Identifying damage caused by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake from VHR remote sensing data

Abstract

The paper discusses the potential of very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery for post-earthquake damage assessment in comparison with the role of aerial photographs. Post-disaster optical and radar satellite data are assessed for their ability to resolve collapsed buildings, destroyed transportation infrastructure, and specific land cover changes. Optical VHR imagery has shown to be effective in quantifying building stock and for assessing damage at the building level. High-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery requires further research to identify optimum information extraction procedures for rapid assessment of affected buildings. Based on current technical and operational capabilities increasing efforts should be devoted to the generation of spatial datasets for disaster preparedness.     

Limitations of high resolution satellite stereo imagery for estimating canopy height in Australian tropical savannas

Obtaining reliable measures of tree canopy height across large areas is a central element of forest inventory and carbon accounting. Recent years have seen an increased emphasis on the use of active sensors like Radar and airborne LiDAR (light detection and scanning) systems to estimate various 3D characteristics of canopy and crown structure that can be used as predictors of biomass. However, airborne LiDAR data are expensive to acquire, and not often readily available across large remote landscapes. In this study, we evaluated the potential of stereo imagery from commercially available Very High Resolution (VHR) satellites as an alternative for estimating canopy height variables in Australian tropical savannas, using a semi-global dense matching (SGM) image-based technique. We assessed and compared the completeness and vertical accuracy of extracted canopy height models (CHMs) from GeoEye 1 and WorldView 1 VHR satellite stereo pairs and summarised the factors influencing image matching effectiveness and quality.Our results showed that stereo dense matching using the SGM technique severely underestimates tree presence and canopy height. The highest tree detection rates were achieved by using the near-infrared (NIR) band of GE1 (8–9%). WV1-GE1 cross-satellite (mixed) models did not improve the quality of extracted canopy heights. We consider these poor detection rates and height retrievals to result from: i) the clumping crown structure of the dominant Eucalyptus spp.; ii) their vertically oriented leaves (affecting the bidirectional reflectance distribution function); iii) image band radiometry and iv) wind induced crown movement affecting stereo-pair point matching. Our detailed analyses suggest that current commercially available VHR satellite data (0.5 m resolution) are not well suited to estimating canopy height variables, and therefore above ground biomass (AGB), in Eucalyptus dominated north Australian tropical savanna woodlands.     

Use of Very High Spatial Resolution Remotely Sensed Imagery for Assessing Land‐Cover Changes in Shrub Habitat Preserves of Southern California

Abstract

The goal of this research was to explore the utility of very high spatial resolution, digital remotely sensed imagery for monitoring land‐cover changes in habitat preserves within southern California coastal shrublands. Changes were assessed for Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, a large open space in San Diego County, over the 1996 to 1999 period for which imagery was available.

Multispectral, digital camera imagery from two summer dates, three years apart, was acquired using the Airborne Data Acquisition and Registration (ADAR) digital‐camera system. These very high resolution (VHR) image data (1m), composed of three visible and one near‐infrared wavebands (V/NIR), were the primary image input for assessing land cover change. Image‐derived datasets generated from georeferenced and registered ADAR imagery included multitemporal overlays and multitemporal band differencing with threshold selection. Two different multitemporal image classifications were generated from these datasets and compared. Single‐date imagery was analyzed interactively with image‐derived datasets and with information from field observations in an effort to discern change types. A ground sampling survey conducted soon after the 1999 image acquisition provided concurrent ground reference data.

Most changes occurring within the three‐year interval were associated with transitional phenological states and differential precipitation effects on herbaceous cover. Variations in air temperatures and timing of rainfall contributed to differences that the seven‐week image acquisition offset may have caused. Disturbance factors of mechanical clearing, erosion, potentially invasive plants, and fire were evident and their influence on the presence, absence, and type of vegetation cover were likely sources of change signals.

The multitemporal VHR, V/NIR image data enabled relatively fine‐scale land cover changes to be detected and identified. Band differencing followed by multitemporal classification provided an effective means for detecting vegetation increase or decrease. Detailed information on short‐term disturbance effects and long‐term vegetation type conversions can be extracted if image acquisitions are carefully planned and geometric and radiometric processing steps are implemented.     

