Color-based Segmentation of Sky/Cloud Images From Ground-based Cameras

TL;DR

This paper introduces a learning-based, parameter-free segmentation framework for ground-based sky/cloud images, utilizing color space analysis and PLS regression, and provides a large annotated database for research.

Contribution

It proposes a novel supervised segmentation method that is entirely learning-based and free of manual parameters, along with a new large annotated sky/cloud image database.

Findings

Effective segmentation across diverse lighting conditions

No manual parameter tuning required

Provides a comprehensive annotated sky/cloud image database

Abstract

Sky/cloud images captured by ground-based cameras (a.k.a. whole sky imagers) are increasingly used nowadays because of their applications in a number of fields, including climate modeling, weather prediction, renewable energy generation, and satellite communications. Due to the wide variety of cloud types and lighting conditions in such images, accurate and robust segmentation of clouds is challenging. In this paper, we present a supervised segmentation framework for ground-based sky/cloud images based on a systematic analysis of different color spaces and components, using partial least squares (PLS) regression. Unlike other state-of-the-art methods, our proposed approach is entirely learning-based and does not require any manually-defined parameters. In addition, we release the Singapore Whole Sky IMaging SEGmentation Database (SWIMSEG), a large database of annotated sky/cloud images, to the research community.