Urban Slum Detection Approaches from High-Resolution Satellite Data Using Statistical and Spectral Based Approaches

This paper proposes a new technique to detect the urban slums from urban buildings using very high resolution data. Many cities in the Global South are facing the development and growth of highly dynamic slum areas, but often lack detailed spatial information. Unlike buildings, vegetation and other features, urban slums lack in their unique spectral signatures. Thus, accurate detection of slums using remote sensing data poses real challenge to researchers and decision-makers. In this work, gray-level co-occurrence matrix, Tamura-based statistical feature extraction and wavelet frame transform-based spectral feature extraction techniques are proposed for detecting the urban slums from urban buildings. The very high resolution data of Madurai city, South India, acquired by Worldview-2 sensor (1.84 m) proved the ability of the proposed approaches to identify urban slums from urban buildings. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed wavelet frame transform-based approach can generate higher classification accuracy than other approaches.     

高分辨率多光谱影像城区建筑物提取研究

城区高空间分辨率遥感数据由于存在大量同物异谱和异物同谱现象,应用传统的基于像元光谱分类的方法进行建筑物分类提取难以取得满意的效果。本文发展了一种从高分辨率Ikonos卫星影像上基于知识规则的面向对象分类提取城区建筑物方法,包括如下步骤：(1)融合1m全色和4m多光谱波段影像,生成1m分辨率的多光谱融合影像;（2）分割融合影像;（3）执行基于对象光谱的最近邻监督分类;（4）应用模糊逻辑分类器结合光谱、空间、纹理和上下文特征等知识规则进行建筑物分类。精度统计结果表明,本文提出的分类方法提取城区建筑物取得了93%的精度。     

Object-oriented semantic labelling of spectral–spatial LiDAR point cloud for urban land cover classification and buildings detection

The urban land cover mapping and automated extraction of building boundaries is a crucial step in generating three-dimensional city models. This study proposes an object-based point cloud labelling technique to semantically label light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data captured over an urban scene. Spectral data from multispectral images are also used to complement the geometrical information from LiDAR data. Initial object primitives are created using a modified colour-based region growing technique. Multiple classifier system is then applied on the features extracted from the segments for classification and also for reducing the subjectivity involved in the selection of classifier and improving the precision of the results. The proposed methodology produces two outputs: (i) urban land cover classes and (ii) buildings masks which are further reconstructed and vectorized into three-dimensional buildings footprints. Experiments carried out on three airborne LiDAR datasets show that the proposed technique successfully discriminates urban land covers and detect urban buildings.     

Texture classification of Mediterranean land cover

Maximum likelihood (ML) and artificial neural network (ANN) classifiers were applied to three Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) image sub-scenes (termed urban, agricultural and semi-natural) of Cukurova, Turkey. Inputs to the classifications comprised (i) spectral data and (ii) spectral data in combination with texture measures derived on a per-pixel basis. The texture measures used were: the standard deviation and variance and statistics derived from the co-occurrence matrix and the variogram. The addition of texture measures increased classification accuracy for the urban sub-scene but decreased classification accuracy for agricultural and semi-natural sub-scenes. Classification accuracy was dependent on the nature of the spatial variation in the image sub-scene and, in particular, the relation between the frequency of spatial variation and the spatial resolution of the imagery. For Mediterranean land, texture classification applied to Landsat TM imagery may be appropriate for the classification of urban areas only.     

Fusion of airborne laserscanning point clouds and images for supervised and unsupervised scene classification

Automatic urban object detection from airborne remote sensing data is essential to process and efficiently interpret the vast amount of airborne imagery and Laserscanning (ALS) data available today. This paper combines ALS data and airborne imagery to exploit both: the good geometric quality of ALS and the spectral image information to detect the four classes buildings, trees, vegetated ground and sealed ground. A new segmentation approach is introduced which also makes use of geometric and spectral data during classification entity definition. Geometric, textural, low level and mid level image features are assigned to laser points which are quantified into voxels. The segment information is transferred to the voxels and those clusters of voxels form the entity to be classified. Two classification strategies are pursued: a supervised method, using Random Trees and an unsupervised approach, embedded in a Markov Random Field framework and using graph-cuts for energy optimization. A further contribution of this paper concerns the image-based point densification for building roofs which aims to mitigate the accuracy problems related to large ALS point spacing.Results for the ISPRS benchmark test data show that to rely on color information to separate vegetation from non-vegetation areas does mostly lead to good results, but in particular in shadow areas a confusion between classes might occur. The unsupervised classification strategy is especially sensitive in this respect. As far as the point cloud densification is concerned, we observe similar sensitivity with respect to color which makes some planes to be missed out, or false detections still remain. For planes where the densification is successful we see the expected enhancement of the outline.     