Evaluation of the RPC Model for Ziyuan-3 Three-line Array Imagery

Ziyuan-3 (ZY-3) satellite is the first civilian stereo mapping satellite in China and was designed to achieve the 1: 50,000 scale mapping for land and ocean. Rigorous sensor model (RSM) is required to build the relationship between the three-dimensional (3D) object space and two-dimensional (2D) image space of ZY-3 satellite imagery. However, each satellite sensor has its own imaging system with different physical sensor models, which increase the difficulty of geometric integration of multi-source images with different sensor models. Therefore, it is critical to generate generic model, especially rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs) of optical imagery. Recently, relatively a few researches have been conducted on RPCs generation to ZY-3 satellite. This paper proposes an approach to evaluate the performance of RPCs generation from RSM of ZY-3 imagery. Three scenario experiments with different terrain features (such as ocean, hill, city and grassland) are designed and conducted to comprehensively evaluate the replacement accuracies of this approach and analyze the RPCs fitting error. All the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieved the encouraging accuracy of better than 1.946E?04 pixel in both x-axis direction and y-axis direction, and it indicates that the RPCs are suitable for ZY-3 imagery and can be used as a replacement for the RSM of ZY-3 imagery.     

An improved approach for the production of satellite-based geospatial reference imagery

Abstract

An innovative and practical satellite image product is described that is ideal for applications in Northern Canada because of its wide area coverage and mapping-quality features. This product is generated from a new procedure developed at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) for processing Landsat 7 imagery, and by extension, imagery from other Earth Observation satellites. By working with multiple satellite passes, each containing the equivalent of multiple scenes, the new procedure could dramatically reduce the turn-around time for generating georeferenced image products, and also increase their geometric and radiometric accuracy compared to those produced by the current methods. The objective of the process has been to generate satellite image mosaics covering large areas (e.g. >500 000 km²) with uniformly distributed errors at sub-pixel resolution. The paper discusses the theoretical basis of a photogrammetric adjustment for satellite imagery and the results obtained from several tests. The process is generic, involving a sensor model, a satellite orbit model and ground control information; thus it may be easily adapted to any satellite that allows for repeat coverage with overlapping paths. By performing an adjustment to correct the satellite position and attitude data prior to the production of orthoimage products, it is possible to create a mosaic with a single resampling process which minimises both the radiometric and geometric resampling artifacts. The results from three separate tests are presented, along with a discussion of the procedures that were followed in each case. All three tests have successfully demonstrated that sub-pixel sample size errors may be consistently obtained over large areas. A by-product process developed to support the measurement of ground control point coordinates for the satellite adjustment was the automatic matching of geographic features such as lakes and islands in vector data format. This has been a significant development in that it has eliminated manual intervention in the measurement of these features in the imagery, allowing the ground control for entire passes containing several scenes to be obtained in minutes instead of hours.     

3D Visualization for the Analysis of Forest Cover Change

Abstract

Visualization techniques have been developed to recreate natural landscapes, but little has been done to investigate their potential for illustrating land cover change using spatio‐temporal data. In this work, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and visualization techniques were applied to generate realistic computer visualizations depicting the dynamic nature of forested environments. High resolution digital imagery and aerial photography were classified using object‐oriented methods. The resulting classifications, along with preexisting land cover datasets, were used to drive the correct placement of vegetation in the visualized landscape, providing an accurate representation of reality at various points in time. 3D Nature's Visual Nature Studio was used to construct a variety of realistic images and animations depicting forest cover change in two distinct ecological settings. Visualizations from Yellowstone National Park focused on the dramatic impact of the 1988 fire upon the lodgepole pine forest. For a study area in Kansas, visualization techniques were used to explore the continuous human‐land interactions impacting the eastern deciduous forest and tallgrass prairie ecotone between 1941 and 2002. The resulting products demonstrate the flexibility and effectiveness of visualizations for representing spatio‐temporal patterns such as changing forest cover. These geographic visualizations allow users to communicate findings and explore new hypotheses in a clear, concise and effective manner.     

