GEMI

Summary

Calculates the Global Environmental Monitoring Index (GEMI) from a multiband raster object and returns a raster object with the index values.

Discussion

The Global Environmental Monitoring Index (GEMI) method is a nonlinear vegetation index for global environmental monitoring from satellite imagery. It's similar to NDVI, but it's less sensitive to atmospheric effects. It is affected by bare soil; therefore, it's not recommended for use in areas of sparse or moderately dense vegetation.

GEMI = eta * (1 - 0.25 * eta) - ((Red - 0.125)/(1 - Red))

where,

eta = (2 * (NIR2 - Red2) + 1.5 * NIR + 0.5 * Red)/(NIR + Red + 0.5)

For information about other multiband raster indexes, see the Band Arithmetic raster function.

The referenced raster dataset for the raster object is temporary. To make it permanent, you can call the raster object's save method.

Syntax

GEMI (raster, {nir_band_id}, {red_band_id})
ParameterExplanationData Type
raster

The input raster.

Raster
nir_band_id

The band ID of the near-infrared band. The ID index uses one-based indexing.

(The default value is 4)

Integer
red_band_id

The band ID of the red-edge band. The ID index uses one-based indexing.

(The default value is 3)

Integer
Return Value
Data TypeExplanation
Raster

The output raster object with the GEMI index values.

Code sample

GEMI example

Calculates the GEMI function for a Landsat 8 image.

import arcpy

GEMI_raster = arcpy.sa.GEMI("Landsat8.tif", 5, 4)

Related topics