Bandbeeld

Bandbeeld is a Dutch term used in remote sensing and geoinformatics to refer to an image formed from one or more spectral bands captured by an imaging sensor. A bandbeeld can be a grayscale image representing a single band, or a color image produced by assigning different bands to the red, green and blue channels (a true-color or false-color composite). The term is common in Dutch-language geospatial literature and describes the visual representation of spectral information contained in multispectral or hyperspectral data.

Bandbeelden are generated from data collected by satellite or airborne sensors, such as Landsat, Sentinel, or aerial photography. Each band corresponds to a specific range of wavelengths, for example visible, near-infrared, or shortwave infrared, and has its own spatial and radiometric resolution. Processing steps often include radiometric calibration, atmospheric correction, and geometric alignment; sometimes band algebra or index calculations are performed to create specialized band combinations (e.g., NDVI). The resulting images are used for tasks such as land cover classification, vegetation monitoring, water body delineation, mineral mapping, and change detection.

In practice, bandbeelden aid interpretation by highlighting physical properties visible in particular spectral ranges, and they form the basis for many GIS analyses and remote sensing workflows.