Awesome Vegetation Index [](https://awesome.re)

List of reference, applications of common Vegetation Indices for Multi-spectral, hyper-spectral and UAV images. (contribution are welcome)

Table of Contents

• Literature Reviews
• Multispectral Vegetation Index
  • Broadband Greenness and Cover
  • Other applications for Broadband images
• Hyperspectral Vegetation Index
• Vegetation Index for UAV images
• Community
  • Learning Materials
• Software
  • Commercial
  • Open

Literature Reviews for VI

1. Significant Remote Sensing Vegetation Indices: A Review of Developments and Applications (li et al. 2017)
2. Research on Vegetation Information Extraction from Visible UAV Remote Sensing Images (yuan et al. 2018)
3. Hyperspectral vegetation indices and their relationships with agricultural crop characteristics(Thenkabail et al.2000)
4. Evaluating Multispectral Images and Vegetation Indices for Precision Farming Applications from UAV Images (Candiago et al. 2015)

Multispectral Vegetation Index

Greenness and Cover

Broadband greenness measures the health of vegetation leaf area index (LAI) and canopy chlorophyll density (CCD) vegetation cover, LAI, biomass, growth, and vigor assessment. It is worthy noting that the selection of proper wavebands in hyperspectral data could partly compensate the limitations of some VI formulas.(Zhao et al.2007)

Name	Abbrev.	Formula	Atmospheric Effects Parameters	Soil Adjustment Parameters	Reference
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index	NDVI		Pigment, Canopy		paper)
The Wide Dynamic Range Vegetation Index	WDRVI
Simple Ratio	SR
Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation Index	ARVI		γ
soil and atmosphere resistant vegetation	SARVI		γ	L
modified soil and atmosphere resistant vegetation	MSARVI		γ
atmosphere effect resistant vegetation	IAVI		γ	L
Enhanced Vegetation Index	EVI		C1	L
Perpendicular Vegetation Index	PVI			M,I
Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	SAVI			L
Transformed Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	TSAVI			M,L
Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	MSAVI			L'
Optimized Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	OSAVI			θ
generalized soil-adjusted vegetation index	GESAVI			L,M,Z
Global Environmental Monitoring Index	GEMI			n
Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index	CARI
Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index	MCARI
Difference Vegetation Index	DVI
weighted Difference Vegetation Index	WDVI			L
Renormalized Difference Vegetation Index	RDVI

Parameter: M: Slope of soil baseline I: Intercept of soil baseline L: Soil conditioning index L': A formula need to be added θ: SAIL constant 0.16 n: Atmospheric Regulation Factor(C =6、C =7．5) y: Atmospheric radiation correction coefficient

Other Applications for Broadband Images

Name	Abbrev.	Formula	Satellite Example	Sensitivity	Reference
Photochemical Reflectance Index	PRI		WorldView-2	Light Use
Structure Insensitive Pigment Index	SIPI		ALI	Light Use
Normalized Difference Nitrogen Index	NDNI		SCIAMACHY	Nitrogen
Plant Senescence Reflectance Index	PSRI		LandsatMSS	Dry or Senescent Carbon
Carotenoid Reflectance Index 1	CRI1		LandsatTM	Carotenoid
Anthocyanin Reflectance Index 1	ARI1,ARI2		LandsatMSS	Anthocyanin
Normalized Difference Water Index	NDWI		MIPAS	Water
Moisture Stress Index	MSI		LandsatTM	Water
Normalized Difference Infrared Index	NDII		ALI	Water

Hyperspectral Vegetation Index

The overall amount and quality of photosynthetic material in vegetation.