Fully constrained linear spectral unmixing based global shadow compensation for high resolution satellite imagery of urban areas

Shadows commonly exist in high resolution satellite imagery, particularly in urban areas, which is a combined effect of low sun elevation, off-nadir viewing angle, and high-rise buildings. The presence of shadows can negatively affect image processing, including land cover classification, mapping, and object recognition due to the reduction or even total loss of spectral information in shadows. The compensation of spectral information in shadows is thus one of the most important preprocessing steps for the interpretation and exploitation of high resolution satellite imagery in urban areas. In this study, we propose a new approach for global shadow compensation through the utilization of fully constrained linear spectral unmixing. The basic assumption of the proposed method is that the construction of the spectral scatter plot in shadows is analogues to that in non-shadow areas within a two-dimension spectral mixing space. In order to ensure the continuity of land covers, a smooth operator is further used to refine the restored shadow pixels on the edge of non-shadow and shadow areas. The proposed method is validated using the WorldView-2 multispectral imagery collected from downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In comparison with the existing linear-correlation correction method, the proposed method produced the compensated shadows with higher quality.     

融合形状和光谱的高空间分辨率遥感影像分类

提出了一种像元形状指数及基于形状和光谱特征融合的高（空间）分辨率遥感影像分类方法。形状和光谱是遥感影像纹理的具体表现形式,尤其在高分辨率影像中地物细节得到充分表达,相邻像元的关系及其共同表征的形状特性成为分类的重要因素。本文用像元及其邻域的关系来描述其空间结构,同时为了更全面地利用影像特征,提出了基于支持向量机的形状和光谱融合分类方法。实验证明,该方法计算简便且能有效表达高分辨率影像的地物特征,提高分类精度。     

基于高分辨率遥感影像分类的地图更新方法

提出了一种在对遥感影像分类的基础上进行地图更新的方法，讨论了利用高分辨率遥感影像，通过不同空间分辨率和光谱分辨率的影像进行融合，利用合适的高通滤波对影像进行边缘检测．构建一个三层的MLP分类器对影像进行分类，提取城市建筑物与道路信息．并在此分类基础上通过对现有地图的叠加来实现地图的更新。实验结果表明，基于影像融合，利用较少数量的训练样本也能生成具有较高精度的分类图，利用分类结果图进行地图更新能取得令人满意的效果。     

An application of spatial filtering techniques for land cover mapping using TM‐images

Land cover classification using satellite imagery is commonly based on spectral information in the individual pixels. The information in neighbouring pixels is ignored. Spatial filtering techniques using information present in neighbouring pixels may however, contribute significantly to an improvement of the classification. In this study different methods of spatial filtering are applied to a part of a TM‐scene of Kenya to assess their relative reliability. The study area is characterized by extended, relatively homogeneous areas of eucalyptus forests and tea estates and by fragmentated areas of agricultural land use. Spectral information was combined with the results of different spatial filtering methods and then classified. The spatial filtering techniques applied were texture calculation by means of variance, “median minus original” filtering and fractal dimension computations using several sizes of templates. The obtained classification accuracy of several image combinations is compared using the percentage correctly classified and using an overall accuracy measure: the Kappa coefficient. It is concluded that in this case the spatial filtering techniques only slightly improve the classification. From the applied filtering methods texture calculation by means of variance yielded the best results.     

Classification method,spectral diversity,band combination and accuracy assessment evaluation for urban feature detection

