The Affine Projection Model for Sensor Orientation: Experiences with High-resolution Satellite Imagery

Accompanying the successful deployments of the IKONOS and QuickBird high-resolution satellite imagery (HRSI) systems have been a number of investigations into the utilisation of HRSI for the extraction of precise 3D metric information. Among the promising ‘alternative’ sensor orientation models investigated has been an approach based on affine projection. This model has previously been reported as performing well in experiments with stereo configurations of IKONOS imagery. In situations where precise sensor and orbital information is not fully accessible, empirical sensor orientation models requiring only a modest number of ground control points become an attractive proposition. This paper briefly summarises the theory and validity of the affine model as configured for application to sensor orientation and geopositioning for HRSI. The results of experiments with three HRSI stereo scenes are also presented, in which sub-pixel accuracy was achieved from both IKONOS and QuickBird imagery.