i.landsat8.qc - Reclassifies Landsat8 QA band according to acceptable pixel quality as defined by the user

Abstract

Removing unreliable pixels is a fundamental and one of the first steps in remote sensing. Landsat8 provides a Quality Assessment (QA) band which can be used for this purpose. The i.landsat8.qc module generates reclassification rule files which can be used in r.reclass for filtering the QA band according to pixel quality characteristics the user defines as unacceptable. Values defined as unacceptable for a given condition will be set to NULL in the output raster map. All other values will be set to 1. The Quality Assessment (QA) band from Landsat8 contains 16bit integer values that represent "bit-packed combinations of surface, atmosphere, and sensor conditions that can affect the overall usefulness of a given pixel". The QA band is currently only available for Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS data.