Image Sources for Informal Settlement Management

Informal settlements are a common feature of developing countries. In South Africa the improvement of living conditions in these settlements and the upgrading to formal housing types are regarded as being of central importance to the nation's development. Effective settlement improvement and upgrading activities, which we here term "management", require adequate spatial data. To date, the acquisition of spatial models of informal settlements has been based on conventional mapping techniques, and mostly on photogrammetry. Data are compiled using analogue or analytical methods. These are manual and hence require both considerable expertise and expensive equipment. Moreover, these methods are uneconomical over the often relatively small, densely populated areas covered by informal settlements and are also too expensive to employ with a regularity required to support such tasks as change detection. Alternative imaging sources and mapping techniques are therefore needed.
In this article we examine the problem of spatial information acquisition for informal settlement management from three perspectives: spatial information requirements, the role which imagery can play in satisfying these spatial information requirements, and effective imaging options. We focus on the potential of high resolution satellite imaging, small format digital aerial imagery and digital multispectral video systems for rapid mapping. We also discuss the example of automated shack extraction from aerial imagery.     

Mobile GIS occupancy audit of Ulana informal settlement in Ekurhuleni municipality,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Relocating people in informal settlements and upgrading the lives of those people require consistent commitment, good strategies, and supporting systems. In South Africa, in order to allocate subsidized housing to beneficiaries of an informal settlement, beneficiary administration needs to determine the number of people who qualify for subsidized houses. Without geo-spatial data-based technical verification, conventional methods of occupancy audits are often cumbersome, are unreliable, and do not promote smart and evidence-based decision making. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to propose and develop an Oracle-based mobile GIS tool to conduct an occupancy audit for Ulana, an informal settlement in Ekurhuleni Municipality in South Africa. Android-based tablets were used to collect the geographic and socio-economic attributes of the informal dwelling units (DU). Spatial analysis (in ArcGIS software and geo-spatial modeling environment) and statistical analysis were conducted to produce the occupancy audit. The results indicated that the use of mobile GIS provides up-to-date, accurate, comprehensive, and real-time data so as to facilitate the development of smart and integrated human settlements. The results of this audit also indicated that only 57% of the households residing in Ulana could potentially benefit from receiving a subsidized house. Accordingly, the occupancy audit enables planners to plan appropriate upgrading and housing development strategies for informal settlement. This study demonstrates that successful planning of housing delivery for post independent integrated neighborhoods is not a mere political rhetoric but is viable when it is based on reasonable geo-spatial techniques and information. The use of mobile GIS therefore needs to be extended to other informal settlement upgrading projects in South Africa as well as other cities in the global south. However, proper professional training is required to ensure the successful usage of smart mobile GIS tools.     

高分辨率遥感影像中的土地利用分类研究——以西南大学为例

大学校园是城市用地中的一个特殊群体,作为公共设施用地的一个重要部分,在城市土地利用日益紧张的条件下,对其进行土地利用分类研究有着重要的意义.本研究以西南大学为例,将最大似然监督分类法和决策树分类法相结合对其进行分类研究.研究表明:1)最大似然监督分类法和决策树法相结合对西南大学土地利用进行分类,取得了较好的效果,总分类精度达到了91.51%,Kappa系数达到了0.8831;2)分析出西南大学建筑分布特点:①校园内部建筑物趋于密集布局,提高了土地利用效率;②校园建筑物高层化,提高了建筑容积率.     

基于QuickBird遥感影像的棚户区提取与制图

以QuickBird遥感影像为数据源,从纹理信息的角度,利用灰度共生矩阵(GLCM)的方法对南京市下关区的棚户区信息进行了提取。首先,利用所选择的4个纹理特征统计量(对比度、能量、同质性和相关性)构建一个特征空间。然后运用非监督分类的方法(ISODATA算法)将研究区分成确定的类别数目。最后,根据实际情况,利用数学形态法对分类结果进行调整和优化,从而获得研究区域的棚户区信息。研究结果表明,基于纹理特征的灰度共生矩阵方法对于棚户区的提取和制图是有效可行的,同时本文的研究结果可以为南京市棚户区的管理及城市规划提供更为科学的依据。     

