Well site extraction from Landsat-5 TM imagery using an object- and pixel-based image analysis method

Well sites, including both well pads and exploratory core holes, are small polygonal landscape disturbance features approximately one half to one hectare (0.5–1 ha) in area, resulting from oil and gas exploration activities. Automatic extraction and monitoring of such small features using remote-sensing technology at regional scales has always been desirable for wildlife habitat monitoring and environmental planning and modelling. Due to the vast disturbances of well sites in a province like Alberta, Canada, high-resolution imagery is not practical for well site extraction. For operational purposes, mid-resolution and cost-effective satellite imagery such as Landsat is the choice. However, automatic well site extraction using mid-resolution satellite imagery is a challenging task. Wells are typically less than three pixels in width and length in a Landsat multispectral image. Furthermore, the spectral contrast between the well site pixels and the surrounding areas is low due to vegetation regrowth and the spectral complexity of the surrounding environment. This article presents a novel methodology for automatic extraction of well sites from Landsat-5 TM imagery. The method combines both pixel- and object-based image analyses and contains three major steps: geometric enhancement, segmentation, and well site extraction. The method was applied to Landsat-5 TM images acquired over Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. For accuracy assessment, four regions of interest were selected and the results of the proposed automatic method were evaluated against visual inspection of the Landsat-8 pan-sharpened image. The method results in a total average correctness, completeness, and quality measures of about 80, 96, and 77%, respectively over the four sites. In addition, the method is very fast as an entire Landsat scene is processed in less than 10 minutes. The method is an operational approach for automatic detection of well sites over the entire province and can dramatically reduce the labour cost of manual digitization for monitoring and updating well site maps.     

高分辨率卫星影像车辆检测研究进展

高分辨率卫星遥感技术具有在更小的空间尺度上探测地表目标的能力,利用其影像数据进行车辆检测已成为新的研究热点。在概述遥感影像车辆检测研究现状的基础上,对车辆目标影像特征及车辆检测过程进行了探讨;将车辆检测方法分为利用光谱/几何结构特征的基本检测方法和综合运用多种特征的智能化检测方法,并详细叙述了多种车辆检测方法的原理与适用性以及车辆提取中的关键技术。通过分析发现：结合多特征的机器学习和面向对象的车辆检测方法更适合较复杂环境下的车辆检测。     

基于纹理和灰度差分相结合的运动检测

运动目标检测在智能监控系统和交通检测系统中发挥着极其重要的作用,是视觉系统中的一个重要研究课题。文章提出了一种新的思路,利用图像的纹理信息,并结合图像的灰度差分,对运动图像进行分割,从而检测出运动目标。     

Improving volcanic ash cloud detection by a robust satellite technique

Automated and reliable satellite-based techniques are strongly required for volcanic ash cloud detection and tracking. In fact, volcanic ash clouds pose a serious hazard for air traffic and the synoptic (and possibly frequent) coverage offered by satellites can provide exciting opportunities for monitoring activities as well as for risk mitigation purposes.A new, AVHRR-based technique for improved automatic detection of volcanic clouds by means of multi-temporal analysis of historical, long-term satellite records has been recently proposed. The technique basically rests on the Robust AVHRR Techniques (RAT) approach, which is an innovative strategy of satellite data analysis, devoted to a former characterisation of the measured signal, in terms of expected value and natural variability and a further recognition of signal anomalies by an automatic, unsupervised change detection step. In this work, an extension of this method to nighttime observations is presented, by using thermal infrared information coming from AVHRR bands centred approximately at 3.5, 11.0 and 12.0 μm. Results achieved for two recent eruptive events of Mount Etna (occurred in May 2000 and in July 2001) seem to be encouraging, showing clear improvements in terms of ash detection sensitivity as well as in terms of false alarms reduction. The technique performance is also evaluated by comparison with the traditional “split-window” brightness temperature difference method; this exercise revealed a general improvement obtained by the proposed approach, even though some common problems still remain unsolved. The main merits of such an approach are its intrinsic self-adaptability to different environmental/natural/observational conditions and its natural exportability also to different satellite sensors. The results here presented show the benefits of such a technique especially when different observational conditions (time of pass, seasonal period, atmospheric moisture, solar illumination, volcanic cloud composition, satellite angles of view, etc.) are considered.The future prospects, also in terms of possible operational scenarios, coming from the implementation of such an approach on the new generation of satellite sensors (like, for example, SEVIRI aboard Meteosat Second Generation platform) are also discussed.     

