Historical Airphoto Processing

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Technical Overview Presentation
 Presentation Overview

Historical Airphoto Processing (HAP) System

Background – Historical Imagery
Traditional Approach – Correcting Historical Imagery
Value Proposition
HAP System – Details
Summary

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 Background
Historical Imagery
 Historical Airphotos - Background

 Aerial photography records the ever changing

cultural features on the Earth’s surface

 Provide valuable information for a number of

applications

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 Historical Airphotos - Applications
 Environmental assessment
– Wetlands, flooding, hurricane, earthquake

 Climate change studies

– Biomes, extents, coastlines

 Land use planning

– Expansion, densification, transformation, construction

 Forestry management
– Growth, clearing, re-planting

 Oil & Gas

– Wellhead sites, pipeline scars

 Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

– Conservation, restoration, demarcation

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 Historical Airphotos – The Need
 Millions of historical (analog) airphotos exist in
print or film form
– If georeferencing can become cost effective, there
are a number of valuable uses for the imagery

 Traditional approaches for orthorectifying

historical airphotos are costly, time consuming
and at times ineffective
– Major manual effort to collect GCPs

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Traditional Approach
 Traditional Approach
Collect GCPs manually
 Standard automatic GCP collection techniques
are not well tuned
 Usually requires 3-4 well distributed GCPs
 Manual GCP collection is a major production
bottleneck

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 Traditional Approach
What is the problem?
1. Automatic methods often fail
 Missing camera information leads to poor initial models
 Poor image quality and initial georeferencing hinders automation

2. Manual collection is difficult and costly

 Manual GCP collection is a time consuming task
 Land change can be significant
 Scratches on film can create artefacts
 Poor quality imagery makes it difficult to identify features

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Poor Initial Georeferencing

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Land Cover Change

1991

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Land Cover Change

2011

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Scratches and Damage

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Poor Radiometry and Contrast

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Scanning Artifacts

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 The Solution – PCI’s HAP System
Semi-automated solution for generating ortho-mosaics
from historical airphotos

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HAP System
Value Proposition
 HAP Value Proposition
 Increased Production
• The HAP system can more than double
production capacity
 Increased Efficiency
• The multi-pass automatic GCP and Tie Point
collection reduces manual effort
 High Accuracy
• Accurate ortho-mosaics that often exceed the
quality produced by manual techniques
• In many cases can handle poor interior model information better
than manual approach
 HAP Features & Benefits
Features Benefits

Automated Fiducial Collection Reduced labor, high accuracy

Automated GCP/TP Significantly Reduced labor,

high accuracy
Ortho-Mosaic – automated High quality mosaics in less time
cutline and color balancing

Works with multi-source and Rescue your valuable data

varying quality historical imagery
 Some Metrics
About Datasets
Dataset 1 2 3
Difficulty Easy Difficult Difficult
# of Images 266 278 50

Performance Information (Hours)

Total Manual 2 15 3
Total Automated 16 46 4
Total Time 18 61 7

Accuracy Information (RMSE)

Initial Accuracy 155m 254m +300m
Ortho Accuracy 5.7m 9.3m 5.8m
 Case Study
Project Details
- 130 raw aerial images acquired over a large urban area in 1954
- Reference image of urban area acquired in 2011
- Population grew by more than 10 million people between 1954 and 2011

Processing Details
Traditional Approach HAP System
GCP Collection Manual Automatic
Tie Point (TP) Collection Automatic Automatic
Quality Assurance Manual (TPs only) Manual
Manual Labour (Hours) 24 8
Project Turn Around (Days) 3 Days 1.5 Days
 Case Study

The same customer performed 7 additional tests

over two areas in Asia Minor.
 Case Study

Processing Accuracy
Project # of Photos
time (Hours) (CEP 90)
001-1946 122 16.5 ±8m
001-1954 117 14.7 ±6m
001-1972 90 10.5 ±6m
001-1993 87 9.2 ±5m
002-1975 69 10.8 ±7m
002-1991 73 10.0 ± 6.5 m
002-1999 80 9.0 ±5m
 Case Study

“All ortho-photo projects performed by the

operator through conventional methods were
found to be three times slower than the same
processes performed on the HAP System.”

- HAP customer
HAP System
Details
 HAP Interface
 Consists of 3 easy to use panels

Panel #1
 Specify ingest parameters and
execute

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 HAP Interface
 Consists of 3 easy to use panels

Panel #2
 Initial Georeferencing step panel

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 HAP Interface
 Consists of 3 easy to use panels

Panel #3
 Coarse and Fine
Alignment panel

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 System Layout
 Processing Systems for automated tasks
 QA/QC Machines for inspection and editing
 Simple network interface for accessing data
remotely
Network

Processing Systems QA/QC Machines

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 Workflow Overview
Innovative Multi-Pass Image Alignment
Achieve Ortho accuracy through iterative GCP and Tie Point collection
Manual Quality Check of GCPs and Tie Points
Processing tasks are highly automated scripts

Historical Airphoto Workflow

Coarse Fine Generate

Optional Path Data Prep Data Ingest
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic
Manual
Semi-Auto QA QA
Automatic GCPs/TPs GCPs/TPs

