NATIONAL GROUND CONTROL POINT DATABASE: A NEW

NATIONAL DATA SET FOR AUSTRALIA

Barr S1, Wang L1, Ravanbakhsh M2, Pasfield M1 and Lewis A1
1. National Earth Observation Group, Geoscience Australia
GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601
Ph. +61 2 6249 9111, Fax +61 2 6249 9938
stuart.barr@ga.gov.au; mike.pasfield@ga.gov.au; lan-wei.wang@ga.gov.au
2. Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information
723 Swanston Street, The University of Melbourne VIC 3010
Ph. +61 3 8344 9186, Fax. +61 3 9349 5185
m.ravanbakhsh@unimelb.edu.au

Abstract
The widespread utilisation of orthocorrected imagery facilitates higher quality
decisions for land use mapping, environmental monitoring and infrastructure
planning. To enable the transition to orthocorrected imagery as the norm,
Geoscience Australia (GA) is collecting Ground Control Points (GCPs) suitable
for geo-coding ALOS PRISM imagery to sub-pixel accuracy. Using a
pushbroom sensor model and strip adjustment, innovative software developed
by the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRC-SI), known
as BARISTA, is capable of long pass orthocorrection processing using only a
small number of GCPs located near both ends of each pass. Consequently, GA
is collecting, through the private sector, GCPs located mainly near the coastal
fringe of the continent. By preferentially collecting image tie points located in
the sidelap of adjacent passes, image registration of adjacent orthocorrected
scenes will be improved, enabling sub-pixel registration of multi-temporal
PRISM imagery. These GCPs will be used to process low cloud-cover passes
covering Australia from which Secondary Control Points (SCPs) will be derived.
This library of SCPs will be suitable for orthocorrection of imagery with a spatial
resolution of 2.5 m or greater and will be published under a Creative Commons
licence. The SCP database will provide the spatial industry with a consistent
national ground control dataset for orthocorrecting imagery and other purposes.
Introduction
Satellite images, and information products derived from those images, are
playing an ever increasing role in mapping and monitoring of the land and
water. Today, the Landsat missions alone underpin almost 60 government
spending programs across Australia, and the Australian government has
recently purchased almost full continental coverage of imagery from SPOT
satellites. Geoscience Australia holds several coverages of Australia from
Japan’s ALOS satellite. Looking forward, numerous commercial and public
good missions, including the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) and the
European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) missions
suggest a data-rich future with multiple observations of the entire continent
many times each year. Time-series analysis of Earth observation data will
inevitably become ‘the norm’. All of these missions will have higher spatial
resolution in the optical range than Landsat’s nominal (25 to 30) m pixels.
The national ground control point project (NGCP) will produce a consistent and
accurate reference image allowing future imagery to be registered to an
accurate and consistent base. As more data sources become available,
accurate and consistent spatial referencing becomes essential. Pixel-to-pixel
registration is essential for time series analysis of Landsat data, and the
advantages of higher resolution imagery will be ‘blurred out’ if images are not
consistently registered. Whilst it is relatively simple to ensure high relative
accuracy within a given type of imagery (by co-registration of all images to an
initial base image of arbitrary accuracy) the only lasting solution to the problem
is to establish a reference image of known absolute accuracy.
This problem first struck at Geoscience Australia when we provided ALOS
PRISM data coverage of large parts of South Australia in 2007. A lack of ground
control points or reference imagery led to us using our national Landsat
panchromatic mosaic as the spatial reference. Whilst accurate for its time, the
pan mosaic (which has a 15-metre GSD) is less than ideal as a reference image
for 2.5 m ALOS PRISM imagery.
The scale of the problem is amplified orders of magnitude as future data
sources, including commercial data sources, come on line. A consistent
reference image of known absolute accuracy is needed as a ‘small-s’ standard
for the Australian remote sensing industry.
New methods are needed to accurately reference high resolution imagery over
the entire Australian continent as tens of thousands of ground control points and
man-decades of effort would be required to tackle this problem ‘image by
image’.
In 2009, the CRC-SI and Geoscience Australia developed a new approach to
georeferencing ALOS prism imagery based on satellite orbit observation
including attitude and ephemeris and a precise sensor model. Testing of the
approach, which has been operationalised in the BARISTA software, has
demonstrated that a few accurate control points at both ends of a satellite pass
are sufficient for georeferencing all images along the entire pass with sub-pixel
accuracy. Using this approach, control points are required only near the coast –
a manageable, and affordable, task.
A national reference image would be pointless if it was not available for use.
Geoscience Australia will release the ground control points, and more
importantly the reference image mosaic, under a Creative Commons licence to
encourage uptake in the remote sensing industry at large.