利用PC-SIFT的多源光学卫星影像自动配准方法

针对多源光学卫星影像几何校正过程中同名点匹配率低、配准过程自动化差等问题,本文采用相位一致性代替原始尺度不变特征变换(scale invitation feature transform,SIFT)算法中的像素灰度值梯度对主方向和特征向量进行描述,提升特征描述的正确率;以频率域下相位分析结果为约束条件对匹配结果进行优化,抑制错误匹配同名点;同时,提出了一种基于随机采样一致性(RANSAC)的自适应选择策略,提高参数估计阶段的自动化水平;最后,实现多源光学卫星影像间的配准。多组数据实验结果表明了该方法在辐射非线性畸变多源光学卫星影像间配准中的有效性和适用性。     

Change detection on LOD 2 building models with very high resolution spaceborne stereo imagery

Due to the fast development of the urban environment, the need for efficient maintenance and updating of 3D building models is ever increasing. Change detection is an essential step to spot the changed area for data (map/3D models) updating and urban monitoring. Traditional methods based on 2D images are no longer suitable for change detection in building scale, owing to the increased spectral variability of the building roofs and larger perspective distortion of the very high resolution (VHR) imagery. Change detection in 3D is increasingly being investigated using airborne laser scanning data or matched Digital Surface Models (DSM), but rare study has been conducted regarding to change detection on 3D city models with VHR images, which is more informative but meanwhile more complicated. This is due to the fact that the 3D models are abstracted geometric representation of the urban reality, while the VHR images record everything. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to detect changes directly on LOD (Level of Detail) 2 building models with VHR spaceborne stereo images from a different date, with particular focus on addressing the special characteristics of the 3D models. In the first step, the 3D building models are projected onto a raster grid, encoded with building object, terrain object, and planar faces. The DSM is extracted from the stereo imagery by hierarchical semi-global matching (SGM). In the second step, a multi-channel change indicator is extracted between the 3D models and stereo images, considering the inherent geometric consistency (IGC), height difference, and texture similarity for each planar face. Each channel of the indicator is then clustered with the Self-organizing Map (SOM), with “change”, “non-change” and “uncertain change” status labeled through a voting strategy. The “uncertain changes” are then determined with a Markov Random Field (MRF) analysis considering the geometric relationship between faces. In the third step, buildings are extracted combining the multispectral images and the DSM by morphological operators, and the new buildings are determined by excluding the verified unchanged buildings from the second step. Both the synthetic experiment with Worldview-2 stereo imagery and the real experiment with IKONOS stereo imagery are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. It is shown that the proposed method can be applied as an effective way to monitoring the building changes, as well as updating 3D models from one epoch to the other.     

Introducing mapping standards in the quality assessment of buildings extracted from very high resolution satellite imagery

Many municipal activities require updated large-scale maps that include both topographic and thematic information. For this purpose, the efficient use of very high spatial resolution (VHR) satellite imagery suggests the development of approaches that enable a timely discrimination, counting and delineation of urban elements according to legal technical specifications and quality standards. Therefore, the nature of this data source and expanding range of applications calls for objective methods and quantitative metrics to assess the quality of the extracted information which go beyond traditional thematic accuracy alone. The present work concerns the development and testing of a new approach for using technical mapping standards in the quality assessment of buildings automatically extracted from VHR satellite imagery. Feature extraction software was employed to map buildings present in a pansharpened QuickBird image of Lisbon. Quality assessment was exhaustive and involved comparisons of extracted features against a reference data set, introducing cartographic constraints from scales 1:1000, 1:5000, and 1:10,000. The spatial data quality elements subject to evaluation were: thematic (attribute) accuracy, completeness, and geometric quality assessed based on planimetric deviation from the reference map. Tests were developed and metrics analyzed considering thresholds and standards for the large mapping scales most frequently used by municipalities. Results show that values for completeness varied with mapping scales and were only slightly superior for scale 1:10,000. Concerning the geometric quality, a large percentage of extracted features met the strict topographic standards of planimetric deviation for scale 1:10,000, while no buildings were compliant with the specification for scale 1:1000.     