Multi-class US traffic signs 3D recognition and localization via image-based point cloud model using color candidate extraction and texture-based recognition

Continuous condition monitoring and inspection of traffic signs are essential to ensure that safety and performance criteria are met. The use of 3D point cloud modeling by the construction industry has been significantly increased in recent years especially for recording the as-is conditions of facilities. The high-precision and dense 3D point clouds generated by photogrammetry can facilitate the process of asset condition assessment. This paper presents an automated computer-vision based method that detects, classifies, and localizes traffic signs via street-level image-based 3D point cloud models. The proposed pipeline integrates 3D object detection algorithm. An improved Structure-from-Motion (SfM) procedure is developed to create a 3D point cloud of roadway assets from the street level imagery. In order to assist with accurate 3D recognition and localization by color and texture features extraction, an automated process of point cloud cleaning and noise removal is proposed. Using camera pose information from SfM, the points within the bounding box of detected traffic signs are then projected into the cleaned point cloud by using the triangulation method (linear and non-linear) and the 3D points corresponding to the traffic sign in question are labeled and visualized in 3D. The proposed framework is validated using real-life data, which represent the most common types of traffic signs. The robustness of the proposed pipeline is evaluated by analyzing the accuracy in detection of traffic signs as well as the accuracy in localization in 3D point cloud model. The results promise to better and more accurate visualize the location of the traffic signs with respect to other roadway assets in 3D environment.     

An onboard automatic change detection system for disaster monitoring

This paper presents a new approach to disaster monitoring using an automatic change detection system onboard small satellites that features image tiling and fuzzy inference. Unlike other onboard change detection systems for satellites, the proposed system performs change detection on an image tile level rather than on a pixel-by-pixel basis. This image tiling approach allows for more robust change detection performance in the presence of misregistration errors. An important block in the automatic change detection system is the fuzzy inference engine, which generates control signals that trigger different onboard tasks such as image compression, issuing of warning alerts, transmission and rescheduling. The proposed scheme uses not only spectral information as the input data but also cloud cover information to improve the change detection results. Experimental results on accuracy of change detection and flood detection using satellite images are presented.     

基于光流法的卫星视频交通流参数提取研究

抽样分辨率达1米的高清卫星视频已经能够实现对地面较小的运动目标的实时监控。针对卫星视频中运动车辆目标仅显示为一个或几个像素点的特点,提出了一种基于光流法的卫星视频交通流参数提取的思路与方法。该方法利用卫星视频中车辆目标为像素点的特点,结合Shi-Tomasi角点检测方法实现车辆检测及车辆计数;在车辆检测的基础上利用光流法得到的连续视频帧中角点的位置信息进行双向车辆平均车速的计算,并对实验结果进行了对比分析。该文是基于卫星视频中小微运动车辆目标进行交通流参数提取的一次有益尝试。     

Detecting ground fog from space – a microphysics-based approach

The detection of ground fog from satellite data is of interest in operational nowcasting applications, as well as in studies of the climate system. A discrimination between fog at the ground and other low-stratus situations from satellite data requires information on cloud vertical geometry to establish whether the cloud touches the ground. This article introduces a technique that allows for the discrimination between low stratus and (ground) fog on the basis of geostationary satellite imagery. The cloud-base height is derived using a subadiabatic model of cloud microphysics. In this model, the cloud base is varied until model liquid–water path matches that retrieved from satellite data. The performance of this technique is shown to be good in a comparison with METeorological Aerodrome Report data comprising 1030 satellite scenes. With a hit rate of 81% and a threat score of 0.62, the skill is satisfactory.     

