Knowledge Based Multitemporal Interpretation

This paper describes a procedure for an automatic multitemporal interpretation of vegetation areas, which uses both structural features and temporal knowledge. For the interpretation of vegetation areas the concept of manual interpretation by using interpretation keys was transformed into the automatic interpretation system. For interpretation of temporal changes an approach was used, which discretely describes temporal conditions of regions, and which transfers the most probable temporal changes of the given conditions as temporal knowledge into a state transition diagram, then using it for multitemporal interpretation. Based on these approaches a procedure for automatic multitemporal interpretation of industrially used moorland was successfully developed. Proceeding from an initial segmentation based on Geo-Data a resegmentation and an interpretation of the segments is carried out for each investigated epoch. By using temporal knowledge it is possible to separate moor classes, which can only be detected in temporal order. The application of temporal knowledge and structural features enables the exclusive use of grey scale images for interpretation of vegetation areas. The results show that the presented procedure is suitable for multitemporal interpretation of moorland, and that it is able to distinguish additional moor classes compared to the approaches used so far. It is further applicable for a more robust multitemporal interpretation, and does not depend on colour images.