TecLines: A MATLAB-Based Toolbox for Tectonic Lineament Analysis from Satellite Images and DEMs, Part 1: Line Segment Detection and Extraction

Geological structures, such as faults and fractures, appear as image discontinuities or lineaments in remote sensing data. Geologic lineament mapping is a very important issue in geo-engineering, especially for construction site selection, seismic, and risk assessment, mineral exploration and hydrogeological research. Classical methods of lineaments extraction are based on semi-automated (or visual) interpretation of optical data and digital elevation models. We developed a freely available Matlab based toolbox TecLines (Tectonic Lineament Analysis) for locating and quantifying lineament patterns using satellite data and digital elevation models. TecLines consists of a set of functions including frequency filtering, spatial filtering, tensor voting, Hough transformation, and polynomial fitting. Due to differences in the mathematical background of the edge detection and edge linking procedure as well as the breadth of the methods, we introduce the approach in two-parts. In this first study, we present the steps that lead to edge detection. We introduce the data pre-processing using selected filters in spatial and frequency domains. We then describe the application of the tensor-voting framework to improve position and length accuracies of the detected lineaments. We demonstrate the robustness of the approach in a complex area in the northeast of Afghanistan using a panchromatic QUICKBIRD-2 image with 1-meter resolution. Finally, we compare the results of TecLines with manual lineament extraction, and other lineament extraction algorithms, as well as a published fault map of the study area. OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2014, 6 5939