Extracting the central strip from LANDSAT 7 imagery

Extracting the central strip from LANDSAT 7 imagery

February 8, 2016

Here is a simple Python code to extract the central strip from Landsat 7 imagery (SLC-off),  that is not affected by the SLC failure. The algorithm shrinks the striping zones through a morphological filter (erosion) and creates a new shapefile AOI that extracts the desired raster extent without striping effects. The code is based on Python for ArcGIS (arcpy) – so you require a ArcGIS license.

General steps:

  1. Loop through all Landsat 7 data folders
  2. Stack bands for each image
  3. Create a mask
  4. Erode the mask by 20 pixels
  5. Convert the mask to polygon
  6. Create a minimum bounding box
  7. Clip the original raster through the bbox

 

import arcpy
from arcpy.sa import *

import sys,os

#  Environment settings (Activate Spatial Analyst, Overwrite Outputs allowed and TIFF compression is LZW)
arcpy.CheckOutExtension("spatial")
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True
arcpy.env.compression = 'LZW'

# this is your main directory with all unzipped Landsat datasets
 rootdir = "D:\\DATA\\Landsat7\\"

# create scratch folder "temp" 
temp = "D:\\DATA\\temp\\"

# loop through directory with all unzipped Landsat 7 folders
 for files in os.listdir(rootdir):   
    files = os.path.join(rootdir, files)   
    
    # for each loop the subdir "files" is now the current workspace 
    # (e.g. LE71520322015157-SC20160224113319) that contains the Landsat bands
    arcpy.env.workspace = files  
    rasters = arcpy.ListRasters("*", "TIF")  
    
    # create empty array
    stack_liste = []  
    # loop through all rasters in subdir
    for raster in rasters:   

        image = arcpy.Raster(raster) 
        name  = image.name 
        index = name.split("_")[0]  

        # fill up the array only with the actual spectral bands        
        sr = "_sr_band"  
        if sr in raster:   
            stack_liste.append(raster)             

    # now stack all bands within the array
    stack_name = files + "\\" + index + "_stack.tif"    
    arcpy.CompositeBands_management(stack_liste, stack_name)  

    # convert the image stack to a mask by logical operation with an absurd value that will result in an output "0"
    con = EqualTo(stack_name, 123456789)  

    # now shrink the raster mask with value "0" by 20 pixels
    shrink = temp + "shrink"  
    shrinking = Shrink(con, 20, 0) 
    shrinking.save(shrink)  

    zone = temp + "zone.shp" 
    bbox = temp + "bbox.shp"  

    # conver the shrunk mask to polygon and create a minimum bounding box
    arcpy.RasterToPolygon_conversion(shrink, zone, "NO_SIMPLIFY", "VALUE") 
    arcpy.MinimumBoundingGeometry_management(zone, bbox, "RECTANGLE_BY_WIDTH", "NONE")  

    # now use that bounding box as a mask to cut out the central nadir strip from the original stack
    # Final result 
    extract = files + "\\" + index + "_aoi.tif"  
    ExtractByMask = arcpy.sa.ExtractByMask(stack_name, bbox) 
    ExtractByMask.save(extract)

 

follow us and share it on:

you may also like:

Guest talk at ENS Lyon

Guest talk at ENS Lyon

Our PI Florian Betz was invited to give a seminar talk about his research on remote sensing of river dynamics at the ENS Lyon in France. The seminar "Cafe Fluvial" is part of the doctoral training and research network "H2O Lyon" in which a number of research...

Successful MSc Defense by Lena Jäger

Successful MSc Defense by Lena Jäger

On 24 February 2026, EAGLE MSc student Lena Jäger successfully defended her Master’s thesis titled “Assessing the potential of thermal UAS for spatio-temporal Arctic snow monitoring – A pilot study in Bjørndalen, Svalbard.” Her work focused on one of the Arctic’s most...

Henri Debray Successfully Defends PhD on Global Urban Morphology

Henri Debray Successfully Defends PhD on Global Urban Morphology

We are delighted to announce that our PhD student Henri Debray has successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “Characterizing Urban Morphology at a Global Scale: Geospatial Perspectives,”. Henri’s thesis builds on a series of his scientific publications investigating...

Dr. Simon Plank interviewed by NASA Earth Observatory

Dr. Simon Plank interviewed by NASA Earth Observatory

Home Reef, which is part of the Tonga Volcanic Arc, is the youngest volcanic island on Earth. Dr. Simon Plank, our habilitation candidate and guest lecturer from DLR, has been monitoring the evolution of Home Reef since the island emerged above sea level in September...

EOCap4Africa Training in Kinshasa

EOCap4Africa Training in Kinshasa

This week, 14 students are attending a test run of our Remote Sensing module on Remote Sensing for Biodiversity Conservation at the University of Kinshasa. This module is part of the EOCap4Africa project (funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, lead Dr....

Share This