ASPRS

PE&RS September 2008

VOLUME 74, NUMBER 9
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING

Peer-Reviewed Articles

1093 High Resolution Elevation Data Derived from Stereoscopic CORONA Imagery with Minimal Ground Control: An Approach Using Ikonos and SRTM Data
Nikolaos Galiatsatos, Daniel N.M. Donoghue, and Graham Philip

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The first space mission to provide stereoscopic imagery of the Earth's surface was from the American CORONA spy satellite program from which it is possible to generate Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). CORONA imagery and derived DEMs are of most value in areas where conventional topographic maps are of poor quality, but the problem has been that until recently, it was difficult to assess their accuracy. This paper presents a methodology to create a high quality DEM from CORONA imagery using horizontal ground control derived from Ikonos space imagery and vertical ground control from map-based contour lines. Such DEMs can be produced without the need for field-based ground control measurements which is an advantage in many parts of world where ground surveying is difficult. Knowledge of CORONA image distortions, satellite geometry, ground resolution, and film scanning are important factors that can affect the DEM extraction process. A study area in Syria is used to demonstrate the method, and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data is used to perform quantitative and qualitative accuracy assessment of the automatically extracted DEM. The SRTM data has enormous importance for validating the quality of CORONA DEMs, and so, unlocking the potential of a largely untapped part of the archive. We conclude that CORONA data can produce unbiased, high-resolution DEM data which may be valuable for researchers working in countries where topographic data is difficult to obtain.

1107 Optimizing the High-Pass Filter Addition Technique for Image Fusion
Ute G. Gangkofner, Pushkar S. Pradhan, and Derrold W. Holcomb

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Pixel-level image fusion combines complementary image data, most commonly low spectral-high spatial resolution data with high spectral-low spatial resolution optical data. The presented study aims at refining and improving the High-Pass Filter Additive (HPFA) fusion method towards a tunable and versatile, yet standardized image fusion tool. HPFA is an image fusion method in the spatial domain, which inserts structural and textural details of the higher resolution image into the lower resolution image, whose spectral properties are thereby largely retained. Using various input image pairs, workable sets of HPFA parameters have been derived with regard to high-pass filter properties and injection weights. Improvements are the standardization of the HPFA parameters over a wide range of image resolution ratios and the controlled trade-off between resulting image sharpness and spectral properties. The results are evaluated visually and by spectral and spatial metrics in comparison with wavelet-based image fusion results as a benchmark.

1119 Photogrammetric Modeling of Linear Features with Generalized Point Photogrammetry
Zuxun Zhang, Yongjun Zhang, Jianging Zhang, and Hongwei Zhang

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Most current digital photogrammetric workstations are based on feature points. Curved features are quite difficult to be modeled because they cannot be treated as feature points. The focus of the paper is on the photogrammetric modeling of space linear features. In general, lines and curves can be represented by a series of connected points, so called, generalized points in the paper. Different from all existing models, only one collinearity equation is used for each point on the linear curve, which makes the mathematical model very simple. Hereby, the key of generalized point photogrammetry is that all kinds of features are treated as generalized points to use either x or y collinearity equation. A significant difference between generalized point photogrammetry and conventional point photogrammetry is that image features are not necessarily exact conjugates. The exact conjugacy between image features and/or the correspondence between space and image feature are established during bundle block adjustment. Photogrammetric modeling of several space linear features is discussed. Sub-pixel precision has been achieved for both exterior orientation and 3D modeling of linear features, which verifies the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Color Figures (Adobe PDF format):

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1129 A Photogrammetric Correction Procedure for Light Refraction Effects at a Two-Medium Boundary
Toshimi Murase, Miho Tanaka, Tomomi Tani, Yuko Miyashita, Naoto Ohkawa, Satoshi Ishiguro, Yasuhiro Suzuki, Hajime Kayanne, and Hiroya Yamano

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We report on a correction procedure for light refraction effects at a two-medium boundary, based on the stereo view of underwater objects, to estimate underwater topography using photogrammetry. Because theoretically, no solution exists for photogrammetrically observed positions when the incident angles of light rays from an underwater object of interest to two cameras are different; approximation in solving the positions is needed. We show the feasibility of the approximation theoretically by examining the horizontal differences between the observed and true positions when objects are in line along an airplane track or when the incident angles are identical. We applied the procedure to bathymetric mapping of Shiraho Reef, southwest Japan, using a stereo-pair of aerial photographs. Comparison of the corrected depths with measured depths at 658 points showed a mean error and standard deviation of 20.06 m and 0.36 m, respectively, for measured depth range of 23.4 m to 20.2 m.

1137 Significance of Altitude and Posting Density on Lidar-derived Elevation Accuracy on Hazardous Waste Sites
María J. García-Quijano, John. R. Jensen, Michael E. Hodgson, Brian C. Hadley, John B. Gladden, and Lewis A. Lapine

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This research evaluated the vertical accuracy of two lidarderived elevation datasets acquired from two different altitudes over a clay-capped hazardous waste site located on the Savannah River Site (SRS), South Carolina, using the same Optech ALTM 2050 lidar sensor and Cessna 337 platform. Both missions provided adequate elevation estimates (low-altitude RMSEz  6 cm; high-altitude RMSEz  14 cm.) A quantitative comparison was performed to determine how decreasing platform altitude and increasing lidar posting density affected the vertical elevation accuracy. Higher posting densities did not significantly improve the vertical accuracy of lidar-derived elevation data. Conversely, acquiring the lidar-derived elevation data at a lower altitude had a significant influence on the mean vertical error present in the lidar-derived elevation data. Differences in mean vertical elevation error between the lowand high-altitude lidar data collection missions were primarily due to a systematic underestimation bias present in the highaltitude lidar data.

1147 Shaping Polyhedral Buildings by the Fusion of Vector Maps and Lidar Point Clouds
Liang-Chien Chen, Tee-Ann Teo, Chih-Yi Kuo, and Jiann-Yeou Rau

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We integrate lidar point clouds and large-scale vector maps to perform building modeling. The proposed scheme comprises three major steps: (a) the preprocessing of lidar point clouds and vector maps, (b) roof analysis, and (c) building reconstruction. During the preprocessing stage, the building polygons are first obtained from the polylines, followed by the selections of lidar points in the building polygons. An irregular triangulated network is then built to represent the facets. The segmentation of planar facets for roof analysis is implemented by examining the patch size and the facet orientation. The interior 3D roof edges are then determined from the intersection of the roof planes. Finally, the building models are reconstructed through regularization. Two sample sites are tested for the purposes of validation. The experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme allows for high fidelity and accuracy, provided that the point cloud density is enough.

1159 Object-based Classification of High Resolution SAR Images for Within Field Homogeneous Zone Delineation
Jiangui Liu, Elizabeth Pattey, and Michel C. Nolin

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Delineating management zones is important in agriculture for implementing site-specific practices. We delineated within-field homogeneous zones over a corn and a wheat field using high spatial resolution multi-temporal airborne C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery with an object-based fuzzy k-means classification approach. Image objects were generated by a segmentation procedure implemented in eCognition® software, and were classified as basic processing units using SAR data. Results were evaluated using analysis of variance and variance reduction of soil electrical conductivity (EC), leaf area index (LAI), and crop yield. The object-based approach provided better results than a pixel-based approach. The variance reduction in LAI, and soil EC varied with SAR acquisition time and incidence angle. Although the variance reduction of yield was not as significant as that of LAI and EC, average yield among the delineated zones were different in most cases. The SAR data classification produced interpretable patterns of soil and crop spatial variability, which can be used to infer withinfield management zones.

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