PE&RS August 1997

VOLUME 63, NUMBER 8
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING

Peer-Reviewed Articles

959 Conceptual Framework of a Generalized Roaming Scheme
Toni Schenk and Charles Toth

Abstract
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Roaming is an important system task of softcopy workstations. The impIementotion of roaming in most of today's softcopy workstations is an emulation of the same operation in analytical plotters. The performance is quite inferior to that which photogrammetrists are accustomed when moving the measuring mark. Mimicking the analytical plotter imposes self-inflicting constraints on the soJution which Ore technologically and procedurally unjustified. We take o fresh look at roaming and describe in this paper a conceptual framework that is based on extending the spatial extent from one model to the entire project. The information in which roaming is performed is extended from imagery to include vector data, DEM, databases, and design data. We show that it is feasible to roam within a project of 300 color images without ever explicitly identifying models. Lineal features can be digitized in stereo, across the project. Rapid mouse movements in navigation mode cause the system to display imagery monoscopically at the proper resolution. The third roaming mode resembles the "drive to" feature of analytical plotters with the distinct difference that any point within the project can be reached.

965 Automated DEM Extraction and Orthoimage Generation from SPOT Level 1B Imagery
N. Al-Rousan, P. Cheng, G. Petrie, Th.Toutin, and M.J. Valadan Zoej

Abstract
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This paper describes the testing and validation of the photogrammetric modules of the PCI EASI/PACE system using SPOT stereo-pairs over a high accuracy test field established in a desert area in Jordan. The mathematical modeling and analytical photogrammetric solution used by the system are first described. This is folJowed by a description of the algorithm employed in the automatic image matching procedure used to extract a dense DEM from the SPOT digital image data. The results of extensive tests of the geometric accuracy of the exterior orientation and analytical rectification carried out with the SPOT images using EASI/PACE are given. The DEMs generated from five SPOT level 1B stereo-pairs have been merged and validated through a comparison of the resulting contours with the corresponding contours generated by aerial photogrammetric methods, the two plots showing an excellent agreement. The final ortho-images are of a high quality in radiometric terms, while a check of their geometric accuracy reveals sub-pixel accuracy. The results of this highly automated all-digital photogrammetric procedure are of considerable relevance to those concerned with the topographic mapping of extensive areas of arid and semi-arid terrain. 

975 Image-to-Image Registration by Matching Area Features Using Fourier Descriptors and Neural Networks
Yi-Hsing Tseng, Jin-John Tzen, Kei-Pay Tang, and Shin-Hung Lin

Abstract
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An automatic method of image-to-image registration, which may be applied to register overlapped images of a scene from different views and dates, is presented. The proposed approach is a feature-based matching with constraints of orientation consistency and one-to-one match. Area features of homogeneous regions in gray level are extracted from images as matching entities. The boundaries of area features are matched in the frequency domain, ie., matching their Fourier descriptors. The spatial meaning of the matching is transforming a feature to fit the other optimally. After the matching process, this scheme provides not only a quantitative evaluation of the remaining lock of fitness as an objective index of shape similarity, but also the solved transformation parameters to represent the relative orientation between features. The evaluation of shape similarity is used as the key information in recognizing conjugate features for overlapped images. Furthermore, the consistency of relative orientation between matched pairs is considered as the principal constraint to dissolve improperly registered features. The registration procedure is implemented by combining the factor of shape similarity as well as the constraints of orientation consistency and one-to-one match into a cost function and driving the cost function to reach its lowest value by using an artificial neural network system. The lowest cost represents the optimal solution of matching conjugate features. The planar registration of images then can be solved by using matched conjugate features. Two application examples, registering a stereo pair of aerial images and mosaicking overlapped images for automatic aerial triangulation, are presented to show the success of this method.