建筑物沉降观测技术方法探讨

随着城市建设的迅猛发展,城市规模越来越大,建筑物越来越高,由此带来的安全隐患越来越大,由于高层建筑一般采用桩基基础,且荷载较大,对高层建筑的内部基础和设备的位置关系有很高的精度要求,其施工安装阶段将给高层建筑本身及周边建筑群体带来复杂的形变影响。为了保障建筑物施工和运营的安全,就必须对其进行沉降观测。本文结合笔者多年的实际工作经验,并结合具体的实例,对高层建筑物沉降原因、沉降观测前的准备工作及沉降观测的实施过程和观测数据的处理方法等进行了论述,最后指出如何通过沉降观测技术准确地反映出高层建筑物的沉降情况。     

高分辨率遥感影像城中村提取的景观语义指数方法

城中村是中国一类特殊的非正式居民区。本文从城中村的物理特点出发,采用景观语义指数描述复杂的城中村场景,提出基于景观语义指数的高分辨率遥感影像城中村提取方法,并采用“分类置信度-反馈”机制进行实际可操作的大范围城中村制图。以广州市核心城区为例,城中村检测的总体精度达到了90%以上。试验结果表明相对于传统的光谱、纹理特征,景观语义指数能够更好地描述城中村的根本形态特点,更准确的城中村提取。此外,“分类置信度-反馈”机制能够充分参考机器学习的分类概率,以有限的人工干预生产更加准确的城中村制图产品。因此,本文方法能够有效应用于大范围的城中村提取与制图。     

Mapping trees in high resolution imagery across large areas using locally variable thresholds guided by medium resolution tree maps

Large area tree maps, important for environmental monitoring and natural resource management, are often based on medium resolution satellite imagery. These data have difficulty in detecting trees in fragmented woodlands, and have significant omission errors in modified agricultural areas. High resolution imagery can better detect these trees, however, as most high resolution imagery is not normalised it is difficult to automate a tree classification method over large areas. The method developed here used an existing medium resolution map derived from either Landsat or SPOT5 satellite imagery to guide the classification of the high resolution imagery. It selected a spatially-variable threshold on the green band, calculated based on the spatially-variable percentage of trees in the existing map of tree cover. The green band proved more consistent at classifying trees across different images than several common band combinations. The method was tested on 0.5 m resolution imagery from airborne digital sensor (ADS) imagery across New South Wales (NSW), Australia using both Landsat and SPOT5 derived tree maps to guide the threshold selection. Accuracy was assessed across 6 large image mosaics revealing a more accurate result when the more accurate tree map from SPOT5 imagery was used. The resulting maps achieved an overall accuracy with 95% confidence intervals of 93% (90–95%), while the overall accuracy of the previous SPOT5 tree map was 87% (86–89%). The method reduced omission errors by mapping more scattered trees, although it did increase commission errors caused by dark pixels from water, building shadows, topographic shadows, and some soils and crops. The method allows trees to be automatically mapped at 5 m resolution from high resolution imagery, provided a medium resolution tree map already exists.     

龙厦铁路石桥头隧道地表建筑物变形监测方法及计算分析

石桥头隧道横跨龙岩市区,隧道长、埋深浅、岩质差、地表建筑物密集。在隧道开挖初期,建筑物出现较大沉降、倾斜、拉裂和错裂,严重影响建筑物正常使用,危及居民安全。为此对建筑物进行了沉降监测、水平变形监测和倾斜监测,并计算建筑物的曲率,取得很好的效果,且对隧道施工起到很好的指导作用,本文简要的研究了其监测方法及计算分析。     

适用于遥感领域的交互式图像处理系统

数字图像处理技术的广泛应用使很多与图像相关的领域产生了根本性的变革。反过来，这些变革也对数字图像处理提出更高的要求，而计算机和人工智能技术的迅速发展为建立新的、面向具体应用的图像处理系统提供了现实的可能性。本文展示了一个基于Ｕｎｉｘ工作站的、适用于遥感领域的交互式图像系统的设计框架和主要功能。     

大兴安岭林区无人机可见光影像散发枯立木识别算法

枯立木识别对森林资源管理,生物多样性保护,以及森林碳储量变化评估具有重要价值.无人机高分辨率影像为枯立木调查提供了较为便捷的方式.现有枯立木识别算法多依靠拥有红边、近红外波段的多光谱影像来实现.相比于多光谱相机,消费级无人机通常搭载的是用于获取可见光(RGB)影像的普通数码相机,较少的波段信息为基于RGB影像的枯立木自...     