A Multimedia Data Mining Framework: Mining Information from Traffic Video Sequences

The analysis and mining of traffic video sequences to discover important but previously unknown knowledge such as vehicle identification, traffic flow, queue detection, incident detection, and the spatio-temporal relations of the vehicles at intersections, provide an economic approach for daily traffic monitoring operations. To meet such demands, a multimedia data mining framework is proposed in this paper. The proposed multimedia data mining framework analyzes the traffic video sequences using background subtraction, image/video segmentation, vehicle tracking, and modeling with the multimedia augmented transition network (MATN) model and multimedia input strings, in the domain of traffic monitoring over traffic intersections. The spatio-temporal relationships of the vehicle objects in each frame are discovered and accurately captured and modeled. Such an additional level of sophistication enabled by the proposed multimedia data mining framework in terms of spatio-temporal tracking generates a capability for automation. This capability alone can significantly influence and enhance current data processing and implementation strategies for several problems vis-à-vis traffic operations. Three real-life traffic video sequences obtained from different sources and with different weather conditions are used to illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed multimedia data mining framework by demonstrating how the proposed framework can be applied to traffic applications to answer the spatio-temporal queries.     

Cloud/snow recognition for multispectral satellite imagery based on a multidimensional deep residual network

Cloud/snow recognition technology for multispectral satellite imagery plays an important role in resource investigation, natural disasters, and environmental pollution. Traditional feature based classification methods cannot make full use of the effective features and multispectral optical parameters of satellite imagery; the precision of cloud/snow recognition is not good enough. Although deep convolution neural network (CNN) can extract features effectively, it faces training gradient diffusion and model degradation, which lead to a low accuracy in classification. In order to solve this problem, an improved deep residual network with multidimensional input is proposed for the cloud/snow recognition. The multidimensional deep residual network (M-ResNet) can effectively extract the image features and spectral information of satellite imagery. The multispectral satellite imagery is divided into cloud/snow-free, cloud only, snow only and cloud/snow mixed using the proposed method. The experimental results of HuanJing-1A/1B (HJ-1A/1B) satellite imagery in China show that the M-ResNet performs a good distinction for the four kinds of images. The accuracy of the classification is higher than support vector machine (SVM), random forest, convolution neural networks, and multi-grained cascaded forest (GcForest).     

基于知识库的面向对象卫星云图分类

为了提高卫星云图分类精度和实时识别云类,基于云类知识库采用面向对象的分类方法对卫星云图进行分类。首先对2011年7~8月的FY\|3A/VIRR卫星云图进行预处理,从中裁截500个云样本,随机选取42%云样本作为训练样本,提取训练样本的光谱和纹理特征,基于ReliefF方法进行特征选择,采用反向传播神经网络进行训练构造分类器,利用剩余58%云样本进行网络测试,至此云类知识库构建完毕。然后对待解译的云图进行JSEG分割获取云对象,基于云类知识库已训练好的分类器实现面向对象的云图分类。试验结果表明:所设计的云图分类算法有效,分类结果与云分类产品数据基本达到一致。     

多维加权密集连接卷积网络的卫星云图云检测

云检测是多光谱卫星云图分析的前提。传统云检测方法不能很好地对多光谱卫星云图进行特征表示,导致了云检测不是很准确。卷积神经网络虽然能有效地提取特征,但训练时会产生梯度扩散,训练效率低,优化困难等问题。针对这些问题,提出多维加权密集连接卷积神经网络模型实现对多光谱卫星云图的云检测。跨层连接能够实现网络中所有层之间的信息流,从而减少训练过程中的梯度消失导致收敛困难的问题。特征图之间连接的权值不同使得网络能够更高效地利用特征信息。通过实验结果对比,该模型可以很好地提取云图特征,提高多光谱云图检测的准确率,具有更好的泛化性能和优化效率。     

A multilevel decision fusion approach for urban mapping using very high-resolution multi/hyperspectral imagery

