Method and apparatus for determination of water pervious surfaces

• US 7,660,430 B2
• Filed: 05/23/2005
• Issued: 02/09/2010
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Johns; Andrew W
• Application Number:
  US10/908,695
• Publication Number:
  US 20060262963A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,723 Days
• Field of Search: 382/100, 382/103, 382/113, 382/294, 348/144, 348/147
• US Class Current: 382/100
• 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;

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;

obtaining an image 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;

determining, for each parcel, a change in pervious surfaces; and

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

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 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.