learning offers the potential for effective and efficient classification of remotely sensed imagery. The strengths of machine learning include the capacity to handle data of high dimensionality and to map classes with very complex characteristics. Nevertheless, implementing a machine-learning classification is not straightforward, and the literature provides conflicting advice regarding many key issues. This article therefore provides an overview of machine learning from an applied perspective. We focus on the relatively mature methods of support vector machines, single decision trees (DTs), Random Forests, boosted DTs, artificial neural networks, and k-nearest neighbours (k-NN). Issues considered include the choice of algorithm, training data requirements, user-defined parameter selection and optimization, feature space impacts and reduction, and computational costs. We illustrate these issues through applying machine-learning classification to two publically available remotely sensed dat...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01431161.2018.1433343

Implementation of machine-learning classification in remote sensing: an applied review

Machine learning predictive models for mineral prospectivity: an evaluation of neural networks, random forest, regression trees and support vector machines

Tree species diversity is a key parameter to describe forest ecosystems. It is, for example, important for issues such as wildlife habitat modeling and close-to-nature forest management. We examined the suitability of 8-band WorldView-2 satellite data for the identification of 10 tree species in a temperate forest in Austria. We performed a Random Forest (RF) classification (object-based and pixel-based) using spectra of manually delineated sunlit regions of tree crowns. The overall accuracy for classifying 10 tree species was around 82% (8 bands, object-based). The class-specific producer’s accuracies ranged between 33% (European hornbeam) and 94% (European beech) and the user’s accuracies between 57% (European hornbeam) and 92% (Lawson’s cypress). The object-based approach outperformed the pixel-based approach. We could show that the 4 new WorldView-2 bands (Coastal, Yellow, Red Edge, and Near Infrared 2) have only limited impact on classification accuracy if only the 4 main tree species (Norway spruce, Scots pine, European beech, and English oak) are to be separated. However, classification accuracy increased significantly using the full spectral resolution if further tree species were included. Beside the impact on overall classification accuracy, the importance of the spectral bands was evaluated with two measures provided by RF. An in-depth analysis of the RF output was carried out to evaluate the impact of reference data quality and the resulting reliability of final class assignments. Finally, an extensive literature review on tree species classification comprising about 20 studies is presented.

Tree Species Classification with Random Forest Using Very High Spatial Resolution 8-Band WorldView-2 Satellite Data

Airborne lidar systems have become a source for the acquisition of elevation data. They provide georeferenced, irregularly distributed 3D point clouds of high altimetric accuracy. Moreover, these systems can provide for a single laser pulse, multiple returns or echoes, which correspond to different illuminated objects. In addition to multi-echo laser scanners, full-waveform systems are able to record 1D signals representing a train of echoes caused by reflections at different targets. These systems provide more information about the structure and the physical characteristics of the targets. Many approaches have been developed, for urban mapping, based on aerial lidar solely or combined with multispectral image data. However, they have not assessed the importance of input features. In this paper, we focus on a multi-source framework using aerial lidar (multi-echo and full waveform) and aerial multispectral image data. We aim to study the feature relevance for dense urban scenes. The Random Forests algorithm is chosen as a classifier: it runs efficiently on large datasets, and provides measures of feature importance for each class. The margin theory is used as a confidence measure of the classifier, and to confirm the relevance of input features for urban classification. The quantitative results confirm the importance of the joint use of optical multispectral and lidar data. Moreover, the relevance of full-waveform lidar features is demonstrated for building and vegetation area discrimination.

http://recherche.ign.fr/labos/matis/pdf/articles_revues/chehata_etal_IJPRS10.pdf

Relevance of airborne lidar and multispectral image data for urban scene classification using Random Forests

Various multi-echo and Full-waveform (FW) lidar features can be processed. In this paper, multiple classifers are applied to lidar feature selection for urban scene classification. Random forests are used since they provide an accurate classification and run efficiently on large datasets. Moreover, they return measures of variable importance for each class. The feature selection is obtained by backward elimination of features depending on their importance. This is crucial to analyze the relevance of each lidar feature for the classification of urban scenes. The Random Forests classification using selected variables provide an overall accuracy of 94.35%.

/pdf/airborne-lidar-feature-selection-for-urban-classification-4k06nvjjfv.pdf

Airborne lidar feature selection for urban classification using random forests

Margin-based ordered aggregation for ensemble pruning

Fast data selection for SVM training using ensemble margin

Support Vector Machines (SVMs) are popular for pattern classification. However, training a SVM requires large memory and high processing time, especially for large datasets, which limits their applications. To speed up their training, we present a new efficient support vector selection method based on ensemble margin, a key concept in ensemble classifiers. This algorithm exploits a new version of the margin of an ensemble-based classification and selects the smallest margin instances as support vectors. Our experimental results show that our method reduces training set size significantly without degrading the performance of the resulting SVMs classifiers.

Li Guo

Papers

Relevance of airborne lidar and multispectral image data for urban scene classification using Random Forests

Airborne lidar feature selection for urban classification using random forests

Margin-based ordered aggregation for ensemble pruning

Fast data selection for SVM training using ensemble margin

Support Vectors Selection for Supervised Learning Using an Ensemble Approach