Assessing the utility WorldView-2 imagery for tree species mapping in South African subtropical humid forest and the conservation implications: Dukuduku forest patch as case study

Indigenous forest biome in South Africa is highly fragmented into patches of various sizes (most patches < 1 km²). The utilization of timber and non-timber resources by poor rural communities living around protected forest patches produce subtle changes in the forest canopy which can be hardly detected on a timely manner using traditional field surveys. The aims of this study were to assess: (i) the utility of very high resolution (VHR) remote sensing imagery (WorldView-2, 0.5–2 m spatial resolution) for mapping tree species and canopy gaps in one of the protected subtropical coastal forests in South Africa (the Dukuduku forest patch (ca.3200 ha) located in the province of KwaZulu-Natal) and (ii) the implications of the map products to forest conservation. Three dominant canopy tree species namely, Albizia adianthifolia, Strychnos spp. and Acacia spp., and canopy gap types including bushes (grass/shrubby), bare soil and burnt patches were accurately mapped (overall accuracy = 89.3 ± 2.1%) using WorldView-2 image and support vector machine classifier. The maps revealed subtle forest disturbances such as bush encroachment and edge effects resulting from forest fragmentation by roads and a power-line. In two stakeholders’ workshops organised to assess the implications of the map products to conservation, participants generally agreed amongst others implications that the VHR maps provide valuable information that could be used for implementing and monitoring the effects of rehabilitation measures. The use of VHR imagery is recommended for timely inventorying and monitoring of the small and fragile patches of subtropical forests in Southern Africa.     

2.5D change detection from satellite imagery to monitor small-scale mining activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Mining natural resources serve fundamental societal needs or commercial interests, but it may well turn into a driver of violence and regional instability. In this study, very high resolution (VHR) optical stereo satellite data are analysed to monitor processes and changes in one of the largest artisanal and small-scale mining sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is among the world’s wealthiest countries in exploitable minerals To identify the subtle structural changes, the applied methodological framework employs object-based change detection (OBCD) based on optical VHR data and generated digital surface models (DSM). Results prove the DSM-based change detection approach enhances the assessment gained from sole 2D analyses by providing valuable information about changes in surface structure or volume. Land cover changes as analysed by OBCD reveal an increase in bare soil area by a rate of 47% between April 2010 and September 2010, followed by a significant decrease of 47.5% until March 2015. Beyond that, DSM differencing enabled the characterisation of small-scale features such as pits and excavations. The presented Earth observation (EO)-based monitoring of mineral exploitation aims at a better understanding of the relations between resource extraction and conflict, and thus providing relevant information for potential mitigation strategies and peace building.     

利用多光谱影像检测资源三号卫星平台震颤

卫星平台震颤是影响高分辨率卫星成像质量的因素之一,会引起影像模糊和内部畸变。本文从资源三号卫星多光谱相机的成像特点和多光谱影像配准误差影响因素入手,理论推导和仿真分析了卫星平台震颤对配准误差的影响规律,在此基础上提出了基于多光谱影像高精度密集匹配的平台震颤检测方法和流程,最后利用不同波段、不同时间的成像数据进行试验。试验结果表明资源三号卫星在试验数据成像阶段存在约0.6Hz的平台震颤,且垂轨方向震颤幅值大于沿轨方向,同时引起波段间相同频率周期性配准误差。检测结果为进一步提高资源三号处理精度提供了可能,也为卫星平台震颤源的分析和优化卫星平台设计提供了重要参考依据。     

Improving georeferencing accuracy of Very High Resolution satellite imagery using freely available ancillary data at global coverage

ABSTRACT

While impressive direct geolocation accuracies better than 5.0?m CE90 (90% of circular error) can be achieved from the last DigitalGlobe’s Very High Resolution (VHR) satellites (i.e. GeoEye-1 and WorldView-1/2/3/4), it is insufficient for many precise geodetic applications. For these sensors, the best horizontal geopositioning accuracies (around 0.55?m CE90) can be attained by using third-order 3D rational functions with vendor’s rational polynomial coefficients data refined by a zero-order polynomial adjustment obtained from a small number of very accurate ground control points (GCPs). However, these high-quality GCPs are not always available. In this work, two different approaches for improving the initial direct geolocation accuracy of VHR satellite imagery are proposed. Both of them are based on the extraction of three-dimensional GCPs from freely available ancillary data at global coverage such as multi-temporal information of Google Earth and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 30?m digital elevation model. The application of these approaches on WorldView-2 and GeoEye-1 stereo pairs over two different study sites proved to improve the horizontal direct geolocation accuracy values around of 75%.     

