Differences in cloud height are obvious in high-resolution data

especially because cloud edge heights have become an important factor in cloud shadow identification and estimation of surface solar radiation.However

the resolution of cloud heights calculated by thermal infrared data is low and lacks detailed characteristics.Cloud edges of visible and thermal infrared bands differ considerably both in shape and geometric features.The edge of high-resolution image has rich characteristics

whereas that of thermal infrared cloud height data is single and fuzzy in geometric characteristics

so they cannot match exactly.Although some feature points of clouds can be obtained by some feature point matching methods such as Scale-Invariant Feature Transform（SIFT） and Harris

the difference between two data on geometric features made available by feature points was less.This result cannot satisfy the need to match the information of thermal infrared cloud heights and high-resolution cloud edge data

and obtain a result with abundant diversity.To solve this problem

an algorithm was presented in this study.First

SIFT algorithm was utilized in this method to extract feature points for further image registration and correction.Then

cloud edge heights were calculated by thermal infrared data and re-sampled to a high resolution.Next

Euclidean distance transform was performed for each cloud edge pixel of high-resolution data to all thermal infrared cloud edge pixels

which could obtain spatial relationships between the two types of data.As the two types of data differed considerably in edge characteristics

directly determining the optimal matching point was difficult.Thus

a hierarchical searching method was used here.While the searched objects had different significance to matching points

the weight was given by distance to determine the final matching height.Finally

real cloud heights were determined according to the matching method of cloud shadow similarity.We used five images of HJ-1B CCD and IRS data in the Heihe area on June 8

2012.From all the matched results

the corresponding regions of the matched results had high cloud heights where thermal infrared data also had high cloud heights.At the same time

resolution and details were improved.To evaluate the accuracy of the calculated heights

we selected 10 highly recognizable feature shadow points in each image and marked their coordinates in the image.We set the actual shadow points as reference and calculated the offset of the same feature shadow point

in which we could obtain the error of each cloud height.We found that the errors between 0.1 km to 0.3 km were 70%among all 50 points

12%were less than 0.1 km

and 0.25 km was the average error of all points.Compared with other studies

cloud height accuracy was higher in our study.Also

we chose SIFT algorithm to match cloud heights by using two types of data and compared the matched results of some feature points with our method.The height accuracy obtained by SIFT was lower than that of our algorithm.In addition

unlike some feature point matching methods

our method can complete full-information matching.A cloud edge height matching method based on Euclidean distance transform by hierarchical searching is proposed in our paper.The method can match the cloud height information of low-resolution thermal infrared to corresponding cloud edge of high-resolution image.Experimental results showed that the matched results followed the distribution and variation law of thermal infrared cloud heights

as well as the cloud edge heights with high accuracy and detailed characteristics.To a certain extent

our study solved the resolution problem in obtaining cloud height by thermal infrared data.In addition

compared with some matching methods of feature points

our method could complete full-information matching and had a higher accuracy.However

the accuracy of matched results would be influenced by many factors

such as accuracy of cloud detection

surface in homogeneity

and image registration.The method in our paper is only for cloud edge height.Thus

matching for other parts of cloud still needs further research.