985 Semi-Automatic Linear Feature Extraction by Dynamic Programming and LSB-Snakes
Armin Gruen and Haihong Li

Abstract
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This paper deals with semi-automatic linear feature extraction from digital images for GIS data capture, where the identification task is performed manually on a single image, while a special automatic digital module performs the high precision feature tracking in two-dimensional (2-D) image space or even three-dimensional (3-D) object space. A human operator identifies the object from an on-screen display of a digital image, selects the particular class this object belongs to, and provides a very few coarsely distributed seed points. Subsequently, with these seed points as an approximation of the position and shape, the linear feature will be extracted automatically by either a dynamic programming approach or by LSB-Snakes (Least-Squares B-spline Snakes). With dynamic programming, the optimization problem is set up as a discrete multistage decision process and is solved by a "time delayed" algorithm. It ensures global optimality numerically stable, and allows for hard constraints to be enforced on the solution. In the least-squares approach, we combine three types of observation equations, one radiometric, formulating the matching of a generic object model with image data, and two that express the internal geometric constraints of a curve and the location of operator-given seed points. The solution is obtained by solving a pair of independent normal equations to estimate the parameters of the spline curve. Both techniques can be used in a monoplotting mode, which combines one image with its underlying DTM. The LSB-snakes approach is also implemented in a multi-image mode, which uses multiple images simultaneously and provides for a robust and mathematically sound full 3D approach, These techniques ore not restricted to aerial images. They can be applied to satellite and close-range images as well. The issues related to the mathematical modeling of the proposed methods are discussed end experimental results are shown in this paper too.

997 Evaluating the Potential of the Forthcoming Commercial U.S. High-Resolution Satellite Sensor Imagery at the Ordnance Survey®
Helen M. Ridley, Peter M. Atkinson, Paul Aplin, Jan-Peter Muller, and Ian Dowman

Abstract
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As the NationaI Mapping Agency of Great Britain, the Ordnance Survey® (OS) is driven by a need to reduce costs and commercialize operations, and as such has been investigating photogmmmetric methods to improve existing products. streamline existing production, and increase the current portfolio of products. Over the last 18 months, the OS has been involved in a major research project to tackle these issues through on evaluation of the forthcoming comrnercial U.S. high spatia1 resolution satellite sensors which are offering 1-m panchromatic and 4-m multispectral spatial resolutions. Work has focused on improving the existing National Height Dataset (NHD), reducing the cost of photogrammmetric survey, automatic topographic feature change detection, production of DEMs; three-dimensional (3D) urban models, and land-use classification. Results from the project using simulated imagery indicate that if would have potential within the 0S in all areas evaluated. The work now needs to be followed up when real high spatial resolution satellite imagery becomes commercially available.

1007 Automatic Interior Orientation of Digital Aerial Images
Thomas Kersten and Sivio Haering

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A fully operationl automatic interim orientetion (AUTO_IO) for digital aerial images based on a modified Hough Transform for rough localization of fiducial marks and leastsquares matching for precise measurement is introduced in this paper. For cameras with fiducial mark identification symbols, e.g., as used in Leica RC30 cameras, the program is capable of determining the orientation of the photos. Results are presented using images taken by Leica and Zeiss cameras, which were scanned on different scanners in various resolutions to demonstrate the potential and robustness of the automatic IO procedure.AUTO_IO is implemented on a Helava/Leica DPW770 Digital Photogrammetric Workstation and is used in a digital production environment at Swissair Photo+Surveys Ltd., Switzerland. 

1013 The Architecture of a Softcopy Photogrammetry System
Lewis N. Graham, Jr., Kyle Ellison, Jr.,  and C. Steven Riddell

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An overview of the design and development of a digital image processing and photogrmmmetric software platform based on the Windows NT'" operating system is presented. The principle challenge in this work was the movement of processor intensive algorithms from proprietary dedicated hardware to the open architecture provided by the symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) kernel of NT. Photogrammmetry offers a unique challenge in design in that imagery must be displayed with very high geometric accuracy at all times, includind the already processor intensive operation of dynamic roam.