Automatic extraction of urban features from high resolution satellite images is one of the main applications in remote sensing. It is useful for wide scale applications, namely: urban planning, urban mapping, disaster management, GIS (geographic information systems) updating, and military target detection. One common approach to detecting urban features from high resolution images is to use automatic classification methods. This paper has four main objectives with respect to detecting buildings. The first objective is to compare the performance of the most notable supervised classification algorithms, including the maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) and the support vector machine (SVM). In this experiment the primary consideration is the impact of kernel configuration on the performance of the SVM. The second objective of the study is to explore the suitability of integrating additional bands, namely first principal component (1st PC) and the intensity image, for original data for multi classification approaches. The performance evaluation of classification results is done using two different accuracy assessment methods: pixel based and object based approaches, which reflect the third aim of the study. The objective here is to demonstrate the differences in the evaluation of accuracies of classification methods. Considering consistency, the same set of ground truth data which is produced by labeling the building boundaries in the GIS environment is used for accuracy assessment. Lastly, the fourth aim is to experimentally evaluate variation in the accuracy of classifiers for six different real situations in order to identify the impact of spatial and spectral diversity on results. The method is applied to Quickbird images for various urban complexity levels, extending from simple to complex urban patterns. The simple surface type includes a regular urban area with low density and systematic buildings with brick rooftops. The complex surface type involves almost all kinds of challenges, such as high dense build up areas, regions with bare soil, and small and large buildings with different rooftops, such as concrete, brick, and metal.Using the pixel based accuracy assessment it was shown that the percent building detection (PBD) and quality percent (QP) of the MLC and SVM depend on the complexity and texture variation of the region. Generally, PBD values range between 70% and 90% for the MLC and SVM, respectively. No substantial improvements were observed when the SVM and MLC classifications were developed by the addition of more variables, instead of the use of only four bands. In the evaluation of object based accuracy assessment, it was demonstrated that while MLC and SVM provide higher rates of correct detection, they also provide higher rates of false alarms.     

城市尺度典型地表要素综合提取方法研究

国产高分卫星分辨率的不断提高,使其可以从几何形态、纹理结构及光谱信息等不同侧面实现对城市地表要素的精细描述。与面向对象分类技术相比,深度学习技术的快速发展,使得城市建筑物提取的精度不断提高。然而,由于道路两旁高大建筑物及树木的遮挡,城市道路的提取精度依然有限。本文在利用卷积神经网络提取建筑物的基础上,利用OSM面状道路数据及城市边界数据,结合植被指数和水体指数,借助空间图层叠加,使得城市建筑物、道路、植被和水体提取总体精度优于90%,为国产高分影像辅助城市精细化管理和应用提供了有效解决方案。     

Markov-random-field-based super-resolution mapping for identification of urban trees in VHR images

Identification of tree crowns from remote sensing requires detailed spectral information and submeter spatial resolution imagery. Traditional pixel-based classification techniques do not fully exploit the spatial and spectral characteristics of remote sensing datasets. We propose a contextual and probabilistic method for detection of tree crowns in urban areas using a Markov random field based super resolution mapping (SRM) approach in very high resolution images. Our method defines an objective energy function in terms of the conditional probabilities of panchromatic and multispectral images and it locally optimizes the labeling of tree crown pixels. Energy and model parameter values are estimated from multiple implementations of SRM in tuning areas and the method is applied in QuickBird images to produce a 0.6 m tree crown map in a city of The Netherlands. The SRM output shows an identification rate of 66% and commission and omission errors in small trees and shrub areas. The method outperforms tree crown identification results obtained with maximum likelihood, support vector machines and SRM at nominal resolution (2.4 m) approaches.     

Fusion of Radar and Optical Data for Land Cover Mapping

Abstract

This study examined the complementarity of radar and optical data for feature identification. Spaceborne radar and Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM ) multispectral data sets were assessed independently and in combination to classify a site near Wad Medani, Sudan. Radar processing procedures included speckle reduction, texture extraction and post‐processing smoothing. Relative accuracy of the resultant classifications was established by comparison to ground truth information derived from field visitation. Neither speckle filtering nor post‐classification smoothing were improvements over the poor results obtained with the unfiltered, original radar data. Texture measures were significant improvements over the original data (20 percent overall accuracy increase) and several, but not all, individual classes had excellent results. Landsat TM had good overall results (80 percent correct) but considerable spectral confusion between urban and bare soil. Combination of radar with Landsat TM greatly improved results, achieving near perfect classification of all individual classes. The systematic strategy of this study, determination of the best individual method before introducing the next procedure, was effective in managing a complex set of analysis possibilities.     

UAV for mapping shrubland vegetation: Does fusion of spectral and vertical information derived from a single sensor increase the classification accuracy?

