scholarly journals Using Information Content to Select Keypoints for UAV Image Matching

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1302
Author(s):  
Vahid Mousavi ◽  
Masood Varshosaz ◽  
Fabio Remondino

Image matching is one of the most important tasks in Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAV) photogrammetry applications. The number and distribution of extracted keypoints play an essential role in the reliability and accuracy of image matching and orientation results. Conventional detectors generally produce too many redundant keypoints. In this paper, we study the effect of applying various information content criteria to keypoint selection tasks. For this reason, the quality measures of entropy, spatial saliency and texture coefficient are used to select keypoints extracted using SIFT, SURF, MSER and BRISK operators. Experiments are conducted using several synthetic and real UAV image pairs. Results show that the keypoint selection methods perform differently based on the applied detector and scene type, but in most cases, the precision of the matching results is improved by an average of 15%. In general, it can be said that applying proper keypoint selection techniques can improve the accuracy and efficiency of UAV image matching and orientation results. In addition to the evaluation, a new hybrid keypoint selection is proposed that combines all of the information content criteria discussed in this paper. This new screening method was also compared with those of SIFT, which showed 22% to 40% improvement for the bundle adjustment of UAV images.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1246 ◽  
Author(s):  
San Jiang ◽  
Wanshou Jiang

Accurate orientation is required for the applications of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) images. In this study, an integrated Structure from Motion (SfM) solution is proposed, which aims to address three issues to ensure the efficient and reliable orientation of oblique UAV images, including match pair selection for large-volume images with large overlap degree, reliable feature matching of images captured from varying directions, and efficient geometrical verification of initial matches. By using four datasets captured with different oblique imaging systems, the proposed SfM solution is comprehensively compared and analyzed. The results demonstrate that linear computational costs can be achieved in feature extraction and matching; although high decrease ratios occur in image pairs, reliable orientation results are still obtained from both the relative and absolute bundle adjustment (BA) tests when compared with other software packages. For the orientation of oblique UAV images, the proposed method can be an efficient and reliable solution.


Author(s):  
Pyung-chae Lim ◽  
Junghoon Seo ◽  
Jae-in Kim ◽  
Sooahm Rhee ◽  
Junhwa Chi ◽  
...  

Recently, the mapping industry has been focusing on the possibility of large-scale mapping from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) owing to advantages such as easy operation and cost reduction. In order to produce large-scale maps from UAV images, it is important to obtain precise orientation parameters. For this, various techniques have been developed and are included in most of the commercial UAV image processing software. For mapping, it is equally important to select images that can cover a region of interest (ROI) with the fewest possible images. Otherwise, to map the ROI, one may have to handle too many images, and commercial software does not provide information needed to select images, nor does it explicitly explain how to select images for mapping. For these reasons, stereo mapping of UAV images in particular is time consuming and costly. In order to solve these problems, this study proposes a method to select images intelligently. We can select a minimum number of image pairs to cover the ROI with the fewest possible images. We can also select optimal image pairs to cover the ROI with the most accurate stereo pairs. We group images by strips, and generate the initial image pairs. We then apply an intelligent scheme to iteratively select optimal image pairs from the start to the end of an image strip. According to the results of the experiment, the number of images selected is greatly reduced by applying the proposed optimal image–composition algorithm. The selected image pairs produce a dense 3D point cloud over the ROI without any holes. For stereoscopic plotting, the selected image pairs were map the ROI successfully on a digital photogrammetric workstation (DPW), and a digital map covering the ROI is generated. The proposed method should contribute to time and cost reductions in UAV mapping.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2118
Author(s):  
Pyung-chae Lim ◽  
Sooahm Rhee ◽  
Junghoon Seo ◽  
Jae-In Kim ◽  
Junhwa Chi ◽  
...  

Recently, the mapping industry has been focusing on the possibility of large-scale mapping from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) owing to advantages such as easy operation and cost reduction. In order to produce large-scale maps from UAV images, it is important to obtain precise orientation parameters as well as analyzing the sharpness of they themselves measured through image analysis. For this, various techniques have been developed and are included in most of the commercial UAV image processing software. For mapping, it is equally important to select images that can cover a region of interest (ROI) with the fewest possible images. Otherwise, to map the ROI, one may have to handle too many images, and commercial software does not provide information needed to select images, nor does it explicitly explain how to select images for mapping. For these reasons, stereo mapping of UAV images in particular is time consuming and costly. In order to solve these problems, this study proposes a method to select images intelligently. We can select a minimum number of image pairs to cover the ROI with the fewest possible images. We can also select optimal image pairs to cover the ROI with the most accurate stereo pairs. We group images by strips and generate the initial image pairs. We then apply an intelligent scheme to iteratively select optimal image pairs from the start to the end of an image strip. According to the results of the experiment, the number of images selected is greatly reduced by applying the proposed optimal image–composition algorithm. The selected image pairs produce a dense 3D point cloud over the ROI without any holes. For stereoscopic plotting, the selected image pairs were map the ROI successfully on a digital photogrammetric workstation (DPW) and a digital map covering the ROI is generated. The proposed method should contribute to time and cost reductions in UAV mapping.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 3921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wuttichai Boonpook ◽  
Yumin Tan ◽  
Yinghua Ye ◽  
Peerapong Torteeka ◽  
Kritanai Torsri ◽  
...  