A novel multilevel decision fusion approach is proposed for urban mapping using very-high-resolution (VHR) multi/hyperspectral imagery. The proposed framework consists of three levels: (1) at level I, we first propose a self-dual filter for extracting structural features from the VHR imagery–subsequently, the spectral and structural features are integrated based on a weighted probability fusion; (2) level II extends level I by implementing the spectral–structural fusion in an object-based framework; and (3) at level III, the object-based probabilistic outputs at level II are used to identify unreliable objects, and shape attributes of these unreliable objects are then considered for refinement of classification. At this level, a decision-level object merging is used to improve the initial segmentation, since shape feature extraction is highly dependent on the quality of segmentation. Experiments were conducted on a Hyperspectral Digital Imagery Collection Experiment (HYDICE) DC Mall image and a QuickBird Beijing data set. The results revealed that the proposed approach provided progressively increasing accuracies when the multilevel features were gradually considered in the processing chain.     

用于视频中车速自动检测的摄像机自动标定方法

针对目前基于视频的车辆测速方法均需通过手工标定而造成的低效和可操作性差的问题,提出了一种对典型配置的道路监控摄像机的焦距、俯仰角、离地距离等重要参数进行自动标定的方法。首选利用自然场景中两组正交平行线在视频图像中形成的消失点之间的内在关系对摄像机的焦距和俯仰角实施精确标定;在此基础上利用视频中目标车辆群体的平均宽度对摄像机与地面之间距离进行自动标定。实验表明,该算法具有参数测量精度高和可靠性好等优点,可作为现有道路视频监控设备实施车辆速度、类别、流量等数据的自动采集、分析和监控,以及电子违章抓拍设备的有效自动标定手段。     

A study of cloud classification with neural networks using spectraland textural features

The problem of cloud data classification from satellite imagery using neural networks is considered. Several image transformations such as singular value decomposition (SVD) and wavelet packet (WP) were used to extract the salient spectral and textural features attributed to satellite cloud data in both visible and infrared (IR) channels. In addition, the well-known gray-level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM) method and spectral features were examined for the sake of comparison. Two different neural-network paradigms namely probability neural network (PNN) and unsupervised Kohonen self-organized feature map (SOM) were examined and their performance were also benchmarked on the geostationary operational environmental satellite (GOES) 8 data. Additionally, a postprocessing scheme was developed which utilizes the contextual information in the satellite images to improve the final classification accuracy. Overall, the performance of the PNN when used in conjunction with these feature extraction and postprocessing schemes showed the potential of this neural-network-based cloud classification system.     

融合特征的卫星视频车辆单目标跟踪

目的 卫星视频作为新兴遥感数据,可以提供观测区域高分辨率的空间细节信息与丰富的时序变化信息,为交通监测与特定车辆目标跟踪等应用提供了不同于传统视频视角的信息。相较于传统视频数据,卫星视频中的车辆目标分辨率低、尺度小、包含的信息有限。因此,当目标边界不明、存在部分遮挡或者周边环境表观模糊时,现有的目标跟踪器往往存在严重的目标丢失问题。对此,本文提出一种基于特征融合的卫星视频车辆核相关跟踪方法。方法 对车辆目标使用原始像素和方向梯度直方图（histogram of oriented gradient,HOG）方法提取包含互补判别能力的特征,利用核相关目标跟踪器分别得到具备不变性和判别性的响应图;通过响应图融合的方式结合两种特征的互补信息,得到目标位置;使用响应分布指标（response distribution criterion,RDC）判断当前目标特征的稳定性,决定是否更新跟踪器的表征模型。本文使用的相关滤波方法具有计算量小且运算速度快的特点,具备跟踪多个车辆目标的拓展能力。结果 在8个卫星视频序列上与主流的6种相关滤波跟踪器进行比较,实验数据涵盖光照变化、快速转弯、部分遮挡、阴影干扰、道路颜色变化和相似目标临近等情况,使用准确率曲线和成功率曲线的曲线下面积（area under curve,AUC）对车辆跟踪的精度进行评价。结果表明,本文方法较好地均衡了使用不同特征的基础跟踪器（性能排名第2）的判别能力,准确率曲线AUC提高了2.9%,成功率曲线AUC下降了4.1%,成功跟踪车辆目标,不发生丢失,证明了本文方法的先进性和有效性。结论 本文提出的特征融合的卫星视频车辆核相关跟踪方法,均衡了不同特征提取器的互补信息,较好解决了卫星视频中车辆目标信息不足导致的目标丢失问题,提升了精度。     