Assessing Optimal Image Fusion Methods for Very High Spatial Resolution Satellite Images to Support Coastal Monitoring

This study examines best image fusion approaches for generating pansharpened very high resolution (VHR) multispectral images to be utilized for monitoring coastal barrier island development. Selected fusion techniques assessed in this research come from the three categories of spectral substitution (e.g., Brovey transform and multiplicative merging), arithmetic merging (e.g., modified intensity-hue-saturation and principal component analysis), and spatial domain (e.g., high-pass filter, and subtractive resolution merge). The image fusion methods selected for this study were capable of producing pansharpened VHR images with more than three bands. Comparisons of fusion techniques were applied to images from three satellite sensors: United States commercial satellites IKONOS and QuickBird, and the Korean KOMPSAT II. Pansharpened VHR multispectral images were assessed by spectral and spatial quality measurements. Results satisfying both spectral and spatial quality revealed optimum pansharpened techniques necessary for regular coastal mapping of barrier islands. These techniques may also be used to assess the quality of recently available VHR imagery acquired by numerous international, government, and commercial VHR satellite programs.     

Advanced processing techniques for remotely sensed imagery

综述了遥感影像信息处理技术的研究进展,主要包括高分辨率影像信息提取技术、影像超分辨率、高光谱影像处理和目标探测,以及遥感影像处理与分类的人工智能方法.对于高分辨率影像处理,从纹理、形状、结构和对象的角度探讨了空间信息提取对于高分辨率影像解译的意义和作用,分析了小波纹理、空间共生纹理、形状特征提取和面向对象分类技术的进展和存在的问题;对于超分辨率技术,文章主要介绍了超分辨率技术的最新进展,及其在遥感影像(sPOT5和MODIS)中的应用;在高光谱数据处理方面,从纯净像元和混合像元两方面介绍了最新的进展.对于纯净像元方法.主要分析了植被指数和统计方法,混合像元方面,则主要分析了像元分解、端元提取的最新技术方法;在智能化信息处理方面,先回顾了神经网络和遗传算法在遥感图像处理中的应用,然后介绍了人工免疫系统对多、高光谱遥感影像分类研究的最新进展.     

高分辨率遥感影像DSM的改进半全局匹配生成方法

提出一种基于改进半全局匹配算法的高分辨率遥感影像数字表面模型（digital surface model,DSM）生成方法。首先利用影像间连接点几何约束关系对有理函数模型进行系统误差补偿,在补偿模型的基础上对影像进行分块,利用投影轨迹法逐块得到核线影像对;在密集匹配阶段,对影像建立金字塔后逐层进行半全局匹配,匹配过程中引入顾及影像纹理信息的视差图膨胀腐蚀算法约束每一层视差搜索范围,增加了视差图边缘处的有效像素数,同时减少了算法所需的内存开销和计算时间;在视差图后处理阶段,利用加权中值滤波算法保护了视差图的边缘信息;最后基于前方交会获取DSM。选取WorldView 3和资源三号立体影像进行试验,结果表明,本文方法获取的DSM精度在高程方向上接近于1.5倍GSD,并且较好地保持了地物的边缘特性,在计算效率和内存开销方面也具有较好的平衡。     

