Shift-invariant wavelet transform with properly selected wavelet base and decomposition level(s), is used to characterize rough-wavelet granules producing wavelet granulation of a feature space for a multispectral image such as a remote sensing image. Through the use of the granulated feature space contextual information in time and/or frequency domains are analyzed individually or in combination. Neighborhood rough sets (NRS) are employed in the selection of a subset of granulated features that further explore the local and/or contextual information from neighbor granules.