居民地增量更新中拓扑冲突自动检测方法研究

针对现有的检测方法无法适应增量更新中冲突检测的问题,以居民地要素为例,首先分析了增量更新中拓扑冲突发生的区域性特点;然后在检测区域建立规则格网索引,用格子集表达的区域来表示更新对象的邻近区域,将位于邻近区域内的空间对象作为拓扑冲突判断的候选集;最后通过计算更新对象与对应候选集内的空间对象间的拓扑关系并与冲突规则进行匹配来判断拓扑语义冲突。实验表明,该方法将检测区域限定在利用索引格子集表达的更新居民地对象的邻近区域内,不仅能够检测出增量更新过程中的拓扑冲突,而且具有较高的效率,能够应用于更新数据的质量检测。     

Spatially explicit urban green indicators for characterizing vegetation cover and public green space proximity: a case study on Brussels,Belgium

ABSTRACT

Cities often have a substantial green infrastructure, which provides local ecosystem services that improve the quality of life of urban residents. These services should be explicitly addressed in urban development policies, and areas with insufficient vegetation and limited access to public green spaces should be identified. This paper presents two spatially explicit urban green indicators that are derived using remote sensing imagery, freely available map data and spatial analysis tools from open source geospatial libraries and commercial software. The first indicator represents proportional green cover (public as well as private) in the vicinity of each building within a city. The second indicator quantifies the proximity of public green spaces as walking distances from buildings to actual park entrances. A dasymetric mapping approach was used to take spatial variations in population density into account. This allows representing the indicators from the perspective of citizens instead of buildings, which may be more meaningful for deriving statistics at city level or at the level of neighbourhoods or administrative zones. The potential use of these indicators in a planning context is discussed on a case study carried out for the city of Brussels, Belgium.     

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.     

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.     

Investigating Issues in Map Accuracy When Using an Object-Based Approach to Map Benthic Habitats

In a recent study, benthic habitat maps were created of the Texas Gulf Coast from digital aerial imagery. The images were classified using an object-based image analysis (OBIA) approach and a classification and regression tree (CART) technique. The map was manually edited, changing 26% of the polygons' labels. Accuracy assessments of the unedited map and the edited map revealed the two were not significantly different. The research in this paper evaluates why these maps may have similar accuracies. Our analyses indicate that the small segmentation scale parameter used over-segmented the imagery, reducing the effectiveness of the CART technique and editing.     

轻小型无人机测绘遥感系统研究进展

地球空间信息是人工智能、大数据时代的重要数据基础,轻小型无人机测绘遥感技术作为中国当前和未来获取厘米级分辨率、实时响应遥感数据的主要手段,必将发挥更加重要的作用。本文首先介绍了固定翼、多旋翼、无人直升机以及飞行控制系统、地面监控系统和遥控遥测链路的发展现状和潜在发展趋势;其次重点研究了数码相机、视频摄像机、倾斜相机、激光雷达、合成孔径雷达和定姿定位系统的利用现状和发展趋势;然后总结分析了当前无人机测绘遥感面临的系统检测、大范围实时遥感和遥感大数据精准解译方面的问题和挑战;最后面向人工智能、大数据、物联网、云计算等技术背景给出了轻小型无人机测绘遥感技术在飞行控制智能化、测绘遥感作业智能化和实时、实景无人机遥感技术应用模式创新等方面的发展趋势。     

基于自适应粒子群优化的SVM算法在建筑物沉降预测中的应用

针对传统支持向量机算法在预测方面的不足,采用自适应粒子群算法(APSO)对支持向量机参数选择进行分析和优化,建立基于自适应粒子群优化的SVM算法建筑物沉降预测模型,并对建筑物进行沉降预测。实验表明,相比于传统的支持向量机算法,自适应粒子群优化的SVM算法预测精度较高,为建筑物沉降预测提供一种新方法。     

高层住宅楼沉降监测与分析研究

本文论述了高层住宅楼在建设和使用中进行沉降监测的技术方案设计、监测精度、最弱点误差、监测数据处理,通过对山西工程职业技术学院高层住宅楼与实验楼的沉降监测研究,得出了沉降变化规律,并对产生沉降变形的原因进行了几何与物理分析,指出了高层建筑物在施工过程中由于某种原因对建筑物和邻近建筑物的基础稳定产生影响时,都应进行沉降监测,保证其建设和使用的安全,本文对高层住宅楼施工组织具有指导意义,可供高层建筑物沉降监测时参考。     

浅谈高层建筑的沉降观测

随着城市建设步伐的加快,高层建筑日渐增多,为了保证高层建筑物的正常使用及其安全性,并为日后的勘察、设计、施工提供可靠的资料及相应的沉降参数,高层建筑物沉降观测的必要性和重要性愈加明显。