Method and Apparatus for Determination of Water Pervious Surfaces

• US 20060262963A1
• Filed: 05/23/2005
• Published: 11/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Maxar Intelligence Incorporated (Galileo Parent, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: DigitalGlobe, Inc. (Galileo Parent, Inc.)
• Inventors: Navulur, Kumar, Chaapel, Charles, Loomis, Dave
• Granted Patent: US 7,660,430 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/109
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/13 Satellite images

Abstract

A system and method for determining the pervious and impervious area within parcels associated with a municipality for purposes of generating bills for storm water runoff to parcel owners. Aerial imagery, collected from an aircraft and/or satellite, of the relevant municipality, or portion thereof, is collected, processed, and analyzed to determine the amount of water impervious area associated with each relevant parcel within the municipality. This information for each parcel may then be used to determine an appropriate amount of money to be charged to the owner of each respective parcel. The amount of impervious area per parcel is calculated based on parcel boundary information specific to the municipality that may contain spatial domain errors.

Claims

1. A method for determining pervious and impervious surfaces within parcels of a municipality, comprising:

obtaining a parcel map of a municipality;

obtaining an image of the municipality;

warping said image such that ground locations of the warped image correspond to ground locations of said parcel map; and

analyzing at least one of spectral and spatial information from said image to determine pervious surfaces associated with one or more parcels from said parcel map.

2. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 1, wherein said parcel map has corresponding GIS information that is different than GIS information from said satellite image.

3. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 1, wherein said image comprises multiple spectral bands.

4. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 3, wherein said spectral bands comprise a red band, a green band, a blue band, and a NIR band.

5. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 4, wherein said analyzing step comprises:

classifying a group of pixels from within said image as an object;

classifying said object as pervious or impervious;

determining an area of said object;

determining a total area associated with a parcel;

determining other objects within said parcel; and

determining a total area of impervious surfaces within said parcel.

6. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 5, wherein said object is classified using spectral information.

7. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

determining, for each parcel, an area of pervious surface and a total area;

calculating a percentage of total parcel area that is impervious; and

providing percentage information per parcel to the municipality.

8. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining imagery from a previous time period;

warping said previous image to a parcel map provided by the municipality;

analyzing said previous image to determine pervious surfaces;

comparing pervious surfaces between said previous image and said image; and

determining, for each parcel, a change in pervious surfaces.

9. The method for determining pervious surfaces, as claimed in claim 8, further comprising:

providing a report of parcels having a change greater than a predetermined percentage.

10. A parcel map of a municipality, comprising an image of parcels and an image of impervious surfaces related to each parcel, said impervious surfaces determined by:

obtaining a first image of said municipality;

warping said first image such that coordinates associated with ground locations within said image correspond with coordinates of corresponding ground locations associated with said parcels that are provided by the municipality; and

analyzing said first image to determine impervious surfaces.

11. The parcel map, as claimed in claim 10, wherein coordinates associated with ground locations of parcels that are provided by the municipality are different than coordinates of corresponding ground locations of the satellite image.

12. The parcel map, as claimed in claim 10, wherein said determination of pervious surfaces further comprises:

determining, for each parcel, an area of pervious surface and a total area;

calculating a percentage of total parcel area that is impervious for each parcel; and

providing a percentage for each parcel.

13. The parcel map, as claimed in claim 10, wherein said first image is a satellite image that comprises multiple spectral bands.

14. The parcel map, as claimed in claim 13, wherein said determination is performed using information from said spectral bands.

15. The parcel map, as claimed in claim 10, wherein said determination of impervious area further comprises:

obtaining a second image that is collected at a different time than said first image;

warping said second image to such that coordinates of ground locations associated with said second image correspond with coordinates of corresponding ground locations associated with said parcels;

determining a pervious surface area per parcel for each of said first and second images; and

providing a difference in pervious surface area per parcel between said first image and said second image.

16. A transmission medium comprising data related to pervious surfaces for each of a plurality of parcels in a municipality, said data obtained from:

a satellite image having a first set of ground coordinates;

a parcel map having a second set of ground coordinates, said second set of ground coordinates different than said first set of ground coordinates;

warping said satellite image to correspond to said second set of ground coordinates; and

analyzing said image to determine pervious surfaces associated with each said plurality of parcels.

17. The transmission medium, as claimed in claim 16, wherein said satellite image comprises multiple spectral bands.

18. The transmission medium, as claimed in claim 17, wherein said spectral bands comprise a red band, a green band, a blue band, and a NIR band.

19. The transmission medium, as claimed in claim 18, wherein said determination of pervious surfaces is determined using a ratio of said multi-spectral bands.

20. A system for determining an assessment for a plurality of parcels within a municipality for storm water runoff comprising:

a satellite image processing unit capable of processing information from a satellite image to determine areas within the image that are impervious;

an image warping unit capable of comparing ground coordinates associated with a parcel map for the municipality with ground coordinates associated with the satellite image and warping the satellite image such that the warped image ground coordinates correspond to the parcel map;

a pervious surface calculating unit capable of calculating an amount of pervious area per parcel;

an assessment calculating unit capable of calculating an assessment per parcel according to said amount of pervious area per parcel; and

wherein said image is warped before being analyzed.

21. The system, as claimed in claim 20, wherein said image processing unit is capable of analyzing multiple spectral bands and determining pervious surface based on said spectral bands.

22. The system, as claimed in claim 21, wherein said spectral bands comprise a red band, a green band, a blue band, and a NIR band.

23. The system, as claimed in claim 21, wherein said image warping unit is capable of determining ground coordinates of said satellite image and adjusting said ground coordinates to correspond to said parcel map.

24. The system, as claimed in claim 20, wherein said assessment calculating unit determines a percentage of pervious area and a total area for each of said parcels.