AUTOMATIC EXTRACTION OF BUILT-UP FOOTPRINTS FROM HIGH RESOLUTION OVERHEAD IMAGERY THROUGH MANIPULATION OF ALPHA-TREE DATA STRUCTURES
First Claim
1. A method for use in extracting structures of interest from overhead imagery data, comprising:
- identifying, using a processor, a plurality of groups of pixels in at least one input overhead image of a geographical region, wherein each pixel in each group is adjacent to at least one other pixel in the group, wherein adjacent pixels in each group do not differ by more than a predetermined level of a dissimilarity measure between the adjacent pixels, wherein a plurality of such groups of pixels at each of a plurality of successive predetermined levels of the dissimilarity measure are identified, wherein the groups at one of the predetermined levels are hierarchically related to the groups at an adjacent one of the predetermined levels in a hierarchical data structure, and wherein each group is a first component; and
detecting first components in the hierarchical data structure that each include pixels collectively comprising a geometric attribute level greater than a threshold geometric attribute level.
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Abstract
A system for automatically extracting or isolating structures or areas of interest (e.g., built-up structures such as buildings, houses, shelters, tents; agricultural areas; etc.) from HR/VHR overhead imagery data by way of making as little as a single pass through a hierarchical data structure of input image components (where pixels are grouped into components based on any appropriate definition or measure of dissimilarity between adjacent pixels of the input image) to identify candidate components (e.g., possible structures of interest) free of necessarily having to re-iterate the same operator configured with different threshold parameters for a plurality of values.
4 Citations
42 Claims
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1. A method for use in extracting structures of interest from overhead imagery data, comprising:
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identifying, using a processor, a plurality of groups of pixels in at least one input overhead image of a geographical region, wherein each pixel in each group is adjacent to at least one other pixel in the group, wherein adjacent pixels in each group do not differ by more than a predetermined level of a dissimilarity measure between the adjacent pixels, wherein a plurality of such groups of pixels at each of a plurality of successive predetermined levels of the dissimilarity measure are identified, wherein the groups at one of the predetermined levels are hierarchically related to the groups at an adjacent one of the predetermined levels in a hierarchical data structure, and wherein each group is a first component; and detecting first components in the hierarchical data structure that each include pixels collectively comprising a geometric attribute level greater than a threshold geometric attribute level. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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2-9. -9. (canceled)
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26. A system for extracting structures of interest from overhead imagery, comprising:
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a construction engine, executable by a processor, that organizes a plurality of pixels of an input overhead image associated with a geographic area into a plurality of components of a hierarchical data structure, wherein each pixel in each group is adjacent to at least one other pixel in the group, wherein adjacent pixels in each group do not differ by more than a predetermined level of a dissimilarity measure between the adjacent pixels, wherein a plurality of such groups of pixels at each of a plurality of successive predetermined levels of the dissimilarity measure are identified, and wherein each group is a first component; and a non-target clustering engine, executable by the processor, that; detects first components in the hierarchical data structure that each include pixels collectively comprising a geometric attribute level greater than a threshold geometric attribute level; obtains at least one attribute of each of the detected first components; ascertains whether the at least one attribute of each the detected first components is associated with a structure of interest in the at least one input overhead image; and generates a mask corresponding to the geographic area based on the detected first component ascertaining step that includes first regions that are ascertained to be associated with structures of interest and second regions that are ascertained to not be associated with structures of interest. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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30. (canceled)
Specification