The remainder of this paper describes the methods and progress of the national
ground control point project.
Process
Precise georeferencing (or orthocorrection) of images requires a number of
appropriately chosen and well-spaced ground control points of high accuracy.
To date, this process has typically been performed on a scene-by-scene basis,
with each scene requiring typically four to six points, resulting in a need for large
numbers of control points.
In the case of ALOS PRISM, there are approximately 6,000 scenes covering
Australia. Even allowing for maximal re-use of points by choosing ground
control points within the overlap of adjacent swaths, tens of thousands of high
accuracy points would be required to enable scene-based orthorectification
across the Australian continent. This is impractical, time-consuming and
expensive, particularly as the library of control points needs to be refreshed
periodically to reflect changes, particularly in the built environment.
A practical means of overcoming this problem can be found in an approach
involving the precise orientation of long strips of imagery through an orientation
adjustment process that requires ground control at only the endpoints.
Under this approach, the metadata for each separate scene are merged to
produce a single, continuous set of orbit and attitude parameters, such that the
entire strip of tens of images can be treated as a single image, even though the
separate scenes are not merged per se. The merging of orbit data results in a
considerable reduction in both the number of unknown orientation parameters
and the number of required GCPs in the sensor orientation adjustment.
This strip adjustment approach, first reported in Rottensteiner et al. (2008;
2009), makes use of a generic sensor orientation model. This approach has
previously been shown to be applicable to strips of ALOS and QuickBird
imagery (Fraser et al., 2009). Application to very long strips of ALOS PRISM
imagery indicate that pixel level accuracy can be achieved over strip lengths of
more than 50 ALOS images, or 1500 km, with as few as four GCPs.
Field work
Utilising the methodology outlined above, the continent was divided into 22
packages, 17 covering the coastal areas of mainland Australia, one in
Tasmania and four through the centre as shown in Figure 1. Early empirical
results on the accuracy of long-pass orientation led to the decision not to survey
package 5 (Eastern Victoria) as correction for these passes could be obtained
by package 6 (Tasmania).
 Figure 1. Areas identified for primary GCP collection
A request for tender was released in October 2009 for parties to register their
interest and demonstrate their capacity to provide field survey work of this type.
A total of 42 companies were empanelled. Packages were released
progressively between December 2009 and June 2010. Six companies were
successful in bids for individual packages.
Significant care was taken in the preparation of packages. Cloud-free ALOS
PRISM scenes covering the areas of interest were selected from passes with
low levels of cloud throughout the pass. Prospective points were identified in
each scene as a guide for surveyors, although the surveyors were able to
choose their own points in the field should the prospective points be
inaccessible or unsuitable for other reasons.
Given the accuracy required (0.25 m in planimetry and 0.5 m in elevation) it was
insufficient to simply describe, for example, a road intersection as a GCP. The
exact alignment of the GCP with the road’s boundaries is required. See Figure
2 which is a progressive zoom into a large scale image extract showing one of
the surveyed points.
 Figure 2 Progressive zoom on typical GPS-surveyed point
Completed survey packages included the surveyed location of GCPs, sketches
of the feature chosen, digital photographs of the area and the point identified in
the reference ALOS PRISM imagery.
Accuracy assessment
Two sets of ALOS PRISM nadir images were used for preliminary accuracy
assessment of the orthorectified imagery derived from the strip adjustment
process.
One set of data formed an approximately 2000 km long, 35 km wide strip of 80
images from the same orbit over Eastern Australia, as shown in Figure 3. The
second data set formed an approximately 730 km long, 35 km wide strip of 26
images located from Lower Darling Basin to Victoria coastline, also shown in
Figure 3.
 Figure 3 Locations of ALOS PRISM nadir scene strips
For the 80-image long pass, there are around 200 ground points available
collected from a variety of sources, the majority of points were GPS-surveyed to
1 m or better accuracy in both planimetry and height. Ten GCPs collected
through the NGCP project were used for strip adjustment - four at the northern
end, two in the middle (near Canberra) and four at the southern end. The rest of
the points were used as check points. The distribution of GCPs and check
points is shown in Figure 4. The RMS error of checkpoint discrepancies is
around 1 pixel (2.5 m) across track and around 1.4 pixel (3.5 m) in the along
track direction. Orthorectified images were then generated from the strip for
assessment.
A continuous series of points, defining the three dimensional location of road
centrelines, are available for checking against the orthorectified imagery. These
points are acquired through differential Global Positioning System (dGPS)
technique and they have a planimetric accuracy of ±2 m. The distributions of the
dGPS tracking data are also shown in Figure 4.
