Transformers Meet Hyperspectral Imaging: A Comprehensive Study of Models, Challenges and Open Problems

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Guyang, Abdulla, Waleed
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918052760649728
author Zhang, Guyang
Abdulla, Waleed
author_facet Zhang, Guyang
Abdulla, Waleed
contents Transformers have become the architecture of choice for learning long-range dependencies, yet their adoption in hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is still emerging. We reviewed more than 300 papers published up to 2025 and present the first end-to-end survey dedicated to Transformer-based HSI classification. The study categorizes every stage of a typical pipeline-pre-processing, patch or pixel tokenization, positional encoding, spatial-spectral feature extraction, multi-head self-attention variants, skip connections, and loss design-and contrasts alternative design choices with the unique spatial-spectral properties of HSI. We map the field's progress against persistent obstacles: scarce labeled data, extreme spectral dimensionality, computational overhead, and limited model explainability. Finally, we outline a research agenda prioritizing valuable public data sets, lightweight on-edge models, illumination and sensor shifts robustness, and intrinsically interpretable attention mechanisms. Our goal is to guide researchers in selecting, combining, or extending Transformer components that are truly fit for purpose for next-generation HSI applications.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_08596
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Transformers Meet Hyperspectral Imaging: A Comprehensive Study of Models, Challenges and Open Problems
Zhang, Guyang
Abdulla, Waleed
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Transformers have become the architecture of choice for learning long-range dependencies, yet their adoption in hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is still emerging. We reviewed more than 300 papers published up to 2025 and present the first end-to-end survey dedicated to Transformer-based HSI classification. The study categorizes every stage of a typical pipeline-pre-processing, patch or pixel tokenization, positional encoding, spatial-spectral feature extraction, multi-head self-attention variants, skip connections, and loss design-and contrasts alternative design choices with the unique spatial-spectral properties of HSI. We map the field's progress against persistent obstacles: scarce labeled data, extreme spectral dimensionality, computational overhead, and limited model explainability. Finally, we outline a research agenda prioritizing valuable public data sets, lightweight on-edge models, illumination and sensor shifts robustness, and intrinsically interpretable attention mechanisms. Our goal is to guide researchers in selecting, combining, or extending Transformer components that are truly fit for purpose for next-generation HSI applications.
title Transformers Meet Hyperspectral Imaging: A Comprehensive Study of Models, Challenges and Open Problems
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08596