ASPRS

PE&RS December 2000

VOLUME 66, NUMBER 12
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING

Peer-Reviewed Articles

1417 Multi-Sensor System for Airborne Image Capture and Georeferencing
Mohamed M.R. Mostafa and Klaus-Peter Schwarz

Abstract
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The development and preliminary testing of a fully digital multi-sensor system for airborne remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) applications is described. This system was developed at The University of Calgary in collaboration with The University of California at Berkeley, with aircraft and logistics support by HJW Inc., California. It integrates a medium class inertial navigation system (INS), two low-cost Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, and a high resolution digital camera. During aerial image capture, camera exposure stations and INS digital records are time-tagged in real time by GPS. The INS/GPS-derived trajectory parameters describe the rigid body motion of the carrier aircraft. Thus, they are directly related to the parameters of exterior orientation. During post-processing, these parameters are extracted, eliminating the need for ground control for airborne image acquisition applications. Flight tests were performed over a part of the university campus at Berkeley, using a strip photography approach to test the integrated system performance. In this paper, the concept of direct georeferencing of digital images without ground control is presented. System calibration results are then discussed in some detail, and special attention is given to the geometrical analysis of the system imaging component. An improved imaging system is proposed and validated by computer simulations. The potential of the new system for photogrammetric use is then discussed. The major applications of such a system will be in photo ecometrics; the mapping of utility lines, roads, and pipelines; and the generation of digital elevation models for engineering applications.

1425 Accuracy Assessment for the U.S. Geological Survey Regional Land-Cover Mapping Program: New York and New Jersey Region
Zhiliang Zhu, Limin Yang, Stephen V. Stehman, and Raymond L. Czaplewski

Abstract
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The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with other government and private organizations, is producing a conterminous U.S. land-cover map using Landsat Thematic Mapper 30-meter data for the Federal regions designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accuracy assessment is to be conducted for each Federal region to estimate overall and class-specific accuracies. In Region 2, consisting of New York and New Jersey, the accuracy assessment was completed for 15 land-cover and land-use classes, using interpreted 1:40,000 scale aerial photographs as reference data. The methodology used for Region 2 features a two-stage, geographically stratified approach, with a general sample of all classes (1,033 sample sites), and a separate sample for rare classes (294 sample sites). A confidence index was recorded for each land-cover interpretation on the 1:40,000-scale aerial photography. The estimated overall accuracy for Region 2 was 63 percent (standard error 1.4 percent) using all sample sites, and 75.2 percent (standard error 1.5 percent) using only reference sites with a high-confidence index. User's and producer's accuracies for the general sample and user's accuracy for the sample of rare classes, as well as variance for the estimated accuracy parameters, were also reported. Narrowly defined land-use classes and heterogeneous conditions of land cover are the major causes of misclassification errors. Recommendations for modifying the accuracy assessment methodology for use in the other nine Federal regions are provided.

1439 Digital Land-Use Classification Using Space-Shuttle-Acquired Orbital Photographs: A Quantitative Comparison with Landsat TM Imagery of a Coastal Environment, Chanthaburi, Thailand
Edward L. Webb, Ma. Arlene Evangelista, and  Julie A. Robinson

Abstract
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The capability of Space-Shuttle-acquired orbital photography to provide accurate land-use classification using popular commercial software and accepted analytical procedures was investigated. The study area was the coastal region of the Chanthaburi Province, eastern Thailand, which exhibits a land-use pattern consisting of rice fields, shrimp farms, plantations/orchards, and patches of healthy and degraded mangrove habitat. We used a typical image analysis protocol using ERDAS ImagineTM v8.2 combined with ground referencing, and compared the classification results using orbital photographs to results of the same study area using Landsat TM 5 imagery. The orbital photographs exhibited high spatial resolution, and performed similarly to Landsat for classification purposes. Accuracy assessments showed 81.3 percent accuracy of the ground referenced orbital photograph classification, and 83.3 percent for the Landsat image. Using a GIS overlay, we calculated 71 percent agreement between the two ground referenced image types. We conclude that, under the appropriate conditions, digitized orbital photographs can be an excellent source of spatial information for studies combining images of high spatial and spectral resolution. In addition to our results, we discuss the benefits and limitations to using orbital photographs for land-use classification. Orbital photographs can serve as a low-cost, complementary form of data to automated satellite images for assessments of basic habitat parameters.

