One of the most common tasks when working with satellite imagery is exploring and combining different spectral bands. By creating various band combinations, it becomes possible to extract valuable information for research and geospatial analysis.
Combining satellite image bands offers several advantages:
- Identifying Earth features such as vegetation, water bodies, and urban areas through specific spectral patterns.
- Monitoring environmental changes over time, such as deforestation, natural disasters, or urban expansion.
- Detecting objects like infrastructure, vehicles, or buildings.
- Enhancing image quality by reducing noise and improving contrast through multispectral integration.
Preparing Satellite Bands for Use in ArcGIS Pro
Before combining bands in ArcGIS Pro, it is necessary to decompress the downloaded satellite image files. In the case of Landsat images, the bands are located directly within the extracted folder. For Sentinel-2 data, the bands are usually stored in the ‘IMG_DATA’ subdirectory inside the ‘GRANULE’ folder.
Sentinel-2 imagery is organized by spatial resolution: 10m, 20m, and 60m. It is important to select the appropriate resolution depending on the analysis goals.
To load the bands into a new map in ArcGIS Pro, use the “Add Data” button. For example, to work with Landsat 9 imagery, bands such as B6, B5, and B2 can be selected individually and added to the map project.
Adding Landsat 9 image bands in ArcGIS Pro.
Combining Bands with the Composite Bands Too
There are multiple ways to combine satellite image bands, depending on the purpose of the analysis. Each combination is designed to highlight certain features, such as vegetation, water, or urban areas. Users are encouraged to experiment with different combinations to enhance their interpretation of the landscape.
Main satellite band combinations of the Landsat 8/9 and Sentinel 2 sensors.
In this example, the “Agriculture” band combination uses bands “B6”, “B5”, and “B2” from Landsat 9. These bands should be added in this specific order into the “Composite Bands” tool. This tool is located in the following path within ArcGIS Pro:
Geoprocessing > Toolboxes > Data Management Tools > Raster > Raster Processing > Composite Bands
Configuration of the “Composite Bands” tool.
After combining the spectral bands, the resulting composite image provides a detailed and visually informative representation. This process can also be performed with Sentinel-2 data by selecting the desired bands according to the application’s objective.
Combination of spectral bands from Landsat 9 and Sentinel 2 sensors.