High quality data on plant species occurrence count among the essential data sources for ecological research and conservation purposes. Ecologically valuable small grain mosaics of heterogeneous shrub and herbaceous formations however pose a challenging environment for creating such species occurrence maps. Remote sensing can be useful for such purposes, it however faces several challenges, especially the need of ultra high spatial resolution (centimeters) data and distinguishing between plant species or genera. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are capable of producing data with sufficient resolution; their use for identification of plant species is however still largely unexplored. A fusion of spectral data with LiDAR-derived vertical information can improve the classification accuracy, such a solution is however costly. A cheaper alternative of vertical data acquisition can be represented by the use of the structure-from-motion photogrammetry (SfM) utilizing the images taken for (multi/hyper)spectral analysis. We investigated the use of such a fusion of UAV-borne multispectral and SfM-derived vertical information acquired from a single sensor for classification of shrubland vegetation at species level and compared its accuracy with that derived from multispectral information only. Multispectral images were acquired using Tetracam Micro-MCA6 camera in the west of Czechia in a shrubland landscape protected within the NATURA 2000 network. Using (i) multispectral imagery only and (ii) multispectral-SfM fusion, we classified the vegetation into six classes representing four woody plant species and two meadow types. Our results prove that the multispectral-SfM fusion performs significantly better than multispectral only (88.2% overall accuracy, 85.2% mean producer’s accuracy and 85.7% mean user’s accuracy for fusion instead of 73.3%, 75.1% and 63.7%, respectively, for multispectral). We concluded that the fusion of multispectral and SfM information acquired from a single UAV sensor is a viable method for shrub species mapping.     

Utilizing the Potential of World View −2 for Discriminating Urban and Vegetation Features Using Object Based Classification Techniques

With the availability of very high resolution multispectral imagery, it is possible to identify small features in urban environment. Because of the multiscale feature and diverse composition of land cover types found within the urban environment, the production of accurate urban land cover maps from high resolution satellite imagery is a difficult task. This paper demonstrates the potential of 8 bands capability of World View 2 satellite for better automated feature extraction and discrimination studies. Multiresolution segmentation and object based classification techniques were then applied for discrimination of urban and vegetation features in a part of Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. The study demonstrates that scale, colour, shape, compactness and smoothness have a significant influence on the quality of image objects achieved, which in turn governs the classified result. The object oriented analysis is a valid approach for analyzing high spatial and spectral resolution images. World View 2 imagery with its rich spatial and spectral information content has very high potential for discrimination of the less varied varieties of vegetation.     

Extraction of buildings and trees in urban environments

In this article, two methods for data collection in urban environments are presented. The first method combines multispectral imagery and laser altimeter data in an integrated classification for the extraction of buildings, trees and grass-covered areas. The second approach uses laser data and 2D ground plan information to obtain 3D reconstructions of buildings.     

基于MATLAB的遥感影像纹理特征分析

随着遥感技术的飞速发展,遥感影像计算机分析也随之成为遥感技术应用的一个重要组成部分.传统的遥感影像分析方法大都是基于影像光谱特征的计算机自动分类,忽略了影像的空间结构信息,精度不高.研究了利用灰度共生矩阵提取遥感影像的纹理特征,实现了MATLAB下采用监督分类方法应用最短距离分类器及滤波完成了全色遥感影像的分类分析.     

Synergetic efficiency of Lidar and WorldView-2 for 3D urban cartography in Northeast Mexico

Three-dimensional urban cartography is needed for city changes’ assessment. The variety of studies using 3D calculations of urban elements grows each year. Building and vegetation volumes are necessary to assess and understand spatio-temporal urban changeable environments. However, there are technical questions as to which method can improve 3D urban cartographic accuracy. The innovative part of this current study is the creation of a six-band hybrid obtained from LIDAR and WorldView2 synergy. Two different enhancement algorithms demonstrated the most important spectral features for the urban development and vegetation classes. Results indicated an improvement in accuracy by up to 21.3%, according to the Kappa coefficient. Both infra-red band and intensity band were the most significant, according to the principal components analysis. The synergy delimited classes and polygons, as well as the direct display of information regarding heights of elements and improving the extraction of roads, buildings and vegetation classes.     

基于高分遥感影像的城市用地现状信息提取

我国正处于城镇建设的高速发展阶段,城市用地现状信息提取是进行城市精细化管理的重要基础工作。本文通过对高分辨率遥感影像光谱特性的深入分析,提出一种结合面向对象分类和GIS分析技术的城市用地现状分类的处理新模式,实现了城市用地现状的高效分类。利用高分一号卫星高分辨率遥感数据进行验证,总体分类精度达81.44%。试验表明,该处理模式有效地简化了人工操作步骤,大幅度提高了高分辨率遥感影像城市用地现状提取的效率。