Enhancement of sand dune texture from Landsat imagery using difference of Gaussian filter

Satellite imagery provides a useful means of mapping various sand dune types in the sand fields. However, the texture and composition of dunes is usually not clear on the images. In order to enhance textural and spatial features of the dunes, difference of Gaussian (DOG) filters were applied to the Landsat Thematic Mapper digital imagery. The results indicate that this technique is effective in enhancing a broad range of textural features in the sand dunes. By varying the band width of the DOG filter it was possible to select a specific range and size of textural features to be enhanced.