Electronic hardware implementation of the principal components transformation for multichannel image data

An implementation of the principal components transformation is presented which makes use of analogue and digital electronic hardware under the control of a microprocessor. The hardware is used to collect covariance statistics from a multichannel set of digital video images and to perform the actual transformation on real-time analogue video signals derived from the stored data. This approach offers considerable advantages over a completely software based system in terms of speed and cost. An example of the use of the system for the analysis of Landsat multispectral data is presented.