A combined image matching method for Chinese optical satellite imagery

Image matching is one of the key technologies for digital Earth. This paper presents a combined image matching method for Chinese satellite images. This method includes the following four steps: (1) a modified Wallis-type filter is proposed to determine parameters adaptively while avoiding over-enhancement; (2) a mismatch detection procedure based on a global-local strategy is introduced to remove outliers generated by the Scale-invariant feature transform algorithm, and geometric orientation with bundle block adjustment is employed to compensate for the systematic errors of the position and attitude observations; (3) we design a novel similarity measure (distance, angle and the Normalized Cross-Correlation similarities, DANCC) which considers geometric similarity and textural similarity; and (4) we introduce a hierarchical matching strategy to refine the matching result level by level. Four typical image pairs acquired from Mapping Satellite-1, ZY-1 02C, ZY-3 and GeoEye-1, respectively, are used for experimental analysis. A comparison with the two current main matching algorithms for satellite imagery confirms that the proposed method is capable of producing reliable and accurate matching results on different terrains from not only Chinese satellite images, but also foreign satellite images.     

Towards 3D map generation from digital aerial images

This paper describes the fusion of information extracted from multispectral digital aerial images for highly automatic 3D map generation. The proposed approach integrates spectral classification and 3D reconstruction techniques. The multispectral digital aerial images consist of a high resolution panchromatic channel as well as lower resolution RGB and near infrared (NIR) channels and form the basis for information extraction.Our land use classification is a 2-step approach that uses RGB and NIR images for an initial classification and the panchromatic images as well as a digital surface model (DSM) for a refined classification. The DSM is generated from the high resolution panchromatic images of a specific photo mission. Based on the aerial triangulation using area and feature-based points of interest the algorithms are able to generate a dense DSM by a dense image matching procedure. Afterwards a true ortho image for classification, panchromatic or color input images can be computed.In a last step specific layers for buildings and vegetation are generated and the classification is updated.     

基于SIFT特征的遥感影像自动配准

遥感影像的自动配准是长期以来一直未能很好解决的一个重要问题。本文将视频图像匹配中获得巨大成功的SIFT（Scale Invariant Feature Transform）特征应用于遥感影像的自动配准问题中，并且针对遥感影像的成像特点，给出了一种具体的特征匹配方法。对航空和航天遥感影像在不同的变形、不同的光照变化和不同的分辨率下进行的大量实验表明，该方法具有稳定、可靠、快速等特点。     

Orthorectification of VHR optical satellite data exploiting the geometric accuracy of TerraSAR-X data

Orthorectification of satellite data is one of the most important pre-processing steps for application oriented evaluations and for image data input into Geographic Information Systems. Although high- and very high-resolution optical data can be rectified without ground control points (GCPs) using an underlying digital elevation model (DEM) to positional root mean square errors (RMSEs) between 3 m and several hundred meters (depending on the satellite), there is still need for ground control with higher precision to reach lower RMSE values for the orthoimages. The very high geometric accuracy of geocoded data of the TerraSAR-X satellite has been shown in several investigations. This is due to the fact that the SAR antenna measures distances which are mainly dependent on the terrain height and the position of the satellite. The latter can be measured with high precision, whereas the satellite attitude need not be known exactly. If the used DEM is of high accuracy, the resulting geocoded SAR data are very precise in their geolocation. This precision can be exploited to improve the orientation knowledge and thereby the geometric accuracy of the rectified optical satellite data. The challenge is to match two kinds of image data, which exhibit very different geometric and radiometric properties. Simple correlation techniques do not work and the goal is to develop a robust method which works even for urban areas, including radar shadows, layover and foreshortening effects. First the optical data have to be rectified with the available interior and exterior orientation data or using rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs). From this approximation, the technique used is the measurement of small identical areas in the optical and radar images by automatic image matching, using a newly developed adapted mutual information procedure followed by an estimation of correction terms for the exterior orientation or the RPC coefficients. The matching areas are selected randomly from a regular grid covering the whole imagery. By adjustment calculations, parameters from falsely matched areas can be eliminated and optimal improvement parameters are found. The original optical data are orthorectified again using the delivered metadata together with these corrections and the available DEM. As proof of method the orthorectified data from IKONOS and ALOS-PRISM sensors are compared with conventional ground control information from high-precision orthoimage maps of the German Cartographic Survey. The results show that this method is robust, even for urban areas. Although the resulting RMSE values are in the order of 2-6 m, the advantage is that this result can be reached even for optical sensors which do not exhibit low RMSE values without using manual GCP measurements.