Buildings along riverbanks are likely to be affected by rising water levels, therefore the acquisition of accurate building information has great importance not only for riverbank environmental protection but also for dealing with emergency cases like flooding. UAV-based photographs are flexible and cloud-free compared to satellite images and can provide very high-resolution images up to centimeter level, while there exist great challenges in quickly and accurately detecting and extracting building from UAV images because there are usually too many details and distortions on UAV images. In this paper, a deep learning (DL)-based approach is proposed for more accurately extracting building information, in which the network architecture, SegNet, is used in the semantic segmentation after the network training on a completely labeled UAV image dataset covering multi-dimension urban settlement appearances along a riverbank area in Chongqing. The experiment results show that an excellent performance has been obtained in the detection of buildings from untrained locations with an average overall accuracy more than 90%. To verify the generality and advantage of the proposed method, the procedure is further evaluated by training and testing with another two open standard datasets which have a variety of building patterns and styles, and the final overall accuracies of building extraction are more than 93% and 95%, respectively.


Author(s):  
Ping Wang ◽  
Zheng Wei ◽  
Weihong Cui ◽  
Zhiyong Lin

This paper proposes a Minimum Span Tree (MST) based image segmentation method for UAV images in coastal area. An edge weight based optimal criterion (merging predicate) is defined, which based on statistical learning theory (SLT). And we used a scale control parameter to control the segmentation scale. Experiments based on the high resolution UAV images in coastal area show that the proposed merging predicate can keep the integrity of the objects and prevent results from over segmentation. The segmentation results proves its efficiency in segmenting the rich texture images with good boundary of objects.


Author(s):  
Z. Kurczynski ◽  
K. Bakuła ◽  
M. Karabin ◽  
M. Kowalczyk ◽  
J. S. Markiewicz ◽  
...  

Updating the cadastre requires much work carried out by surveying companies in countries that have still not solved the problem of updating the cadastral data. In terms of the required precision, these works are among the most accurate. This raises the question: to what extent may modern digital photogrammetric methods be useful in this process? The capabilities of photogrammetry have increased significantly after the introduction of digital aerial cameras and digital technologies. For the registration of cadastral objects, i.e., land parcels’ boundaries and the outlines of buildings, very high-resolution aerial photographs can be used. The paper relates an attempt to use an alternative source of data for this task - the development of images acquired from UAS platforms. Multivariate mapping of cadastral parcels was implemented to determine the scope of the suitability of low altitude photos for the cadastre. In this study, images obtained from UAS with the GSD of 3 cm were collected for an area of a few square kilometres. Bundle adjustment of these data was processed with sub-pixel accuracy. This led to photogrammetric measurements being carried out and the provision of an orthophotomap (orthogonalized with a digital surface model from dense image matching of UAS images). Geometric data related to buildings were collected with two methods: stereoscopic and multi-photo measurements. Data related to parcels’ boundaries were measured with monoplotting on an orthophotomap from low-altitude images. As reference field surveying data were used. The paper shows the potential and limits of the use of UAS in a process of updating cadastral data. It also gives recommendations when performing photogrammetric missions and presents the possible accuracy of this type of work.


Author(s):  
S. Rhee ◽  
T. Kim

3D spatial information from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) images is usually provided in the form of 3D point clouds. For various UAV applications, it is important to generate dense 3D point clouds automatically from over the entire extent of UAV images. In this paper, we aim to apply image matching for generation of local point clouds over a pair or group of images and global optimization to combine local point clouds over the whole region of interest. We tried to apply two types of image matching, an object space-based matching technique and an image space-based matching technique, and to compare the performance of the two techniques. The object space-based matching used here sets a list of candidate height values for a fixed horizontal position in the object space. For each height, its corresponding image point is calculated and similarity is measured by grey-level correlation. The image space-based matching used here is a modified relaxation matching. We devised a global optimization scheme for finding optimal pairs (or groups) to apply image matching, defining local match region in image- or object- space, and merging local point clouds into a global one. For optimal pair selection, tiepoints among images were extracted and stereo coverage network was defined by forming a maximum spanning tree using the tiepoints. From experiments, we confirmed that through image matching and global optimization, 3D point clouds were generated successfully. However, results also revealed some limitations. In case of image-based matching results, we observed some blanks in 3D point clouds. In case of object space-based matching results, we observed more blunders than image-based matching ones and noisy local height variations. We suspect these might be due to inaccurate orientation parameters. The work in this paper is still ongoing. We will further test our approach with more precise orientation parameters.


Author(s):  
M. V. Peppa ◽  
J. P. Mills ◽  
P. Moore ◽  
P. E. Miller ◽  
J. E. Chambers

Landslides are hazardous events with often disastrous consequences. Monitoring landslides with observations of high spatio-temporal resolution can help mitigate such hazards. Mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) complemented by structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry and modern per-pixel image matching algorithms can deliver a time-series of landslide elevation models in an automated and inexpensive way. This research investigates the potential of a mini UAV, equipped with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 compact camera, to provide surface deformations at acceptable levels of accuracy for landslide assessment. The study adopts a self-calibrating bundle adjustment-SfM pipeline using ground control points (GCPs). It evaluates misalignment biases and unresolved systematic errors that are transferred through the SfM process into the derived elevation models. To cross-validate the research outputs, results are compared to benchmark observations obtained by standard surveying techniques. The data is collected with 6 cm ground sample distance (GSD) and is shown to achieve planimetric and vertical accuracy of a few centimetres at independent check points (ICPs). The co-registration error of the generated elevation models is also examined in areas of stable terrain. Through this error assessment, the study estimates that the vertical sensitivity to real terrain change of the tested landslide is equal to 9 cm.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenzhuo Li ◽  
Kaimin Sun ◽  
Deren Li ◽  
Ting Bai ◽  
Haigang Sui

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