航空影像辅助下的城区机载LiDAR汽车目标检测方法

机载激光雷达(LiDAR)技术的出现为地面汽车目标检测提供了新的途径。为了从机载LiDAR点云数据中提取汽车对象,根据不同地物的属性特征,提出了一种航空影像辅助下的城区机载LiDAR汽车目标检测方法。首先利用形态学开重建滤波完成地面和地物的分类,然后在地物点的基础上结合正射影像,通过归一化植被指数(NDVI)特征完成对植被和非植被地物的初步分类,最后在非植被地物的基础上,根据地物对象的形状特征及高程信息完成汽车和建筑物及阴影植被等非汽车对象的分类,从而完成汽车目标的提取工作。3个实验区的计算结果表明:该方法能有效从LiDAR点云中提取汽车目标,正确度和完整度的均值分别为95%和85%,满足实用性要求。     

静止卫星图像热带气旋云系自动识别

热带气旋对我国东南沿海地区国民经济和人民生命财产威胁巨大,静止卫星云图是热带气旋实时监测的主要数据源。热带气旋在卫星云图上的纹理特征与其它云系相似度高,为气旋云系的自动准确提取带来困难。本文在矢量矩概念的基础上,提出了旋转系数的概念来表征热带气旋的形态本质特征从而实现热带气旋的自动识别。建立了基于静止卫星图像,运用最大类间方差法确定目标云系分割阈值,结合云系面积和亮温分布特性,利用旋转系数进行热带气旋云系自动识别的方法流程。以1211台风海葵为例,在台风生成发展期、成熟期以及消亡期内,进行了改进前后方法识别率的对比实验,统计发现改进方法的识别率分别为76%、95%、78%,均高于原始方法的59%、90%、63%。实验表明改进方法分割的热带气旋云系更为完整,对各阶段的热带气旋云系识别率均更高。     

基于粒子滤波算法的高速公路车辆停车检测

提出了一种基于粒子滤波视频跟踪算法的停车事件检测方法,实现了对高速公路交通视频的自动监控。首先用混合差分技术,快速提取出视频中的车辆对象;并用粒子滤波算法实现了运动车辆的跟踪;进而通过对车辆运动的数学建模,对停车事件进行了自动检测。最后,对多组高速公路交通视频进行测试,结果表明：提出的检测方法比其他常用方法响应速度更快,且具有较高的检测准确率和鲁棒性。     

Multi-scale hierarchical sampling change detection using Random Forest for high-resolution satellite imagery

ABSTRACT

High-resolution imagery provides rich information useful for land-use and land-cover change detection; however, methods to exploit these data lag behind data collection technologies. In this article, we propose a novel object-oriented multi-scale hierarchical sampling (MSHS) change detection method for high-resolution satellite imagery. In our method, MSHS is carried out to automatically obtain multi-scale training samples and different sample combinations. The training sample spectra, texture, and shape features are fused to build feature space after MSHS. Sample combinations and corresponding feature spaces are input into Random Forest (RF) to train multiple change classifiers. An optimal RF change detection classifier is selected when the out-of-bag error parameter in RF is at the minimum. In order to validate the proposed method, we applied it to high-resolution satellite image data and compared the detection results from our method and the single-scale sampling change detection method. These experimental results show that false alarm rates and missed detection of changed objects using our method were lower than the single-scale sampling change detection method. To demonstrate the scalability of the algorithm, different change detection methods were applied to three study sites. Experimental results show that our method delivered high overall accuracy and F₁-scores. Compared to traditional methods, our method makes full use of the multi-scale characteristics of ground objects. Our approach does not extend multi-scale feature vectors directly, but instead automatically increases the amount of the training samples at multiple scales, without increasing the volume of manual processing, thus improving the ability of the algorithm to generalize features from the RF model, making it more robust.