 Figure 4 Distribution of GCPs, check points and dGPS tracking data
Visual examinations show that dGPS tracking data and the orthorectified
PRISM imagery are in good agreement to pixel (2.5 m) level. Figure 5 illustrates
examples of visual assessment.
 Figure 5 Example of dGPS tracking overlay on the orthorectified PRISM imagery
For the 26-image shorter pass, there are 18 ground points available all of which
were collected through the NGCP project. Points surveyed from the NGCP
project have an accuracy specification of 0.25 m in planimetry and 0.5 m in
height. Eight GCPs were used for strip adjustment - four at the middle and four
at the southern end – note that no ground control was used at the northern end
of the pass. The rest of the points are used as check points. The distribution of
GCPs and check points is shown in Figure 6. The RMS of checkpoint
discrepancies is around 0.6 pixel (1.5 m) across track and around 0.7 pixel (1.8
m) in the along track direction. Orthorectified images were then generated from
the strip for assessment.
High accuracy Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) digital surface models
(DSMs) were available for checking against the orthorectified imagery. The
vertical accuracy for this dataset is ±0.15 m and the planimetric accuracy is
±0.25 m. The DSM is in 1 m resolution and road intersections were shown
clearly on this DSM. The location of the LIDAR data is also shown in Figure 6.
 Figure 6 Distribution of GCPs, check points and LIDAR data
Visual examination showed that differences between LIDAR data and the
orthorectified PRISM imagery were less than 4 m – 2 m across track and 3 m in
the along track direction. Figure 7 illustrates an example of visual assessment.
This preliminary result shows that even with comparatively closely spaced
control areas, pixel level accuracy was achieved for up to 20 scenes outside the
controlled area for this pass. This is useful for processing PRISM scenes over
the Great Barrier Reef as this is outside the controlled area (coast to coast) for
the NGCP project.
 Figure 7 Example of LIDAR data (left) and orthorectified PRISM imagery (right)
Reference mosaic
Following collection of field data, packages were examined for completeness
and accuracy and then ingested into a database. At present, these primary
GCPs are being utilised to georeference passes of ALOS PRISM imagery
utilising BARISTA. The passes thus orthocorrected will be used to create a
national mosaic reference image.
Secondary control points
Whilst BARISTA has demonstrated great utility in the accurate orthocorrection
of long passes of satellite imagery using only a few control points at each end of
the pass, there are occasions when orthocorrection of a single scene is desired.
In order to accommodate this, each scene in the reference mosaic is being
examined for suitable features for use as secondary control points (SCPs).
Some twenty or more SCPs are chosen in each scene in the reference mosaic.
These points are also being stored, along with an image chip, in a database so
that a continental-wide coverage of control points at high accuracy is obtained.
To evaluate the accuracy of the orthorectified imagery generated from SCPs,
the 80-image long strip over Eastern Australia was used for testing. SCPs were
generated from three orthorectified images as shown in Figure 8. The heights of
these SCPs were extracted from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)
1 second (~30 m) data. SCPs were then used for strip adjustment to derive the
new orthorectified imagery over the same pass. The strip adjustment results
between NGCP GCPs and SCPs are almost identical – the differences for the
check point residuals are between 0 m and 0.2 m (~0.1 pixel).
 Figure 8 Orthorectified scenes used for SCPs generation
An intensity-based image matching technique (cross-correlation) was used to
determine the sub-pixel differences between the orthorectified imagery derived
from NGCP GCPs and SCPs. Some 625 (25 by 25) gridded points were
randomly selected as candidate matching points; of these, 623 points were
successfully matched with correlation coefficients greater than 0.7. The mean
difference of these matched points is smaller than 0.1 pixel and the difference in
standard deviation is smaller than 0.3 pixel. The result shows that orthorectified
imagery generated from SCPs agrees well with orthorectified imagery
generated from NGCP GCPs.
Both the reference mosaic and the control point database will be released under
a Creative Commons Attribution licence to encourage their widespread use
within the spatial community.
Conclusion
Pixel level accuracy has been demonstrated for orthocorrected ALOS PRISM
scenes using relatively few GCPs at each end of a satellite pass. High
accuracy has also been demonstrated for a significant number of scenes
outside the controlled area permitting accurate correction of peri-coastal
features.
The use of secondary control points derived from the national reference mosaic
imagery has been demonstrated to yield orthorectification results
commensurate in accuracy with surveyed control points.
The pending release by Geoscience Australia of the national reference image
and the control point datasets under Creative Commons licensing will provide
the spatial industry with a consistent and accurate reference.
Acknowledgement
The permission of the Chief Executive Officer of Geoscience Australia to
publish this paper is gratefully acknowledged.

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