1451 Land-Use Classification of Remotely Sensed Data Using Kohonen Self-Organizing Feature Map Neural Networks
C.Y. Ji

Abstract
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The use of Kohonen Self-Organizing Feature Map (KSOFM, or feature map) neural networks for land-use/land-cover classification from remotely sensed data is presented. Different from the traditional multi-layer neural networks, the KSOFM is a two-layer network that creates class representation by self-organizing the connection weights from the input patterns to the output layer. A test of the algorithm is conducted by classifying a Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scene for seven land-use/land-cover types, benchmarked with the maximum-likelihood method and the Back Propagation (BP) network. The network outperformes the maximum-likelihood method for per-pixel classification when four spectral bands are used. A further increase in classification accuracy is achieved when neighborhood pixels are incorporated. A similar accuracy is obtained using the BP networks for classifications both with and without neighborhood information. The feature map network has the advantage of faster learning but has the drawback of being a slow classification process. Learning by the feature map is affected by a number of factors such as the network size, the codebooks partitioning, the available training samples, and the selection of the learning rate. The feature map size controls the accuracy at which class borders are formed, and a large map may be used to obtain accurate class representation. It is concluded that the feature map method is a viable alternative for land-use classification of remotely sensed data.

1461 Water Body Detection and Delineation with Landsat TM Data
Paul Shane Frazier and Kenneth John Page

Abstract
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The aim of this project was to determine the accuracy of using simple digital image processing techniques to map riverine water bodies with Landsat 5 TM data. This paper quantifies the classification accuracy of single band density slicing of Landsat 5 TM data to delineate water bodies on riverine floodplains. The results of these analyses are then compared to a 6-band maximum likelihood classification over the same area. The water boundaries delineated by each of these digital classification procedures were compared to water boundaries delineated from colour aerial photography acquired on the same day as the TM data. These comparisons show that Landsat TM data can be used to map water bodies accurately. Density slicing of the single mid-infrared band 5 proved as successful as multispectral classification achieving an overall accuracy of 96.9%, a producer's accuracy for water bodies of 81.7% and a user's accuracy for water bodies of 64.5%.

1469 Predicting the Urbanization of Pine and Mixed Forests in Saint Tammany Parish, Louisiana
James T. Gunter, Donald G. Hodges, Christopher M. Swalm, and James L. Regens

Abstract
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St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, has experienced tremendous urbanization, resulting in the loss of timberland. This study's objectives were to develop a model using parish-level data that estimates the probability of urban development in a pine or mixed forest parcel, and to identify the parcels most likely to be developed. The geographic data sets used include satellite imagery from 1981 and 1993, U.S. Census data, population growth estimates from the St. Tammany Parish Government, and road coverages. Logistic regression was used to develop a model that predicts the probability of urban development. Population density, distance to the nearest state or federal highway, distance to the access points to New Orleans, and distance to the nearest interstate interchange all significantly influenced the probability that a parcel would be developed. Using population density predictions for 2003, the model identified the likely development corridor and the timberlands that would be unavailable for long-term fiber production.

1477 Semi-Automated Object Measurement Using Multiple-Image Matching from Mobile Mapping Image Sequences
C. Vincent Tao

Abstract
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Mobile mapping systems offer rapid acquisition of georeferenced image sequences. With the vast amounts of image sequences collected by these systems, efficient and accurateinformation extraction from image sequences becomes a critical issue. It affects the operational cost of the application of the mobile mapping technology. The goal of this research is to develop an efficient and robust approach for accurate object measurement from mobile mapping image sequences of road corridors. The paper describes a semi-automated object measurement approach based on the use of a multiple-image matching strategy. Once an object point in one image is measured manually, the corresponding points in consecutive image pairs can be determined automatically, and then, the 3D  coordinates of the object point can be calculated by photogrammetric intersection using multiple corresponding points. Based on the test results, the performance of this approach was operationally satisfactory in terms of reliability, accuracy, and efficiency. The effective use of stereoscopic and sequential image information, known image geo-referencing parameters, and multiple-baseline geometry is a key to the development of this semi-automated object measurement approach.
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