The visibility of targets in satellite image data is clearly limited by the spatial resolution of the sensor. This is why many attempts have been made and will be continued to improve the performance of earth-observation sensor systems by reducing the size of the instantaneous field of view (IFOV). However, this is not the only way to achieve higher geometrical resolution in satellite imagery as long as additional information, which is available in multiple scene coverage, remains unutilized. Therefore, an approach has been developed which makes use of this type of information by merging the data from several images of the same area. This enhancement technique is called Data Cumulation. The paper starts with the theory of sampling image data over a scene, discusses the theoretical background of the approach and describes it implementation. Simulated Data Cumulation has been carried out using both artificial targets and satellite image data as well. The method was proven to be effective if certain requirements are met. The usefulness of the approach as well as its limitations are discussed in the paper. © 1990.