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 Data Preparation
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

What is Data Prep…

Assess Input files Manual

• Input Images, Reference Image and DEM on Processing Machine

Create Metadata File Semi-Auto

• Can customize how ancillary information is fetched & assembled

• Metadata only requires 5 pieces of ancillary information

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 Data Preparation
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

Assess Input files Metadata

1. All images part of a continuous
block
2. All images in a given project have
same fiducial mark (i.e. edge)
3. Appropriate DEM 1. Focal Length
4. Appropriate Reference Image (i.e. 2. Approx. scene center coordinates or
NAIP) way to approximate them (i.e. flight-line)
3. Approx. flying height
4. Print dimension (i.e. 9” x 9”)

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 Data Ingest
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

What is Data Ingest…

Ingest Data Automatic

• Input imagery & reference data is read into HAP and converted to working
formats (PIX)
• Calculate nominal Exterior Orientation

Collect Fiducial Marks Automatic Semi-Auto Manual

• Automatic fiducial mark collection from a template image

• Automation success depends on image quality

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 Data Ingest
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

Ingestion Process Initial Accuracy

• Ingest Data into working format
(PIX)
• Calculate nominal georeferencing
from scene centers and metadata

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 Coarse Alignment
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

What is Coarse Alignment… Control

Initial pass to improve positional and orientation accuracy

Coarse Alignment
GCP Collection Automatic

• Attempts to collect hundreds GCPs

• Automatically removes statistical blunders

Bundle Adjustment Automatic

Initial Alignment
• Automatic Tie Point collection and removal
• Computes new math model (coarse model) often based on
100s of GCPs and Tie Points collected for each image

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 Coarse Alignment
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

GCPs & Tie Points Improved Accuracy

+ GCPs
+ Tie Points

• 10px < RMSE < 30px

• Evenly distributed GCPs/TPs Improved accuracy suitable for Fine Alignment run

• Often very dense distribution

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 QA Coarse Alignment
Manual
Coarse Fine Generate
Semi-Auto Data Prep Data Ingest QA
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic
Automatic GCPs/TPs

What does Coarse Align QA Involve…

Review GCPs and Tie Points Manual

• Review distribution – Less important after Coarse Alignment

• Identify “Island” subsets – Group of images tied together with no GCPs

If Required, Edit GCPs and Tie Points Manual

• Delete blunder GCPs & Tie Points

• Collect GCPs on “Island” subsets

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 Fine Alignment
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

Control
What is Fine Alignment… Coarse Alignment
Create final model used to generate ortho images

GCP Collection Automatic Fine Alignment

• Uses improved model from Coarse Alignment Initial Alignment
• Searches for GCPs with lower error
Tie Point Collection (Bundle Adjustment) Automatic

• Searches for Tie Points with lower error

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 QA Fine Alignment
Manual
Coarse Fine Generate
Semi-Auto Data Prep Data Ingest QA
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic
Automatic GCPs/TPs

What does Fine Align QA Involve…

Review GCPs and Tie Points Manual

• Review distribution – More important after Fine Alignment

If Required, Edit GCPs and Tie Points Manual

• Delete blunder GCPs

• Prune and/or add GCPs to areas with poor distribution

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 Orthorectification
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Mosaic
Ortho
Mosaic
Data Prep Data Ingest Generation
Preparation
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

High speed orthorectification

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 Mosaic Preparation
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

Ortho Mosaic Mosaic

Generation Preparation Generation

Automatic Cutline Generation

• High quality results
• Retain mostly nadir imagery with cutline
constraints

Automatic Color balancing

• Image Normalization (Hot Spot Removal)
• Variety of high quality color balancing
algorithms

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 QA Cutlines and Color Balancing
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

Ortho Mosaic
QA Cutlines Mosaic
Generation & Color
Preparation Generation

Multi-user Mosaic Editing

• Multiple users can edit the same mosaic at
the same time from different computers
Advanced Mosaic Tools
• WYSIWYG Viewer
• Fast Redraw tools for cutlines
• Manually adjust color balancing

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 Mosaic Generation
Manual
Semi-Auto
Coarse Fine Generate
Data Prep Data Ingest
Automatic
Alignment Alignment Ortho-Mosaic

Ortho Mosaic
QA Cutlines Mosaic
Generation & Color
Preparation Generation

Generate accurate seamless mosaics with OrthoEngine or GXL

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HAP System
Summary
 The HAP System Summary
In response to market demand, PCI has developed
new technologies to address the technical and
operational difficulties of historical airphoto
processing
 Semi-automated approach reduces labour
costs for large projects
 Iterative automatic GCP/Tie Point collection
 Can double production
 Designed for taking in large projects 50-1000+
images per project

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 Find out more about HAP
Website
Historical Airphoto Processing Website

PDF
 Whitepaper

YouTube
 PCI Tech TV
 HAP Commercial
 Interview with Lead HAP developer

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Contact PCI Geomatics

www.pcigeomatics.com
info@pcigeomatics.com

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Private and Confidential