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Open Access A Split-and-Merge Technique for Automated Reconstruction of Roof Planes

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Automated reconstruction of buildings from different data sources has been one of the most challenging problems in photogrammetry and computer vision. Systems for automated building reconstruction fail in many cases due to complexities involved in the data including image noise, occlusion, shadow, and low contrast, as well as, low accuracy or density of height data. In this paper, the problem of overgrown and undergrown regions in the segmentation of aerial images is discussed, and a split-and-merge technique is presented to overcome this problem by making use of height data. This technique is based on splitting image regions whose associated height points do not fall in a single plane, and merging coplanar neighboring regions. A robust plane-fitting method is used to fit planar surfaces to height points that are highly contaminated by gross errors. Final roof planes are extracted out of the image planar regions by checking their slope and height over a morphologically opened DSM. An experimental evaluation is conducted, and its results indicate the capability of the proposed technique in splitting overgrown regions, merging undergrown coplanar regions, and selecting the final roof planes. Also, the method is shown to be computationally efficient, and the reconstructed roof planes are of acceptable accuracy.

Document Type: Research Article

Publication date: 01 July 2005

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  • The official journal of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing - the Imaging and Geospatial Information Society (ASPRS). This highly respected publication covers all facets of photogrammetry and remote sensing methods and technologies.

    Founded in 1934, the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) is a scientific association serving over 7,000 professional members around the world. Our mission is to advance knowledge and improve understanding of mapping sciences to promote the responsible applications of photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and supporting technologies.
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