What is the purpose of pan-sharpening in remote sensing?

Pan-sharpening serves the specific purpose of enhancing the visual clarity and detail of remote sensing images by combining data from a higher-resolution panchromatic image with lower-resolution multispectral bands. The panchromatic band provides more spatial detail due to its higher resolution, while the multispectral bands contain critical information about the spectral characteristics of the features observed. By merging these two types of data, pan-sharpening produces an image that has both high spatial resolution and rich spectral information, making it more useful for applications such as land use classification, vegetation analysis, and urban planning.

This process facilitates better visualization and analysis of the data, enabling more accurate interpretations and decision-making in various fields such as environmental monitoring and resource management. The other options, while relevant to remote sensing, describe distinct processes that do not necessarily pertain to the specific technique of pan-sharpening.