NAME	INDEX(series)	FORMULA (sample)	SENSITIVITY	Reference
Improved SAVI with self-adjustment factor L	MSAVI		Canopy structure	Qi et al. (1994)
Modified Triangular Vegetation Index	MTVI1,MTVI2		Canopy structure	Haboudane et al. (2004)
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index	gNDVI,hNDVI, etc		Canopy structure	Rouse et al. (1974)
Optimized Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	OSAVI		Canopy structure	Rondeaux et al. (1996)
Renormalized Difference Vegetation Index	RDVI		Canopy structure	Rougean and Breon (1995)
Simple Ratio Index	SR,SR705		Canopy structure	Jordan (1969); Rouse et al. (1979)
Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	SAVI,SAVI2		Canopy structure	Huete (1988)
Spectral Polygon Vegetation Index	SPVI		Canopy structure	Vincini et al. (2006)
Thematic Mapper NDVI	tmNDVI		Canopy structure	Rouse et al. (1974)
Transformed Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index	TSAVI		Canopy structure	Baret et al. (1989)
Anthocyanin Reflectance Index	ARI		Carotenoid content	Gitelson et al. (2002)
Pigment Specific Simple Ratio for Carotenoids	PSSRc		Carotenoid content	Blackburn (1998)
Structural Independent Pigment Index	SIPI		Carotenoid content	Penuelas and Filella (1998)
Carter Stress Index	CSI1,CSI2		Chlorophyll	Carter (1994)
Chlorophyll Absorption Integral	CAI,CRI,CRI2		Chlorophyll	Oppelt and Mauser (2003)
Gitelson & Merzlyak Index	GM1,GM2		Chlorophyll	Gitelson and Merzlyak (1997)
Leaf Chlorophyll Index	LCI,LIC1,LIC2,LIC3		Chlorophyll	Datt (1999)
M Locherer Chlorophyll	MLO		Chlorophyll	unpublished
Modified Chlorophyll Absorption in Reflectance Index	MCARI,MCARI1,MCARI2		Chlorophyll	Daughtry et al. (2000)
Normalized Phaeophytinization Index	NPQI		Chlorophyll	Barnes (1992)
Photochemical Reflectance Index	PRI		Chlorophyll	Gamon et al. (1992)
Red Edge Inflection Point	REIP1		Chlorophyll	Guyot et al. (1988)
Red Edge Point	REP		Chlorophyll	Dawson and Curran (1998)
Transformed Chlorophyll Absorption in Reflectance Index	TCARI		Chlorophyll	Haboudane et al. (2002)
Triangular Vegetation Index	TVI		Chlorophyll	Broge and Leblanc (2000)
Vogelmann Index	VOG1,VOG2,VOG3		Chlorophyll	Vogelmann (1993)
Zarco-Tejada & Miller	ZTM		Chlorophyll	Zarco-Tejada et al. (2001)
Pigment Specific Simple Ratio for Chl a	PSSRa		Chlorophyll a	Blackburn (1998)
Pigment Specific Simple Ratio for Chl b	PSSRb		Chlorophyll b	Blackburn (1998)
Shortwave Infrared Green Vegetation Index	SWIRVI		Dry Matter	Lobell et al. (2001)
Normalized Difference Lignin Index	NDLI		Dry Matter / Lignin	Serrano et al. (2002)
Normalized Difference Nitrogen Index	NDNI		Dry Matter / Nitrogen	Serrano et al. (2002)
Normalized Pigment Chlorophyll Index	NPCI		Dry Matter / Pigment	Penuelas et al. (1994)
Pigment Index	BGI,BRI		Dry Matter / Pigment	Zarco-Tejada et al. (2005)
Red-Green Pigment Index	RGI		Dry Matter / Pigment	Zarco-Tejada et al. (2005)
Simple Ratio Pigment Index	SRPI		Dry Matter / Pigment	Penuelas et al. (1995)
Desease Water Stress Index	DSWI,DWSI5		Water Content	Galvão et al. (2005)
Leaf Water Vegetation Index	LWVI1,LWVI2		Water Content	Galvão et al. (2005)
Moisture Stress Index	MSI		Water Content	Hunt et al. (1989)
Normalized Difference Water Index	NDWI		Water Content	Gao (1996)
Plant Water Index	PWI		Water Content	Penuelas et al. (1997)
Simple Ratio Water Index	SRWI		Water Content	Zarco-Tejada et al. (2003)

Vegetation Index for UAV images

With specific camera, UAV images can be used to calculate all kind of hyperspectral and multi-band vegetation index, where RGB only images can be used to calculate following indices.

Name	Abbrev.	Formula	Atmospheric Effects Parameters	Soil Adjustment Parameters	Reference
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index	NDVI		Pigment, Canopy		paper)
Visible-band difference vegetation index	VDVI
Normalized green-blue difference index	NGBDI
Normalized green-red difference index	NGRDI
Red-green ratio index	RGRI
Blue Green ratio index	BGRI
Excess green	EXG
Excess red	EXR
excess green minus excess red	EXGR
color index of vegetation extraction	CIVE
Red green blue vegetation index	RGBVI

Community

Learning Materials

• Index Database - An Index-Data-Base (IDB) could be an useful tool to find indices for a required application, adapted to a selected sensor.
• LandscapeToolbox - The Vegetation/Greenness Indices part provides a detailed descriptions and applications of 9 common indices.

Software programs

There are currently a large number of software with Vegetation Index tools, and we have a brief summary of them,

Commercial

Name	Description	Customed Calculation	Pre definition Indices	Pre definition Satellite
ERDAS IMAGINE		√
ArcGIS	15 Image indices are computed from multiband images	√	15
ENVI	ENVI exposes 27 of these indices which were selected based upon their robustness, scientific basis, and applicability.	√	27
Idrisi	A full suite of mathematical and relational modeling tools for deriving new data layers as a function of existing layers.	√
Pix4Dfields	Dedicated software for agriculture	√
opendronemap	https://opendronemap.org/webodm/	√

Open Source

Name	Description	Customed Calculation	Pre definition Indices	Pre definition Satellite
QGIS		√

Note

This list will be updated in time, and volunteer contributions are welcome. For questions or sharing, please feel free to contact us or make issues.