Single-image High-resolution Satellite Data for 3d Information Extraction

The demand for accurate and up-to-date spatial information is increasing and its availability is becoming more important for a variety of tasks. Today’s commercial high-resolution satellite imagery (HRSI) offers the potential to extract useful and accurate spatial information for a wide variety of mapping and GIS applications. The extraction of metric information from images is possible due to suitable sensor orientation models, which describe the relationship between two-dimensional image coordinates and threedimensional object points. With IKONOS and QuickBird imagery, camera replacement models such as rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs) or alternative models such as the affine projection model are used to describe the relationship between image space and object space. With the sensor orientation determined, accurate metric 3D information can be extracted from HRSI through multi-image processing as well as from single images via monoplotting. Monoplotting is a well-known photogrammetric technique for extracting 3D spatial information from single aerial imagery of terrain described by a digital elevation model (DEM). The method also offers potential for single-image analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery (HRSI). This paper describes the implementation and application of monoplotting functions in the photogrammetric software package Barista and investigates the prospects of single IKONOS and QuickBird images for 3D feature point collection and the generation of 3D building models. The experimental determination of the accuracy of monoplotting from IKONOS and QuickBird imagery is also reported.