Workflow Narrative

Multi-Sensor Fusion Monitoring

Problem It Solves

Where do optical and SAR signals jointly support actionable change alerts, and where is confidence high enough to triage immediately?

Who It Is For

Multi-source monitoring teams combining optical and SAR evidence.

Primary User

National/regional EO monitoring programs, environmental observatories, and risk intelligence teams.

What It Does

Fuses optical change, SAR stability cues, and terrain context into one disturbance-monitoring product.
Produces sensor-agreement and fused-probability outputs for confidence-first screening.
Emits high-confidence change zones suitable for direct review and reporting.

How It Works

Runs `remote_sensing_change_detection` and `sar_analysis_readiness` as upstream stages.
Computes a per-pixel agreement score from optical confidence plus SAR consistency/coherence cues.
Combines normalized change strength and agreement into fused change probability.
Indicative formula: $P_{fused} = w_c \cdot |\Delta_{optical}|_{norm} + w_a \cdot A_{sensor}$.

Why It Wins

Prevents one-sensor overconfidence by explicitly encoding cross-sensor agreement into final change probability.

Typical Buying Trigger

Operations teams need lower-false-alarm change monitoring in cloudy/seasonally variable regions where single-sensor methods are unstable.

Typical Presets

fast: lower-overhead configuration for broader candidate capture.
balanced: default setting for operational triage.
conservative: stricter thresholding for high-specificity alerting.

Inputs

Parameter	Optional	Description
baseline_bundle, baseline_red_band_index, baseline_nir_band_index	no	Baseline multispectral bundle and red/NIR band selectors used to compute baseline vegetation response.
change_bundle, change_red_band_index, change_nir_band_index	no	Change-date multispectral bundle and red/NIR band selectors used for signed change estimation.
input_sar, input_dem	no	SAR scene and terrain model used for radiometric terrain correction and readiness metrics.
optional pair_sar	yes	Optional second SAR scene used when pair/coherence diagnostics are enabled.
optional thermal_bundle, thermal_band_index	yes	Optional thermal raster and 0-based band index used for three-modality diagnostics.
profile: fast \| balanced \| conservative	no	Processing profile controlling sensitivity, quality strictness, and runtime tradeoffs.
harmonization_mode	yes	Cross-sensor bias harmonization mode: off, robust, or conservative.
high_confidence_threshold, max_zone_features	no	Threshold and feature-cap controls for extracting high-confidence change zones.
vector_output_format	yes	Output vector format for zones: gpkg, geojson, or shp.

Outputs

Parameter	Type	Description
fused_change_probability	GeoTIFF	Cross-sensor fused probability of meaningful environmental change.
sensor_agreement	GeoTIFF	Agreement surface indicating where sensors support the same change interpretation.
terrain_context	GeoTIFF	Derived terrain context layer used by fused change interpretation.
uncertainty_inflation	GeoTIFF	Per-pixel uncertainty inflation diagnostic from cross-modality fusion.
high_confidence_change_zones	GeoPackage	Vector zones representing high-confidence change hotspots.
thermal_input_contract	JSON	Thermal coverage and weighting contract generated when the workflow runs.
modality_contribution_diagnostics	JSON	Relative modality contribution diagnostics for optical/SAR/thermal sources.
summary	JSON	Machine-readable summary report containing run metadata, QA diagnostics, and key metrics.
html_report	HTML	Human-readable customer-facing report generated from the summary contract for stakeholder review and QA traceability.

Python Example

import whitebox_workflows as wbw

wbe = wbw.WbEnvironment(include_pro=True, tier="pro")

fused, agreement, terrain, uncertainty, zones, thermal_contract, modality_diagnostics, summary = wbe.multi_sensor_fusion_monitoring(
    baseline_bundle="data/baseline_bundle.tif",
    baseline_red_band_index=0,
    baseline_nir_band_index=1,
    change_bundle="data/change_bundle.tif",
    change_red_band_index=0,
    change_nir_band_index=1,
    input_sar="data/sar_a.tif",
    input_dem="data/dem.tif",
    pair_sar="data/sar_b.tif",
    thermal_bundle="data/thermal.tif",
    thermal_band_index=0,
    profile="balanced",
    harmonization_mode="robust",
    vector_output_format="gpkg",
    high_confidence_threshold=0.8,
    max_zone_features=25000,
    output_prefix="output/ms_fusion",
)

print(fused)
print(agreement)
print(terrain)
print(uncertainty)
print(zones)
print(thermal_contract)
print(modality_diagnostics)
print(summary)

License Notice

Use of this function requires a license for Whitebox Workflows Professional (WbW-Pro). Please visit www.whiteboxgeo.com to purchase a license.

Project Links

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